School Days

We finally got the children's school books that we ordered from Rod and Staff. It only took them a month to arrive to us in Obera. We had anticipated that it might take up to three months. The books were shipped by way of DHL, so we could track their progress. They actually arrived in Argentina from the United States two days after we placed an order for them. Once in Buenos Aires they were handed over to a third party to deliver to Obera. They seemed to bounce around the country and were even in Obera once, but we missed them before they bounced around some more and returned.

The children started their school year here at the farm last week on the third. It is going really well. The children begin at six o'clock am and finish for the day by noon. The schedule is great for us because then we have the entire afternoon to work on other things. This year, Abby is in the sixth grade, Sarah the fifth, Elijah the third, Elisabeth the first, and David is learning letters, numbers, colors, etc.

Thank You Lord for Times of Rest

We really appreciate those times that we have to rest from our work.

This is a picture of Joseph practicing to stand. He needed several rewarding kisses from Dad.

These pictures show Dane playing with some of the children.

Here is a picture of Abby taking a nap in the grass under a tree. She looks so peaceful, doesn't she?

One Sabbath Day......

Here we all are eating watermelon at our neighbors', the Sosas.

After lunch we swam in the river. This part of the river is on the Sosa's property. In the picture, Dane and Javier are swimming upstream in the rapids with Elijah and Abby. Although they were having fun, I think they decided swimming upstream was too much work for a rest day.

Critters and Such

Well we finally did have some chicks hatch. We had two hens that decided to sit and between the two of them we ended up with four chicks. Not very many, but we have had had some problems to overcome in our chicken rearing and we are very pleased that the Lord saw fit to give us four healthy chicks. That was a couple of months ago and the chicks have already grown quite large.

The children are always finding interesting insects. This is a picture of a huge praying mantis.

This is a big cicada. These things can produce a deafening sound!

One day when we were swimming in the river, Andres saw a black snake in a tree over the water. Dane got the snake and he and Javier killed it. This picture shows the children posing with it.

Well it is hard to see in the picture, but there is a toucan in the tree. We have enjoyed seeing many on our property lately. They are really large birds and make a funny croaky sound.

This isn't a critter, but in the forest there are some huge cactus. They grow as tall or taller than some of the trees. Their trunks look just like the trunks of the other trees (woody or with bark). I found these when I was chasing the toucans into the forest for a picture.

God of Wonders

One cloudy day starting at 12:30 pm, there was a complete rainbow around the sun. The rainbow remained for three hours. It was truly an awesome sight.

Building Fences

Things have been moving right along for us here. Dane finished fencing in a one and half hectacre (about 3 acres) section of our farm so that we can buy some animals. A lot of work went into making it: looking for trees, chopping down dead trees, cutting posts, clearing brush, crossing ravines, setting posts, and stretching wire. The fence turned out really nice; in fact, it is one of the nicest farm fences that I have ever seen. All the fence posts came from our property which makes it even nicer. The fence is a solar powered electric fence with a charge of 3000 volts (Ouch!). Anyway, we look forward to having some livestock again for milk, cheese, and meat.

I had to include this picture of Elijah and David helping Dane to move posts from the forest up to our homesite.

Starting a Blog

Well we decided to start a blog. We thought that since I have such a hard time sitting down to write and always have a mountain of pictures when I do, that a blog may be a better medium for sharing our experiences. I hope to post a little something of what we are doing at least once a week.

This blogging business is very new to us and will take us some time to figure out, so please bear with us as this page may be under construction for some time. We would like to add all of our previous email updates that we have sent out over the past year in order to keep a better log of our progress.

Check back often for future and past updates and be sure to leave your comments!

Argentina Update - December 2007 - Part III: Of People, Animals, and Miscellaneous Stuff

Argentina Update – December 2007 – Part III: Of People, Animals, and Miscellaneous Stuff

Hello. This is the third and final part of our photo tour. We have several pictures of the family, the animals, and some miscellaneous things that we wanted to share with you. We hope you enjoy them.

