He Has a Passport

After applying for a passport twice and fifteen months later, Joseph has his Republic of Argentina Passport! Abby, Joseph, and I traveled by bus to Posadas, the capital of Misiones province, on Thursday morning and picked up Joseph's passport from the Policia Federal. We are very excited and thankful. Praise the Lord!

I will explain why we had problems getting his passport for those of you who may not know the story. Joseph was born two and half weeks after we arrived in Argentina as tourists. It turns out that here in the province of Misiones there had been an ongoing problem of poor mothers selling there babies to foreigners. Several cases came to light and all the babies involved had falsified birth certificates, documents, etc. So when we applied for Joseph's passport, it immediately made some red flags go up. The passport agency of the Federal police never contacted us to let us know, but after several inquires by us they asked for a copy of my permission to fly while I was pregnant. I had misplaced mine, but thankfully my midwife had another copy and promptly sent it to me. We had to have this translated and I missed the deadline to get it to them, so the original passport application was denied. We reapplied with the permission to fly document in May and this time they approved the application. Thank the Lord!

Here is Joseph looking it over.





We still need to report Joseph's birth and apply for his United States Passport at the U.S. embassy in Buenos Aires. I scheduled an appointment to do so on September 16th, and plan, Lord willing, to travel with Joseph there the night before. Abby willl most likely accompany me to help. Dane plans to travel to the embassy at a later date to complete the paperwork.

Also this past week, Dane completed two more sections of wall around the attic. He is leaving the top foot on the ends open for now because he doesn't have a good way to reach that area to work without a ladder. He may just screen in the open part later for more ventilation instead of putting up wood. We are going to see how it goes and how it stands up to the rain before deciding.



These are some pictures that Dane took from the attic when he was up there working one rainy day.





Dane is continuing to try to get all of our projects underway. Besides working on the house this past week, he worked on getting the beehives ready for occupants, he bought all the piping for the hydroelectric project and a couple more used implements for the tractor/crawler: a seed planter and a sicklebar. He didn't make it to the fabricator to discuss the distillery components but will probably do so next week.

The children have been busy picking wildflowers. They like to bring me home little bouquets and have me take pictures of them, so here is the latest one.



Well that's all we have for now. Until next time.

Jessica

Spring is in the Air

The old peach tree on our property has beautiful blossoms on it.

The temperatures have continued to stay nice. This "winter" has been considerably mild compared to last year's. Most days are in the 70's and the nights fall to the 50's. We have also had little rain, aside from a nice sideways driving rain and hail storm that wetted us inside our still unfinished house and knocked out the power to our internet tower for nearly a week.

The flies and moths are beginning to make their appearances again - another sign that spring is approaching. We have been amazed at the hundreds of different moths and flies that are in this area. There were few days last spring that we did not see a new flying insect that we hadn't seen before. This is a picture of a beautiful moth that came into the house the other night. At the top of its wings it had a glittery silver band and the circles in its wings were transparent.

We are pleased to announce that we had our first visitors from the U.S. two weeks ago, Mr. Reed and Mr. New. These two Christian gentlemen were in Argentina on a business trip and graciously stopped by our neck of the woods to see this area and to visit. We had a wonderful and uplifting time of fellowship with them and hope that they will return for another visit sometime.

Projects, projects, projects....

Dane's list of projects is growing. He got one of the eight sections of the attic roof done and we are very pleased with the outcome. He hopes to get the others completed soon.

In the meantime, Mr. Barney, the engineering professor from the University in Obera who has 40 years of experience with microhydro came out here a couple of weeks ago and looked at the creek down from our house, and the river and said that he thought the creek has plenty enough flow to build a microhydro electricity system on it. He felt that putting one on the river would be too complicated and expensive. So, after some careful calculations done by Mr. Barney on his watch calculator and Dane on his cellphone calculator, they are thinking that the creek has enough energy to supply our home with 7 -30 kilowatt hours / day, depending on how much rain we have had. We are excited about this. Mr. Barney is now waiting for Dane to build a dam so that they can install a turbine. Dane worked on site for a couple of days and says he is ready to do the concrete work. Lord willing, our microhydro system will be up and running soon!

Mr. Barney and Dane also have an alcohol microdistillery unit in the works. They have started making plans to build one so that we can supply our own fuel needs here eventually. They have begun the search for parts and have been visiting with local fabricators. Lord willing, we should be able to supply all of our fuel needs with just a couple acres of sugarcane in the not so distant future.

The time to plant things like sugarcane, corn, and many of our garden vegetables is coming upon us, so Dane has purchased a couple more implements, a disc and a box blade, so that he can prepare the planting sites.

We have decided that we want to keep our chickens in chicken tractors. They have become a terrible nuisance and instead of interrupting their free ranging, Dane has started plans for the construction of at least two tractors that we can move them around in. The current chicken house will most likely become a tool shed in the future, and the chicken yard, an all purpose animal enclosure.

Needless to say, Dane has a lot to do, but this fact is a great blessing, and I pray that the Lord be magnified in all our family endeavors.

