El Mongual Bridge Project - starting to move the beam

As you probably recall, two huge beams were fabricated for the bridge in El Mongual. The beams had to be moved into place on the riverbed at the foot of the supporting walls, and then lifted up to sit on top of the walls. Just to keep things confusing, some of the pictures I'll post will be from the moving of the first beam, and some will be from the second. I didn't have a photographer there every day of this long project, so that's the way it is. The picture at the top shows the first beam already in place across the river, and the front end loader dragging the second beam toward the river, using logs as rollers under the beam. Easy, right? No, I know you know that nothing comes easy here. This post will show some of the work of getting ready for the moving of the first beam:

Some dirt was dug out from under the beam.

Logs were collected from downed trees.

Cable had to be connected from the front end loader to the beam.

After several tries, it was determined that the best way to connect the cable to the machine was to weld a metal post to the bucket, and put the cable around the post.

Here's the very first lift, just barely lifting the beam up off the ground.

Impressive, huh? Yes, it's just the teensiest bit off the ground.

With the weight of one end of the beam lifted a bit, more work is done to clean out under the beam.

More dirt is dug out from under the beam, the wall panels which were under the beam are pulled out, and stacks of lumber are used to prop up the beam, so that the machine can lift it up a bit more. Henri, in this picture, is signaling to Russell, who is at the controls of the front end loader.

Progress is being made.

This is enough pictures for one post. More to come.

Relief!!!!!

This week, the menfolk accomplished a task which has had us all praying overtime, because of the significant difficulty and danger involved. We're all grateful and relieved to have the job successfully behind us! The task was the placement of the huge concrete beams onto the bridge supports in El Mongual.

I didn't post about the work that was done to make the supporting walls on each side of the river. Here's a picture of the completed walls, so you can see what was involved:



You can see the trickle of water between the two walls. It's still dry season, so the water is low. At its worst, the water has been known to almost reach the houses you see on the far side of the river, so the bridge had to be built up high enough for those events.

You'll remember the two gigantic beams which the crew fabricated about a month ago. (If you don't remember, check here and here.)



The picture doesn't necessarily make clear the immense size of these beams, but they're 43' long and I'm guessing about 4' tall. Plus, they weigh approximately 20 tons. They're really big.

So, the task of moving those beams down to the river, and lifting them onto the supporting walls really should have involved a crane - but we don't have a crane, or access to a crane. What we have is an elderly front end loader, Allen's ability to manipulate objects using his knowledge of physics, a collection of people who aren't afraid of hard physical labor, a large quantity of testosterone-induced gutsyness, and prayer. Much prayer.

More to come on exactly how this overwhelming and dangerous task was accomplished. Stay tuned . . .

A Milestone, of sorts

The number of feeding centers we supply continues to grow. Recently we discovered that the total number of centers under our auspices has exceeded 100! This number represents approximately 7,500 children.

Just so you know just what we're talking about, our family isn't actually running these centers. They are run by many pastors throughout a large part of western Honduras (some pastors run more than one center). These pastors organize the centers, pick up the food from us, oversee the cooking of the food, acquire adequate cooking fuel and other supplies (like cooking pots, plates and such), teach a Bible lesson at each gathering, and keep records for us of the number of children being fed, number of times meals are served each week, etc.



Our family uses the funds from our donors to pay for the shipping and customs to get the donated food to Honduras. This food costs us just over 1 cent per meal. (Here's some information about the food we supply to the feeding centers.) We keep records on each center, to maintain some level of accountability over the whole program, and we distribute enough food for a few months at a time to each center, based on the number of children being fed. We visit the centers on an occasional basis, getting pictures to help our donors see how they are blessing the people of Honduras (our visits are also part of our work of keeping everyone involved accountable).

I have to say, though, that having 100 (now more like 110) feeding centers isn't a milestone we've been striving to achieve. Sadly, the need for additional feeding centers is a result of increasing poverty in the mountains of western Honduras - an area which was already massively poor. We'd much prefer to see the need for feeding centers go down, instead of seeing the rising need for the nutritional help.



For now, we're just grateful that we still have the means to help. Our thanks - and the thanks of many in this part of Honduras - goes out to everyone who plays a part in this ministry!

From the garden - RADISHES! Featuring the mutant radish!

I've been harvesting radishes for a few weeks now. They're quick and easy, except when some unknown insect comes at night and eats all the leaves off the plants. I've learned that radishes have trouble growing tasty fat roots when they have only gnawed off bits of leaves remaining attached to them. This time the destruction didn't come from leaf cutter ants - I recognize their work. I'm thinking the monster grasshoppers ate the radish leaves. But, as I had radishes planted in two different spots in the garden, some survived to show up on the blog, and in our dinner!

When I was pulling up radishes this afternoon, I came upon this mutant:



I wish the picture was better - I'm not so good at closeups with this camera. While in the ground, the radish had split in several directions. I'm thinking this was caused by the fact that we had a lot of rain for a few days earlier this week. I've been watering the radishes steadily, but I think the sudden influx of that much water just overwhelmed this radish, and it grew too fast for its skin. Anyway, that's my guess.

