Sunday, April 14, 2013

The BucketBoy Grows . . .

Our son Ben was dubbed "The BucketBoy" because of the following photos from his preschool days:





We tried another bucket on for size when he was five, to create an updated version:




Recently, I received a request for some more current BucketBoy photos, now that he's eleven. Here they are for your viewing pleasure, uninterrupted by commentary. I think the BucketBoy's goofy personality shows through without needing any help from me!










Saturday, April 13, 2013

Grinding beef, using boy-power!



We recently butchered our bull. In preparation for processing our home-grown meat, we had purchased a small but (supposedly) good quality electric meat grinder. Sadly, the third time we used it, grinding the meat from the bull into hamburger, the machine broke. So, Allen looked around in Gracias, and found a manual meat grinder in one of the hardware stores, for around $40.

Today we pulled out a large bag of the meat that we'd intended to grind (meat that we hadn't been able to grind, because of our broken machine), and had Josiah and Ben put it through the manual grinder. Because this meat was previously frozen, it has to be cooked before it can be frozen again. We're seasoning this meat to use in tacos. It will be nice to have some "convenience food" in the freezer for future use!

Today we ground, seasoned, and cooked about 15 pounds of meat for tacos. We're thinking of other things to cook in bulk when we do future batches of grinding - perhaps sausage, or meatballs! Yum!

Meanwhile, Allen, Bethany and Gus are cutting strips of beef to use as jerky. Jerky is totally a treat for us, and we're looking forward to having it around the house . . . for a week or so, LOL. Then it will all be eaten! 



Friday, April 12, 2013

Pastor Gifts are Heading OUT!



This has been a big week for the creation and distribution of pastor gifts. Iris came over and helped me on four different days, and we put together a total of 68 personalized pastor boxes on those days! We generally expect to make enough boxes for between 200 and 250 pastors and their families each year, so this is a nice encouraging chunk of the total number. I've been discouraged about ever getting this project done this year, but this has energized me.

The donations we received this year included many copies of several Christian books (in Spanish). These we give in quantity to each pastor, to share with his congregation and neighbors. The total gift given to each pastor, including these books, involves several boxes.

Wednesday we scheduled as a distribution day, and we sorted and loaded over 80 gifts (plus the books to go with them) and sent them off to their destinations!




I'm so glad to see this progress, and I'm really looking forward to having my house back!!!!

Sunday, April 7, 2013

So much to tell . . .






Life hasn't stood still while I've been too busy to blog - in fact, it has been pretty eventful around here. I'll try to get caught up, starting by sharing this new addition to our family.

We have a new Great Dane puppy! I've had a lifelong love of gigantic dogs (I have my parents to thank for this, as they bought our family a St. Bernard when I was a child), and when the chance came to purchase a Great Dane from a local litter, we jumped at the opportunity! This dog is officially Allen's birthday present to me, and I think it's the best present ever!

Buddy (as we call the pup, while we await naming inspiration) is about 6 weeks old. In Honduras, puppies are sold at a younger age than in the US, and this litter of pups wasn't going to be around if we waited until the puppies were older. So, we're giving him a bit of extra care and attention (read: spoiling him), since he's really a teensy baby.

All of our adult dogs think Buddy is a nuisance, but Ginger, our 4 month old Labrador, thinks the puppy is a new friend/toy. We have to watch them when they play, because of the difference in their sizes, but Buddy isn't intimidated. He's just thrilled to have a playmate.

We're having such fun with our new baby. Buddy hates to be alone, he grumbles in his sleep and when his belly is really full, and he has now grown enough that he can get up and down off the couch by himself (using the footstool to help). Oops - that letting him on the couch thing might have been a bad idea! Don't worry, though, when he gets a little bit bigger we'll train him to stay off the couch. We have to . . . either that, or purchase an additional couch. Once he's grown, he'd need the whole couch to himself!


For now, the baby gets to sleep on the couch, and I love seeing him snuggled up to our long-suffering cat, Splotch.