Here is a picture of all the children working to make sweet rolls one afternoon. Cooking is one job they all are usually more than happy to help with. They did an excellent job on them too!

Abby and Sarah also helped me butcher two roosters last week. Besides the killing, the girls completely cleaned one rooster and and removed all the meat from both after they were cooked. They were very excited about their contribution to the menu the next day. We enjoyed a nice pot of chicken and gravy over rice.

We also wanted to give a special thanks to Kris Ante over at http://www.anteagrarians.com/ for nominating our blog as a Brillant weblog in July. We really appreciate our friends in other places that have an interest in our family's adventures. Kris, her husband Logan, and their three sons are on their own agrarian adventure in Texas. Through their blog, we have enjoyed having the privilege of watching their Christian agrarian homestead take shape.

Well I just stepped outside for a minute and our goat and her two kids have apparently decided to let themselves out of the pasture. I snapped a picture of them by the tent. The kids are growing so fast.

Well it is time to get the next meal going.

Take care,

Jessica

On the Homestead

It has been nearly two weeks since we posted. We are really enjoying our new house and have been busy cleaning, and organizing. Dane has been working on all sorts of projects as usual: plumbing indoor and out, planting trees, moving things into the house, cleaning up the camp, working on the 4Runner, cutting paths along the edge of our property in search of an area suitable for a better road, etc. He discovered that a road on the riverside of our property probably won't be possible because of the rough terrain. The children and I began their schoolwork again and we are working to settle back into a comfortable routine with it. Our day is considerably more efficient now that most of our things are in one place (in the house) instead of spread out around camp. Also, Joseph has a lot more freedom to run around since he has a concrete floor in which to walk. We are all very thankful for that.

The weather has been really beautiful. It really doesn't feel like winter at all. It has been in the 70's during the day and in the 50's at night for at least a couple of weeks now. We are enjoying it tremendously.

Things we've found......

Last week Dane found a green snake in the driveway. The chickens thought they would make lunch out of it, but Dane got it first. We have no idea if it was venemous. The snake didn't have any fangs, but it kept trying to bite Dane. I think the chickens had it pretty agitated. He let it go in the garden.

Abby and Sarah found a "siamese" leaf. It was interesting, so we took a picture of it. We put a single leaf next to the conjoined one for comparision.



Last week Sarah found some wild onions and parsley in the forest along the trail to the big creek. It is always exciting to find wild plants that we can eat. We ate them before we could take a picture of them.

On their excursions around the farm today, the children found these beautiful wildflowers.

They also found some mondo grass or "monkey grass" that had some pretty blue seeds. The picture is a little blurry because Elisabeth was wiggly. Mondo grass makes a good ground cover and border plant, so the children planted some of the seeds in the garden for us to later plant around the house area.

New Additions......

Our smallest hen, who had chicks once before, made a nest in the tea, instead of the hen house, and four of her nine eggs hatched. Two of the chicks didn't make it, but so far the other two seem to be doing well. They are so cute when they are brand new.

Good Help is hard to find....

Here is a picture of Sarah carrying in the day's laundry. She had quite a load :) . We are very blessed to have so many little helpers.

Fun Stuff....

Daddy is Joseph's new best friend. He doesn't need mommy as much anymore and has discovered that it is pretty neat to hang out with daddy.

Today we went down to the river that crosses the corner of our property.

Here they call it a creek, but where we come from - this is a river. The name of it is Arroyo Bonito. This is the first time that most of the children and I have been to it on our property. We usually visit the river on our neighbor's property because it is easier to access; however, Dane cleared out a trail for us when he was surveying our property earlier in the week. The part on our property has lots of rocks to sit on and rocks in the water to swim to. There are even a few rapids.

We've Moved

We are very excited to announce that we have moved into the house. A week ago Sunday we moved our kitchen into the house and then the following Tuesday, our beds. The house is not complete, but enough of the exterior walls were done on the ground floor to keep us dry, so we couldn't resist the urge to get out of the tents and into it. We are living in the bottom story until Dane completes the second story and attic. Eventually our bedrooms will be on the second floor.

This is a diagram of our "one room house" right now.

This is the end of the kitchen with Dane's office area. On the right you can see the back door, our washing machine and a refrigerator that we use as a pantry because it takes too much energy for our energy operation.

This is a picture of the kitchen area from where the beds are. At the ceiling level you can see the unfinished second story floor and the gold colored door that will eventually lead to the staircase on the outside wall of the house. And Sarah is in the background and David from the nose up is in the foreground.

This is the sleeping area.

The new living arrangements are wonderful. We are really thankful for the Lord's blessing of this house. For the first time in eight months we can walk around without our shoes and we have a mud free zone in which to spend our time. We also have doors now, so the chickens can't let themselves into the kitchen anymore. However, there is one small catch to that - we have not gotten glass in our front and back doors yet, so occasionally our smaller chicks fly through the doors. Below is a picture of Dane sending one out football style. By the way, he did finish that wall around the front door last week.

