4,800 miles as the crow flies

Our current project is trying to figure out how the get from here to there:

Here is a picture of where the farm is in Kentucky. (you should be able to click on these pictures to see them bigger)

Here is a picture of the local towns around the farm.

Here is the outline of the farm. It is mostly forested.

Kentucky scenes

Well, we are moving ahead trying to prepare for the big move.
We have some more pictures from the homestead in Kentucky and we thought we would share them:

Here is the entrance to the farm looking from the county road.

From the front 'yard' looking at the pond. The pond is 15 feet deep.

This is the Allen family cemetary near the entrance to the farm. The farm is on Allen road.

One of the chicken coops. The chicken house is pretty fancy!

Here is the garden, MMMM veggies.

This is the inside of the phone booth. There is no phone inside the house.

Berries ready for auction. We are so excited about the berry farming!

Here is the entrance to the farm looking from the 2nd story deck of the house.


On the left is the chrysanthymums plot, then the grapes (table and wine grapes), then berries (blackberries and raspberries). The strawberries have been planted in another location this year, they rotate the strawberries.


More Berries!


More Grapes! They are 3 years old this year so there should start to be some fruit soon.


Inside the barn.

From the deck, the furnace house and pasture.

Here is the living area as seen from the kitchen.

A view of the upstairs. We don't really have a good idea about how things are laid out but with all the room, we hope that we can be very hospitable.

Donaldsons In Kentucky!

Well, we have some big news! The Donaldsons in Argentina are soon to be, Lord willing, the Donaldsons in Kentucky!

The Lord has opened the door for us to move and take over an Amish farm in Kentucky, and we couldn't be more excited and humbled to have this opportunity. We are making preparations and hope to be in the U.S. by the end of October.

Here are a few pictures of the farm.

The Barn

The Gardens

House Front (taken from barn)

Right now I don't know what else to say, as we are just in awe at the way the Lord has worked this whole thing out.

We will keep you posted along the way as we make our transition.

Have a blessed evening,

Jessica

It has been a while since I posted. We have been busy as you can imagine.

John is growing, growing, growing. Getting fatter by the day! Look at that double chin.

He is sleeping well in the night and loves all the attention that he gets during the day.

Here he is with his daddy.

And I had to include one picture where he was awake. I was trying to get a picture of his great big smile, but the camera batteries died as soon as I turned it on. Maybe next time.

Meme, Dane's mother, made and then mailed to us four beautiful blankets for John, three of which have matching buntings and hats. John has been so cozy in them when the temperatures have dropped, and everyone who has seen them has been quite impressed with them. I think Sue "Meme" could make a successful business out of sewing, she really is a very talented seamstress.

This picture is to give a better perspective of what the buntings look like.

The children started their school year the last week in April. Everyone has settled into the new routine and is doing very well. Here are all the scholars at work.

We finally received a couple days of rain! We are so thankful for this provision. The creek and spring are full and we are again doing our laundry out here on the farm. Praise the Lord!

With the drought, our little spring really slowed down. We got to where we were only getting about 100 liters of water a day out of it and most of that was going to the cows. So Dane started concentrating most of his efforts on making a new road into our property so that we could get a bull dozer out here to help make a road to the river before the spring slowed down any more than that.

Dane, some helpers, and Elijah, and David spent a few weeks cleaning up the limit and then Dane hired a guy with a bull dozer to come down it and move some big rocks and clean it up even more. Well the bull dozer was too small to accomplish the task, so that work didn't continue.

Despite this setback, Dane was able to obtain permission from one of the other neighbors to use and improve an old cart trail on his property as a road into our place. Dane then shifted his efforts to this road and it is now nearly completed! Though it still needs more work, we drove in and out of it for the first time yesterday, and what an improvement over our existing boulder road that can only be passed with a four by four vehicle.

One day during the cleanup of the steepest part of the new road, Dane turned over the tractor and was squished between the tractor and a large tree. He had some bruising under his arms and around his chest and had some road rash on his back, but thankfully he didn't have any broken bones and didn't miss a day of work!