Tooooooo Cute!

Boo has a new puppy - a lap dog for a change. So far the pup has no name - but isn't she adorable?

You really CAN find anything on the internet!

This morning we found maggots in one of our worm compost buckets. Lots of maggots. Up 'til now things have been working out great with our worms, as they quietly turn our kitchen scraps into compost . . . but the addition of maggots didn't seem like a good thing, so I quickly pulled up a search engine (I like to use www.bing.com) and typed in the words "worms" and "maggots."

About the sixth entry down the page of matches was a blog post answering someone's question as to what to do about an explosion of maggots in their worm bin!

In case you ever have this particular problem - and who really knows what the future holds - here's the page with the info: http://www.mamaswormcomposting.com/2009/07/reader-question-maggots-in-worm-bin.html. The page also has - ahem - some lovely pictures, too (cough, cough, cough).

So now you know - you really can find anything on the internet!

Traffic jam at my house today . . .

We had an ox cart come to deliver sacks of manure.


Then, while that cart was still unloading, we had another ox cart come to deliver more manure. It was an ox cart traffic jam!

The arrival of the third oxcart a few hours later didn't seem newsworthy enough for a photo, but the fourth oxcart was so heavily loaded that we (Gus and I) thought you'd want to see it, so Gus got a picture of the cart. The entire family came along with this cart, walking on the way here, because they couldn't possibly have gotten on, and probably riding back home again. They told us that they're building a house, and they were delighted for the opportunity to earn some cash from just picking up and hauling manure. They sure were motivated!





I have to admit, though, I think the neighborhood now officially thinks we're nuts. Oh well, they would've figured that out eventually.

Growing a lawn - and cornering the manure market!

Things are moving along, steadily, on improving our property. When we first leveled the top piece of land, where we've located our buildings, we were left with a desert of dirt and rocks - not very appealing. Here are pictures of the bodega and the team house, during construction, where you can see what we had to work with, in the way of "yard."




Last year, just before the rainy season, we spread dirt in front of the two buildings, and seeded them both with grass. Now we have grass established in those two areas, and we're extending our "lawn." We want to have much of this work done (and grass growing) before the rainy season, because the heavy rains during that time of year would wash the loose dirt and seed right down the hill.

The area we've tackled this year is larger than the two areas from last year, and it's very sloped. To fight the inevitable erosion, we're getting sod from our neighbor, who was clearing a field for planting. We have to pay a laborer to cut it up, but the sod itself is free. Maybe not the nicest sod you ever saw, but we're not that picky, and it seems to be perking up when we get it in place and start watering it.



Gus and Cruz (our current worker) have been laying the sod in lines across the slope of the hill, to keep down erosion.




In the picture above, you can see the nice green grass from last year, in front of the team house. Between the lines of sod, you can see some brown dirt and some black. The black is actually a mixture of dirt and manure.

We only have a few cows, and we've already used most of the manure from them to fertilize the garden. So, we put out the word in the nearby town of Catulaca that we were willing to pay for sacks of manure.

This morning, Allen made three trips to Catulaca, and people came running out to meet him, with sacks full of manure. We got phone calls from people, telling us where families and neighbors had lots of sacks all collected together. In one spot, there were 50 sacks of manure. Below is a picture of our manure pile, but this picture was taken early in the day. The pile is much, much bigger now!



In addition to filling the trailer with sacks . . . even the inside of the Land Cruiser was full!





After our final trip into town, we had people show up on horses, and one family with an ox cart, all bringing more manure. Plus, we know more people are coming tomorrow.

I think we've cornered the manure market!

Is it me? Am I doing something wrong?

I don't blog for the purpose of getting lots of comments, as my regular readers can probably tell, since I'm so bad about answering comments. But, even though getting lots of comments isn't my goal, I still like getting them . . . and so would Allen. Recently, however, when I've written about what Allen has been doing, we haven't been getting any comments!

For example, recently I blogged about:

my homesteader-style ways - 5 comments
harvesting beets from my garden - 5 comments
recent miscellaneous good news we've gotten - 5 comments
pictures of our new puppy - 3 comments
a general update about the garden - 4 comments

but . . .

a school construction project - 0 comments
2 church construction projects - 0 comments for either one
a bridge construction project - 0 comments

I wonder if it's because, when I'm writing about the construction projects, I'm not writing as personally as when I write about the garden and life at home. At any rate, I think Allen's gonna get a complex if somebody doesn't say something, soon, about his projects. (LOL - like anything could give Allen a complex!) Anyone care to send Allen a kind and encouraging word? Thanks!

El Mongual Bridge Construction Project - part 2

Last week I started writing about the bridge we are helping to build in the city of El Mongual. I'm a bit behind on these postings, as they've been working on this bridge since mid-December. Allen and Russell are working there today, in fact.

In this post, I'll be showing you pictures of the second beam being poured. I think it's kind of interesting to see how this work is done without the help of any machines.