Here we are. Here Joseph is playing with one of the puppies. He is such a sweet baby and it sure is hard to keep him clean now that he is crawling. In this picture, Andrea is cleaning the new concrete so that Joseph can play on it.
Here is a picture of David. He is such an adventurous little boy. I think that he has had more accidents since we have been here than all of our other children combined in their life times. As soon as he turned two, it all began. He is not scared of much (except dump trucks) which is scary for us. Meme, Dane’s mother, says that he reminds her of Dane when he was little. Here is a run down of the injuries that he has had since earlier this year: 1) David cuts his hand with a knife that was left on the table while trying to cut a lime – for this injury he had to have his thumb taped to his palm for two weeks. 2) David severs two toes in Elijah’s bicycle – for this his toes had to be sewed back on. 3) David falls in a hole filled with water from a recent rain only to be rescued by his brother Elijah who was with him. Later, David came down with what we think was an e coli infection. He was sick for two weeks. 4) David breaks his collar bone by falling out of the bottom of the bunk bed only to be accidentally knelled on by his father who was arising to help him – for this David had to have his shoulders in a figure eight sling and his arm immobilized for three weeks. 5) David gets hit in the head with a machete that Elisabeth picked up and is cut just above his eye – for this he had to have his head bandaged for a few days. 6) As soon as the cut healed, David tripped and fell twice in one day and gave himself two nice sized goose egg bumps – because of this he looked like a Klingon from Star Trek for a week. 7) David touches the generator motor when it is hot and burns his entire right palm – for this he had to hold his hand on ice for two hours and wear a sock on his hand for a week. I think that that is all of the most significant injuries up to this point. We stay busy keeping an eye on him. When he is out of sight briefly, everyone goes into panic mode until he is found. He hears all the time, “No David, that is dangerous! Don’t do that!” All in all he is a joy to have around. He talks up a storm and can switch between English and Castellano with ease. Furthermore, we are constantly trying to teach the children modesty and since David stopped wearing diapers, he has had a problem keeping his pants from sliding down a little. David doesn’t quite understand all this as was demonstrated the other day when he asked me, “Can you see my bottom?” I answered, “No.” He then asked me, “Why, is it dangerous?” We have laughed and laughed about that. This is a picture of Elisabeth. She loves to help whenever she can and will clean, clean, clean when given an opportunity. She loves to carry around bags and will collect things to put in them. It really doesn’t matter what kind of bag it is either. She has a deep little voice and a funny laugh that makes everyone else laugh when she gets started. At four, she is still trying to figure out how things work. She still hasn’t figured out the difference between breakfast, lunch, and dinner. Other things are difficult too. The other day she said to me, “Look Mommy, I’m fat, but I have to have a place for my gizzards.” I think she meant organs.
This is Elijah, our six year old. He is such a big help to his Daddy. He is always by Dane’s side and is a hard worker. He is very careful about most things and is always concerned about the welfare of his brothers and sisters. Here is Sarah. At seven, she is also a very hard worker. I depend on her a lot to get things done because she is very conscientious about her work and usually doesn’t stop until she sees the job through. She is also lighthearted and laughs easily.
Here is Abby who is nine. As the oldest child, she bares a lot of responsibility. She is great with the younger children and the baby is usually content with her carrying him around. She has already become quite fluent in Castellano and we often have her translate for us when we have a hard time understanding. She loves animals and bugs and is constantly finding new ones to show us.
Here is a picture of the puppies. All the puppies that we still have, three of them, are growing and doing well, even the one that had to have his tail amputated.
We are all enjoying the chickens. This is a picture of one of our roosters. This is our smallest hen. She has been sitting on a nest for about twenty days now. We expect her chick to hatch at any time if the Lord wills. She originally had eight eggs, but only one has survived being cracked and eaten by the other chickens. We have so much to learn about chicken raising. Here are a few of our other hens. A few of our chickens fly the coop everyday and one hen likes to lay her eggs in an empty box on top of the trailer.

We find giant snail shells without snails all the time, but Abby finally found one with a live snail in our garden. These things are huge! There are giant firefly type things here, called taca tacas, except their light doesn’t go on and off like a firefly. They stay lit up all the time and while they are flying they look like a green glowing ball zipping through the air. When they land, their wings cover most of their glowing abdomens and you can only see two dots on their backs that look like glowing green eyes. One night, a couple of months ago, we were in the forest, walking by lamplight and we saw two glowing green eyes in the weeds by a tree. It was very bizarre and we were afraid to inspect it further. Then a couple of weeks ago, I was coming from the outhouse and I saw this glowing green ball flying around the house area. I had no idea what it was. It looked like something you would see in a science fiction movie. I called to Dane, “It’s coming around again Dane!” He still thinks this is funny and repeats what I said often. He had already seen one of these bugs earlier in the week. Here is a picture of one that had landed on the ground. You can see the spots that glow on its back. In the picture below, we used the flash on the camera so that you can see what the bug looks like. These bugs are about an inch and a half long and their lower bodies are totally fluorescent green when their wings are open.
This is a picture of our neighbor’s property up on top of the hills. We live down in the valley on the other side of the road. The valley is the area with all the fog that you see in the picture.

Here is a picture taken from our adjoining neighbor’s property of the valley that we live in. You can see the roof of our future house in the middle left of the picture.

Here is a closer up view of the valley. Again, you can see the roof of our future house. This is the trail that leads down to the large creek. The Sosa’s cleaned it up all the way to their house for easier passage. Following this trail is like visiting a national park in the states.
This is a picture of our corn field.
Here is one of our cucumbers growing. They grow so big and green here.

Well that is the end of my photo tour. I hope you all have enjoyed seeing what we are doing here. We miss you all and think of you often. As I said before, if you have any questions or have any photo requests, let us know. I have more to write soon.

Take care,

Jessica