Back To School - SALES!

This is the first post of 2011 about the Gifts for Gracias Christmas Gift Project. Yes, it's July - the end of July - so it must be time to start talking about Christmas, right?

If you're unfamiliar with our project, here's a brief overview, from our website:

This will be our seventh year to distribute Christmas gifts in and around the city of Gracias, in the department of Lempira. This department is officially recognized by the Honduran government as the poorest area of Honduras. The recipients of the Christmas gifts will again be the pastors of the area churches and their families, and also children in our nutrition centers, special needs program, in the local hospital, and in 14 orphanages.

We hope that this will be an opportunity for you to reach out to your brothers and sisters in Christ.

Soon I'll be posting the updated info for 2011, regarding mailing addresses and deadlines, but even though I don't have that all pulled together for you, I wanted to go ahead and post a quick reminder about the project, because it's almost time for Back-To-School sales to start. School supplies are a major need here, and we like to use them as the backbone of the gifts for school aged children. If you have the opportunity to purchase some extra school supplies to donate to the project, why not do so now, while the good sales are on? Some donors make up complete gifts for us to distribute, some send a box of one or two items in bulk - like spiral bound notebooks, boxes of crayons, etc. Either way, we're delighted to receive these offerings!

As in previous years, we will have locations in Maryland and Florida to which donations can be delivered or mailed. I'll have those specifics for you very soon, so watch for those.

Also, and this is very important - donations were down significantly the past two years. If there is any way you can help spread the word about this project, through your church, school, homeschool group, or any other way I haven't thought of, please do so. We really need all the help we can get with this! Thanks everyone!

Things change

We've lived in Honduras for over ten years now, in two different locations. I have a lot of memories.

I can remember buying milk from a nearby ranch. A kid on a pony delivered the milk to our house, in cleaned out bleach bottles which had been tied to the saddle. I had to pasturize the milk myself - and I learned how to make cottage cheese.

I can remember having internet access only once each week, and that access was excruciatingly slow. In order for me to connect, we had to have good weather (a boat trip to the city was involved), the electricity and phone lines had to be working, and my in-country ISP had to be up-and-running. Too often one of those factors wouldn't be in place, and I'd just have to try again another day.

I can remember when I couldn't purchase any cheese, except for the local homemade (very salty!) cheese. No mozzarella, cheddar, or other such exotic varieties.

I can remember when fresh vegetables were only delivered to our town once a week. We'd have salad the first day, cooked veggies for a few more days, then we'd be back to canned (or home-frozen) until the next delivery.

I can remember purchasing meat (pork, beef, or fish, fresh butchered or caught that day) out of a wheelbarrow.



I am remembering all of this (and more) in contrast to my recent experience, when I found that I'd purchased (in the states) a digital camera but not a memory card to fit into it. Last week, when we went into Gracias for Lempira Day, I happened to see a digital camera store right across from the central park, so I dropped in and found that they had the exact memory card I needed! The price was quite reasonable, as well!

Helicopters! It's like an invasion around here!

This morning we've had quite a parade of helicopters flying over our property and landing in Gracias. It's exciting (especially for David), as we generally see very little air traffic here - though most of what we do see is helicopters, since there's no airstrip nearby.

After wondering for a moment about the reason for all the helicopter traffic, it hit me - last week when I was in town, one of the local hotel owners mentioned to me that the entire Honduran congress would be visiting Gracias for the holiday this week - Lempira Day!

Lempira Day is the biggest event of the year here in the city of Gracias (which is the capital of the department named after Lempira), so this holiday already draws large crowds, but having the congress come in for the event is unusual, for sure. It happens that the current head of the congress is the representative from this area, so that might just explain the reason for the field trip.

Some of our family will be heading in to the city for the festivities tomorrow, so we should have pictures to share (I've borrowed back our secondary camera from Russell). With these extra-special guests, we're expecting that the city will put on an especially good show this year!

Oh, and in case you've not seen the previous posts with pictures from past Lempira Day parades, follow this link to see some of the fun! Also, here's a link to my first post about Lempira Day, which explains what the holiday is all about.

Ohhhhhh BUMMER!

