Long Time

Well I guess it has been nearly a month since I posted last. How the time does fly!

Things are moving right along here on the homestead. We have been busy doing this and that. Dane finished the fencing for the new pasture. Now the cows can wander around and let themselves into the other pasture for water at the spring whenever they want - it makes a lot less work not having to move them around all the time. We are still awaiting the birth of the red cow's calf. We were told when we bought her that she would calf in February, but here it is March and still no calf. She does look heavily pregnant though, so we patiently continue to wait. I can't wait to have the additional milk for making more yogurt, and hopefully we will have enough extra for making cheese too.

It looks as if we are going into the bee business as a joint venture with our friend, Mr. Reed, who hopes to move to this area from Mexico sometime in the not so far future. Dane purchased five new bee colonies from a local bee man and the materials for making several more boxes. He has gotten all the new boxes assembled, painted, and the new bees moved from the bee man's boxes into the new boxes. This brings our bee colony total to eight; however, when the bee man, Mr. Nevendorf, visited he thought that our farm could support thirty colonies, so we hope to add more soon. Also, Dane harvested the honey from our original three hives that he harvested about four months ago, and came home with eight more gallons of honey. Believe it or not, we finished the first harvest, which had been about twelve and half gallons last week. I did this by replacing all of our sugar consumption with honey. I know that sounds like a lot of sweets, but when you make everything from scratch and don't buy anything sweet, it isn't so difficult to do.

This is a picture of some of the new boxes that Dane assembled before he got them painted.

Dane has also been working on a new chicken tractor. I don't have a picture of it yet, but it is going to be a much improved model over that the last version. We are anxious for its completion.

Here is a picture of Dane trimming the pine tree in front of our house. He put his tree saw on a piece of bamboo in order to reach the branches. With his super long tree trimmer, he has been able to trim all the pine trees close to the house.

Sarah and I went to Buenos Aires for a two day trip the last week in February to complete some paper work for Joseph at the Embassy. We also got to visit the zoo, eat at McDonald's and Burger King, and do some shopping. It was a fast and busy trip, but we were able to purchase new winter coats for all the children and I, some socks and underwear, new belts for the boys, sweats for all, and work t-shirts for Dane and the boys. It was fun, but we sure were glad to get back home!

Well the children and I have been busy working in the garden trying to hoe down all the waist high weeds that took over in many places. We hope to finish that this week and then start planting our winter garden. The following week, we want to harvest all the corn and black beans from the field.

And speaking of black beans, we have been picking them for several weeks now, and compared to the store bought dehydrated beans, they are much more appealing to the eye and even more delicious. Black beans are a staple in our diet, so we are very pleased at the results we have had with them. Below is a picture of some that we had just finished shelling.

The children are learning so much and become bigger helpers all the time. Here are some pictures of a couple of our helpers. The first one is of Abby and David (David is hidden behind Abby) scrubbing laundry, and the second picture is of Sarah making tortillas.





I ordered the childrens' new text books last week, so we hope to get started on our new school year within a month. We have enjoyed our break from our studies, but everyone is getting anxious to hit the books again soon. After spending a few weeks to finish up some things from last year, Abby will begin the seventh grade, Sarah the sixth grade (Sarah completed her curriculum last year, so she gets to jump right into grade 6), Elijah the fourth grade, Elisabeth will complete first grade and begin second grade, and David will start Kindergarten.

On another note, I had a doctor's appointment and sonogram last Wednesday. Praise the Lord, the baby looks healthy! The doctor estimated that he/she weighs about two kilos (4. 4 pounds) already, so it looks as if this baby may be a good size seeing as he/she still has a little over six weeks to grow.


Pretty things around the farm......

Abby planted a few unknown seeds that she had collected from our neighbor's farm a year ago and these beautiful plants and flowers grew. Can anyone identify them for us?



Also, Dane found this really cute and hairy caterpillar close to the creek. He brought him up to the house for us to see him, but when he was touched his hair came out really easily, so in the picture he has about a third less the amount of hair that he had originally. He was still really cute though.