Here's the empty form, into which the concrete will be poured. The form is 43' long.

Here you can see down the form from the top. There is a framework of rebar inside, and much more rebar will be added as the process continues.

More long pieces of rebar are added to the form.

Here comes some more heavy rebar.

Rebar is threaded into place from the open end.

While the rebar is being pushed into place, four teams of men are mixing concrete. The concrete is poured into the form, starting at the closed end.

The level of concrete is rising at the one end.

Russell is working with the trowel, smoothing the top of the concrete as the work progresses.

A look from above, which might give some idea of how much rebar is packed inside this concrete beam!

Here's how all the wet concrete gets into the beam.

And more, and more, and more buckets of concrete.

The guys keep smoothing the top, as the form fills with concrete.

When the entire beam is poured and smoothed, the empty paper sacks which previously held concrete are put on top, to protect the beam from drying out too quickly.

Men in the community continue to pour water on the paper sacks for several days, as the beam dries slowly from the inside.

With the big beams finished, the workers turned to pouring the concrete walls which will hold up the beams at each end. You can look forward to those pictures sometime in the near future.

My homestead-y life

Everyone who knows us knows that Allen is really the missionary, and I'm just a support person. This was actually a bit different when we lived on Guanaja and ran a community center - there I led worship music, taught lots of Bible lessons, and did other missionary-type stuff. Now that we work in Lempira, my contributions to the ministry mostly involve office work.

I've been quite content with the support person job (plus, with 6 kids, there's been plenty to keep me busy), and Allen has always done enough work for any three or four missionaries, so I figure it all balances out in the end.

Now that we're living out in the country, I've been gradually adding new activities into my life. Still not missionary activities, though. More like homesteader activities. I don't think we're actually going to consider ourselves "homesteaders" - I'm not exactly sure when one crosses that line. But we're definitely more homestead-y than we've ever been before.

Some examples:

- We now raise cattle. We have a bull, two cows, and a calf.

- I have a vegetable garden which is actually producing food that we are eating. This is huge for me. When my family talks about what each person in the family has as a special skill, my unanimously agreed upon skill is killing plants. So, the fact that I am able to keep the garden going is amazing!

- I make homemade laundry soap. This has been a major financial savings, even though we have to import the ingredients. When we get our annual container shipment I make sure to have enough supplies on there for a year of laundry.

- We have been canning food for a few months now, and we're really enjoying it.

- I bought and use cast iron pans. I'm not sure why this feels like a homestead thing, but it has been a new skill for Rachel and I to learn.

- We've been keeping chickens, for the eggs. We're currently chicken-less, however, until we get a new coop built.

What's in our future?

- Well, I didn't get to milk our cow, after she gave birth at Christmas. Things have just been too busy, and we don't have things set up for milking yet. I feel kind of guilty about this - seems like a waste to own a milk cow and not milk her. Hopefully in the future I'll be able to take this on.

- Once the cooler, rainy season starts, I'm hoping to start some berry bushes. I don't know how successful this will be, but that's just another experiment, like the vegetable garden. Fortunately, seeds are pretty cheap.

- I'm also thinking that we need some fruit trees - local fruits, like citrus and mangoes, at least at first.

I'm sure there's more on the horizon. I'll keep you posted.

El Mongual Bridge Construction Project - part 1

I'll admit, I'm in over my head, when it comes to blogging about some of our construction projects - especially the bridges. There's engineering involved, and surveying; various stages of construction, loads and stresses and things I just don't really know anything about. In spite of my ignorance, here's my attempt to give you some idea of how our current bridge construction project is going. Perhaps most of you don't know much more than I do about all of this, and then my simplistic explanations will be right on your level. For those of you with more advanced knowledge, I apologize for writing on a topic I know so little about.

The picture above shows the location of the new bridge, in El Mongual, not far from the city of Gracias. You can see, on the ground, the foundations for the walls which will hold up the ends of the bridge on each side of the river. It is currently the dry season, so the river is low and easily forded. When the rainy season starts, however, this is frequently a swollen and raging river, and without a bridge a large number of people are unable to ford the river to get out of their communities during that time.

Up on the hill beyond the river you can see our front end loader. This machine was donated a few years back by Gainesville Presbyterian Church in Virginia. We've found lots of work for the machine to do over the years, but it's on mostly light duty now, as it needs to have the tracks replaced, and that's an expense of about $8000 - not exactly in the budget just now.

The first picture below shows one of the two beams which will support the bridge. The beams are 43 feet long, and they each weigh 20 tons. It's hard to see how long they are in these pictures. You are, of course, looking down the beam from one end. In the next photo you can see that same beam, and the form sitting ready for the pouring of the second beam. In the third photo below, you are looking into the form, and seeing some of the pieces of rebar used to strengthen the beams.





The photos below show some of the men working on the project. Because all of the concrete is mixed by hand, this is a very labor-intensive project. The workers are mostly volunteers from the communities which will be served by the bridge.




This post is long enough already, so I'll continue with more info and pictures a bit later.