I can't believe I did this! Over the course of the past 8 years or so, I've bought three digital cameras. All of them have been Fujifilm cameras, and they all have come with memory chips, and they've all used interchangeable chips.

The new camera, which Kirstin brought down to me, is also a Fujifilm camera, but it didn't come with a chip, and it doesn't use the same size chip as the other cameras. So, I have no way to use the new camera, until I can get a memory chip to fit it. Allen thinks we might be able to find one locally. I sure do hope he's right about that.

Sigh.

They're HERE!

My visiting daughter, Kirstin, and the items she brought in her suitcase have arrived. Things like my new camera, new underwear (for several family members), bagels, etc.

I've been a bit disinclined toward blogging since I haven't had a camera. I'm planning to sit up tonight and read about all the nifty things my new camera can do . . . I'm thinking it just might jog me back into the blogging mood!

A Cow Is NOT a House Pet

Since I can't take any new pictures right now, I figured I'd post some photos I took last week, of one of our cows. This is an especially annoying cow, because she thinks she belongs in the house. Although the perimeter of our property is fenced, we don't have many fences within the perimeter. In other words, the cows can go pretty much anywhere they like, within the boundaries of our land. We have the garden fenced off, and when we're trying to establish grass in a new area of the yard we fence that in until the grass is growing well. Oh, and Rachel recently started a little rose garden, and there's a fence around that:


(The mushrooms growing along the edge of the rose garden are unintentional. It's the rainy season, so mushrooms grow everywhere right now.)

So, anyway, this particular cow thinks she should be allowed into the house. She hangs out on the front porch, and sometimes, when we've left the kitchen door open, she'll stick her head in the door and rummage around in the kitchen trash can, looking for goodies. She's always hanging around the house, looking in, with those pleading eyes of hers.



Here's a close up of the cow. Close up shots will occur, because this cow really likes me to scratch her between the eyes. So, as I was trying to take pictures of her, she kept coming up to me to beg for some attention. My kids have tried to convince me that the cow is actually begging for food, but I think she loves me. Just look at those eyes!

In spite of the special relationship the cow has with me, and in spite of the fact that I'm not a big stickler for house rules, I do think I've got one hard and fast rule: NO COWS IN THE HOUSE. ;-D

What a time to NOT have a camera!

Oh man, did we ever have an amazing and photogenic storm roll through here this evening! It wasn't anything by midwest-tornado-storm standards, but it was quite unusual for us. I wanted to take photos - I even wanted to take a video at one point - but our camera is currently on the blink, so you'll have to settle for a verbal description, instead.

First we heard thunder. We expect to have a thunderstorm most every day this time of year, so that wasn't very interesting, but the sound does warn us to head outside to pull the laundry in off the line, bring the puppies into the house, and generally batten the hatches.

Because we were outside, we saw the dark clouds headed our way. They were especially dark, and they seemed to be a bit more agitated than usual. Several times we saw what looked to be the beginnings of funnels trying to form, but these never amounted to very much. We weren't experiencing any wind at ground level, although the storm was approaching pretty fast, so this wasn't an especially scary experience. We were all outside looking at it.

Then the clouds were above us. There were different types of clouds at different elevations, moving at different speeds and in different directions. That was pretty spooky. Looking up, we could see multiple swirls - definite circular motion - forming in the large mass of dark gray cloud straight above us. At a lower elevation, wispier clouds were passing along in more of a straight line. This was weird and kind of scary. Some of the clouds had an odd greenish tinge, which I didn't much like the look of.

That whole mess passed by with no preciptation, and still with little wind or temperature change at ground level. Then we could see, in the direction from which the clouds had come, the wall of rain headed our way. It was a particularly thick rain, completely obscuring everything on the other side of the storm. The rain was across the valley from us, and as it approached we did feel the rush of cold air which almost always hits right before the rain.

Instead of rain, however, we got hail! The pieces of ice had about the diameter of a dime, and most weren't round, they were slightly flattened out. I had a moment of concern for our solar panels, but the hail remained small enough that we don't think the panels sustained any damage. Gradually rain joined the hail, and then fewer and fewer hail stones fell until we were simply having our regular tropical deluge, but with significant lightning.