And lastly, a heads up for those of you who are preparing for an economic crisis by storing food. Rotate your food stock on a regular basis. Dane came across this MRE that he had in his camping/hunting gear up in the attic and since it is probably more than twelve years old, we opened it to see what was inside.

Mmmmm..... don't those M&M's, or I mean powdered somethings, in the little green bowl look good? Apparently M&M's will turn into dust all on their own. The chickens wouldn't even touch them!

And the cute little bottles of black, not red, Tabasco sauce?

And just so you know, given enough time, cheese juice will dissolve it's own packaging and just about anything it comes in contact with.

Needless to say, we didn't feel that anything was edible, except the chewing gum, but you can't survive on that.

Have a blessed day,

Jessica

Pictures From Our Visit With the News

The News were so kind as to send us some pictures that they had taken during their visit here. We thought that you might enjoy them. The dates printed on the pictures are not correct. The pictures were actually taken in early December.

Mr. New, Elijah, Joseph, and Dane

David testing some overripe cucumbers to see if they are bitter while Abby and Elisabeth look on.

Sarah, Elijah, Abby, and Joseph :) singing hymns.

Dane and I enjoying some ice cream in Obera.

Our family at the bus station in Obera.

Snake and Other Happenings

This morning I came down the stairs to find a snake in the kitchen! It was another Jarara, a venomous snake. Praise the Lord we slept in for a while until it was light outside so that the house was lit enough to see it! Anyways, Dane quickly came down and removed its head with a machete. After breakfast he skinned it in order to tan the skin.

Now on to other things that have been going on around the farm.......

The children began milking the cow by themselves several weeks ago. It is so funny to watch them because they all milk her together at the same time - each of them milking out a teet. They have been doing a great job at it too.

Dane has been fencing in our new pasture. Last week he got all three of the hot wires strung and our front gate to the property built and installed. Today, he began stringing the other three ground wires.

The fencing has been hard work - especially for the littlest of our carpenters.

After a hard mornings work, Joseph fell asleep in the grass under a tree.

Our tomatoes are starting to ripen. Here are the tomatoes that Abby and Sarah picked for our lunch today.

We enjoyed some nice rainy days. And the girls and I got some sewing done. In the picture below, Abby, Elisabeth, and Sarah are making some hand towels out of some toweling material that Mrs. New bought for them while she was here on her visit.

Last week, most of us were afflicted with a stomach ailment, but thankfully it passed quickly.

Yesterday, Dane made some bamboo fishing poles for the children and we went down to the river to fish and swim for a while. I didn't get a picture of the poles or the fishing, but I will try to include one the next time we head back down there. The children didn't catch anything, but had a lot of bites and lost all there bait to the hungry fish (grasshoppers, worms, and bad cheese that they rounded up from around the house). Dane decided that they probably need smaller hooks next time they fish.

Creeping things......

This is a picture of a wolf spider, the most common house spiders that we have around here, that Abby caught in our kitchen sink one morning.

And what is this? Abby found this strange looking insect last night.

Well, I will leave you with these before and after pictures of the entrance to our property.

The first picture was taken two years ago and the second was taken today. In the second picture, you can see our new front gate. What a difference in scenery, ehh?

Next to our new gate, Dane hung a sign that says "Donaldson Family" that our friend and escribana, Natalia, made for us.

Fence Posts and Other Things

The week before last, Dane got all the logs drug up here from the forest, and since he has been cutting fence posts and putting them along the new fence line.



He has learned to make pretty straight cuts with the chainsaw.



After cutting three or four logs, he had most of the posts he needed, so we have a lot more wood left for other things. You can see some of the cut posts along the chicken yard fence line.


Here is a picture of the posts that he has put in for the front gate.


We enjoyed a walk to the neighbor's property to pick pears this past Sabbath morning.




On the way there, we saw this bamboo shoot (Elijah is standing in front of it) that was tiny two weeks ago, but as you can see the bamboo grows very quickly around here.


After we picked pears, we went to check the banana plants to see if the bananas were ripe yet, but they are still too small.