While Dane and the boys were working along the limit, they found this strange fruit. The locals call it oveña (pronounced oveinya). It tastes like a cross between an apple and a pecan nut. I have made a few coffee cakes and sprinkled the fruit on top and they were very tasty.

We finally got a new 12volt freezer that Dane ordered from another province. It worked great for about three days and then stopped producing ice, so Dane had to take it to town to be repaired. Thankfully the freezer is under warranty. In the meantime, we are storing our milk and yogurt in a tank that Dane bought to haul water from town as needed during the drought. When it began to look like rain, Dane hurriedly installed a rain gutter on our roof and put the tank under it to catch the water. With the cool nights, the rain water stays relatively cool and helps to perserve the dairy products a little longer.

A couple of our hens hatched some chicks and another is sitting, so the chicken flock is growing.

One of the advantages of getting up early in the morning is getting to see the sunrise everyday. Dane got a picture of this beautiful sunrise on a recent cloudy morning.

It is time for enjoying winter squash. This is a huge one that one of our neighbors gave to us. It took us a week to eat the whole thing. Another neighbor told Dane to come get squash anytime because he had more stored than he knew what to do with. Our winter squash didn't do so well, so we are very thankful that our neighbors are willing to share their bounty.

Also its mandarine orange season now. Our trees are full despite the fact that the trees prematurely dropped a lot of their oranges during the drought. We are really enjoying the fruit.

And if this picture of a tarantula on the toe of Dane's boot doesn't make you want to check the inside of your shoes before you slide your foot in, I don't know what would!

Well I hope this catches you all up on what we have been doing. I will try not to delay the next post so much.

Until next time,

Jessica

Passover 2009 - Preparing to Eat



The past couple of weeks have been really exciting around here with a new baby in the house. John is growing well and is a sweet baby. All the children want to take care of him, so I've had lots of help. Even Joseph is very gentle with him and loves to put his finger in John's hand.


Taking care of John wore Elisabeth out this night, but I don't think he minded a bit. He just slept contentedly beside her until we took him to bed.



Sarah rocking baby John.



Abby rocking baby John. Look how fat his tummy is getting already!



And two days after John was born, our red cow finally had her calf - a little bull. He is really cute and much smaller than our other calf was when she was born.




This is a picture of a bee panel that Dane took the last time he went up to check our bees. This is from one of the new colonies that we purchased recently. They seem to be doing well despite the move and change of boxes. Dane is currently trying to design a label for our honey and he has incorporated this picture into the background of the design.



Argentina has been experiencing a severe drought. The worst in fifty years. So far, it has lasted for a little over a year and the whole country is struggling because of it. Thousands of livestock animals have died and crops are suffering. Many of our neighbors have seen their springs dry up. The Lord has been very merciful to us in that our spring is still flowing, although slowly. We are very thankful for the Lord's providence. In the event that the spring stops, Dane plans to get water from the river, so he has started clearing a path to make a road down to it. Elijah and David have been working with him and found some great vines for swinging on in the jungle. Yesterday they took us down to see them and all the children took turns swinging on the vines and climbing the giant trees.

Here are another couple of interesting critters we have found lately....

This is a caterpiller that Sarah found that a parasitic wasp had laid her eggs on. The white things on the back of the caterpiller are the eggs.

And here is a little frog that decided to make its home in one of Dane's tool bags.

Well that is all for now. I hope to make the children's school schedule this afternoon so that we can get back to the books this week.

Have a blessed day,

Jessica

He Has a Name

Introducing John Mark Donaldson:

Little Donaldson #7

We were blessed with a son Wednesday at 1:05 am. His birth weight was 3.5 kilos (7 lbs, 11 ozs), and his length was 52 cm (20 inches).

Dane is prayerfully considering a name for him, so we will have to update on that later.



Here he is - Baby Donaldson #7:







Here is a picture of the children waiting outside the clinic at the truck. They each got to come in one by one to meet their new baby brother.



The baby and I were allowed to leave the clinic Wednesday after lunch. We returned home and Dane and the girls prepared our Passover meal. What a wonderful day, and a wonderful Passover, Praise the Lord!

Thank you all for your thoughts and prayers.

Have a blessed Feast week,

Jessica