After moving in, the children and I spent the week organizing and cleaning the mud from all the furniture and appliances. Dane worked on plumbing for the kitchen and shelves for our books and clothes, among other things.

Dane also worked on the plumbing outside. He dug ditches for the pipes and this is a picture of him digging a hole for the septic system.

Dane also started cutting up the wood he got from the sawmill for firewood.

On another note - Check out this huge grub worm that Elijah found. We are always surprised at the enormousy of the insects here.

Also, thanks to everyone who voted in our poll. Eighty percent of the votes were for Dane to install the wood vertically around the attic. Hopefully, he will get to that soon.

We plan to start our schoolwork again in the morning, so we are off to prepare for that before we go to bed. Until next time - we hope all is well with you all.

Jessica

Firewood

Dane went to town this Thursday and bought about $25 dollars worth of firewood from the sawmill. It should last us a few months :-).

We got a little wood from there a few weeks ago to try it out and it burned pretty good, so we decided to get a big load, so that Dane wouldn't have to hunt down fallen trees in the forest right now while he concentrating on the house.




Also, Dane finished the attic floor and then enclosed the attic with a sheet of plastic to protect it from the rain until he gets the attic exterior done. So far so good, three days of rain and no leaks!

Here is a picture of our homesite from the other side. On the far left is the chicken coop, then you can see the house with the plastic enclosing the attic at the top, then the 4Runner, our kitchen tent on the far right, and a wet weather creek in the foreground.

Even though we don't have all the exterior walls or any of the interior done on the house we plan to move our kitchen into it tomorrow and hopefully our beds by midweek. It seems surreal. Yipee!!!!!!! We really appreciate our experience in the tents and the lessons we have learned. It has been a humbling time that has freed us from many of our vain and materialistic ideals. That being said, Dane is really excited about packing the tents up and putting them into the attic until the Lord takes us to....... :-)

The Creek

We have a large spring fed creek on our property about 250 meters from our homesite. This creek runs year round and never drys up. It flows through a beautiful and rocky terrain until it joins the river that crosses the corner of our property.

We pump clean, crystal clear, and great tasting water from one of the large springs that feed this creek up to our camp for our water needs.

We've had a few days of rain and the water level is up a little, so we went down there today to take some video.

Winter in June

The temperatures are definitely getting colder around here, making the days significantly shorter for us. Getting up early in the morning for school work when it is dark and cold to sit around a stove that doesn't warm up fast enough was getting to be really difficult. Our fingers and toes were suffering. As nice as our kitchen tent is, it just doesn't hold the heat enough in near freezing temperatures. So, we are attempting to adjust our schedule a little. Right after we take a much needed break from our studies, we will begin our school days again after the sun comes up.

The days really are beautiful with temperatures ranging from the upper fifties to the seventies. We are very thankful for that. The nice day temperatures and weather have allowed Dane to get a lot of work done on the house. The week before last he got most of the exterior walls, minus the attic portion, trim and other finishing touches, done.

When Dane ordered the wood for the house, he ordered red wood. However, the wood that we received is multicolored. The house is not looking like what we had in mind and we are a little disappointed about that, but nonetheless we are very thankful that we will soon have a house to live in, Lord willing. We still have the option to paint it later.

Also we have been discussing whether Dane should put the exterior wood around the attic in the same direction as the rest of the house (horizontally), or if he should lay it perpendicular to the other wood (vertically) to break up the boxy pattern some. I have seen other houses where the wood is laid horizontally up to the attic and then the wood is turned vertically to break up the pattern. Our attic is very large and we have some crazy color differences in the wood, so we are still in discussion on whether changing directions will improve or worsen the appearance. We put a poll on the right hand side of our blog page, to see what you thought would be nicer. We'd love to hear your opinions.

The picture below is of the attic portion that still needs to be closed in.

Last week, Dane started putting down the wood for the second story ceiling/attic floor and will probably finish that in the next couple of days.

Here is a picture of the wood Dane is laying from the attic view.

This is a picture of the wood from underneath. The second story ceiling view. It is really pretty.

Also, a week ago Saturday, our goat had her kids, two little girls. They are healthy and as cute as they can be. We are very excited about increasing our herd. We really miss having a flock of goats to tend to, as well as the milk and all the good stuff that we enjoy making with it.

Here they are...

The excitement of the kids' birth took a toll on Joseph who fell asleep at the table when I ran out to get a picture.

Furthermore, our garden isn't doing very good, despite our efforts, so yesterday I spread lime on the entire thing. Our soil is just too acidic for most of the garden vegetables that we are trying to grow. Plants sprout up right away, but die off quickly or just don't produce much fruit, so we are hoping the amendment will improve our crop next time around.

I am sure that there is so much more to tell about the last two weeks, but it is time for dinner, so maybe in another post. I thought that I would include a couple of pictures of the other children. The first one is of David who is three now.


This is a picture of Elijah, Abby, Elisabeth, and Sarah chopping firewood.