This pretty plant was growing near the bananas.



And this is the view from the banana plants. You can see our house off in the distance.



And on our way back to the house, we found a wild squash vine and picked two nice sized squash and have enjoyed eating them the past couple of days. We love finding wild things to eat around here. We are so thankful that even when some of our crops are struggling, the Lord has blessed us with other fruit of the land.

Yesterday afternoon, we went down to the river to swim and our neighbor, Javier was there fishing. After swimming for a while, he, Dane, and David decided to climb the cliff that separates that particular part of the river from the rest of our property, and they made a very interesting discovery. They found one of our missing goats, or at least her skull. The one that escaped fifteen minutes after Dane got her home from the man he had bought her from. She had made herself at home in a cleft of the cliff and apparently the strap that Dane had wrapped around her horns had gotten stuck on a spine and she had gotten tangled up around some other trees. It appears that she lived there comfortably for a while before becoming tangled. Though we are sad that we lost her, we are glad to know what became of her. Maybe someday we will discover what happened to the mother and her baby that escaped a few weeks later.

Lastly, here is a picture of a strange little bug that Dane found the other day. It was very brightly colored, orange and blue, and ran around with its tail curled up in the air in a defensive mode like a scorpion.

Logging

The past few weeks Dane has been logging in the jungle close to the river. He found several dead trees there that he is harvesting to make fence posts. The work has been a bit treacherous since the trees overlooked an approximate eight foot drop off onto a twenty foot ledge that overlooked another sixty foot drop off (does that make sense?).

First he macheted a path through the jungle so that he could get the track vehicle down there to haul up the trees. This path clearing took nearly a full two weeks.

Thank the Lord Dane had his trusty crew, Elijah and David, along to help with the task.

After much work, the track vehicle made its way down the new path.












One of the trees was a bit tricky to cut down. Dane had a plan to cut it so that it wouldn't fall down the cliff; however, when the tree started to shift as he was cutting, the chainsaw got stuck. He was able to get the chainsaw out minus the chain. Afterward, he put a used chain on the chainsaw and finally got the tree cut down (and no, it didn't slide down the cliff), but the one mishap ended up taking an entire day.



A couple of the trees that Dane was harvesting were on the ledge, eight feet below the tractor, and the one tree above it that had been troublesome to cut down was huge, so hauling the trees up and around the path Dane had cleared took a lot of trial and error too. Unfortunately, the pictures do not give a clear picture of the terrain - the drop off and angles cannot be made out.











Dane used the track vehicle, chains, a hoist, and a rachet and straps to get the trees up onto the path.

















Since then, Dane has been hauling the trees up log by log and dusty log rider (child) by dusty log rider (child).






This is a picture of about half of the logs that he has gotten up to the house so far.







Hauling up the logs will take at least another day or two, and then Dane hopes to start cutting fence posts for a new five acre pasture for the cows. The plan is that our new fence line will also enclose the area around the house and allow us to put a gate in at the property's entrance.


On another note, I forgot to mention in my last post that Dane had completed half of the second story floor in the house, so now he and I have a sort of loft bedroom. In the picture, you can see the beginnings of a wall that he put up that will separate this part of the second story into two rooms.






For now, the children are still sleeping downstairs because it is too dangerous for them upstairs until more walls are built. However, the absence of our bed downstairs gives us all a lot more room.

Other things that are going on around the farm......

The corn in the field close to the house is past the edible stage now, so the rest will be allowed to dry for the animals. But the corn field down the way, is flowering, so we hope to be eating corn again soon. The black beans are growing well and right now look and taste like green beans (which explains why our neighbors, that had never eaten green beans, want to peel the green beans that we give them in order to eat the seeds). The watermelons, cantaloupe, and tomatoes are ripening and thankfully we got to enjoy our firstfruits of those this past week.

We have also had what looks like an end to the drought! It has rained nearly every day for the past week. Praise the Lord! The springs are replenishing, which means now we don't have to pump as much water up from the lower spring to the cows.

Well that's all that I have for this post.

Have a blessed Sabbath day,

Jessica