This lasted for about fifteen minutes, and then the storm was past us, with no particular damage. A few of my green bean plants are lying on the ground, but I think they're just waterlogged and only a bit pounded - I'm hopeful that they will pull back upright without a problem.

So, you can see why I wish I'd had a working camera! We do have a backup camera, but Russell has it at his house at the moment. We do kind of need to have two cameras, since we so often have people in several locations at the same time, and because we always want to have a backup on hand (since it sometimes takes us months to get a new camera down here). Now I need to do some camera shopping, so my oldest daughter can bring me the new camera when she visits in July.

A new bridge project

Allen and Russell spent three days this past week starting the foundation for another bridge project. This bridge will be a cable bridge that will be capable of handling small vehicle traffic (up to pickup trucks, I believe).

Here is a view of the bridge site, and the existing bridge, which is only able to carry foot traffic and motorcycles:



And below is a close-up of the current bridge. If you click on this photo, you can see the bridge in greater detail, and think about what it would be like to have to cross this bridge (or ford a river) to get to schools, stores, medical care, etc. - and much of the year the river can't be forded!



We're so glad to be able to bless the rural people of Lempira with these bridges, and I'd really like to thank those of you who help to make this possible - those who donate funds and who pray for our work, those who help acquire the cable and those who help with the loading of the annual shipping container. Thanks from us, and from the people of Lempira!

Overwhelmed.

Sorry I took a little hiatus from posting. Life has been busy.

Hurrah for me - I've saved seeds!

Even though I'm a brand new gardener, I'm trying to learn a skill which many gardeners don't seem to bother with too much - I'm learning to save seeds from current plants for future plantings. This isn't as easy as you might think!

A few months back, someone accidentally left the garden gate open, and a dog got in and dug around in the area where my green bean plants were just getting started. The plants were about 3 inches tall at the time. Some got pulled up, others just got mashed a bit, and some were destroyed. I knew I wasn't going to get enough of a harvest from the few plants I had left, to actually put a serving of green beans on my family's plates any night at dinner, so I decided to let the few plants mature and try saving the seeds for a future planting.

I tried to read up on the details of this process, but as is so often the case, the details weren't really suited for my tropical yet mountainous location. Most of the information I found assumed that I would be trying to save the seeds for months, in order to wait out a winter and put them into the ground in the spring. Since I don't have a winter here (or a spring, for that matter), I thought it might be possible to take a short cut, and not dry the seeds as thoroughly as the directions indicated.

Unfortunately, in my first attempt, I didn't let the seeds mature long enough on the plants, before I tried to use them, and I also didn't dry them enough after I collected them. None of the ones we planted came up. I gave them plenty of time, but this was during our recent water shortage, so eventually I felt I should stop using water on this empty spot in the garden, and I gave up on them.

There were still some beans on the parent plants, so I left those to dry on the plants longer. While it was a bad time of the year for watering, it was a good time for drying. I gradually collected a handful of beans. Most every day I pulled another green bean, with about 5 or 6 seeds in it. If I pulled the bean too early, the seeds inside were white, and those didn't dry into plantable seeds. If I waited long enough, the seeds were a purplish-blue, and they dried - just sitting in a bowl on the kitchen counter - into seeds that looked like the ones I'd purchased and used to start the plants in the first place.

Here are some of the seeds, just out of the garden:



Here is the bowl of dried and drying seeds:



Toward the end of last week Rachel planted these seeds in the garden, as well as a small number of seeds I still had left from my previously purchased seeds. By planting the purchased seeds, I'd have a control for my experiment. If the purchased seeds grew and the ones I harvested didn't then I'd figure I must have done something wrong in harvesting my seeds. If neither group grew, I'd figure my growing conditions were bad.

But . . .

This morning, there are green bean plants sprouting from both groups. I'm excited!

The Water Saga

Two weeks ago, we had plenty of water in our house, and in our water storage tank. Because we weren't getting any rain, we were watering our garden and lawn multiple times every day, as that was the only way to keep everything alive.

Then the river went dry, and we went to severe water restrictions. We continued to water the garden, but the lawn had to go dry, and inside the house we instituted all sorts of extra steps to ration water usage, as mentioned in a previous post.

Just one week ago we got our first downpour, followed by additional torrents on three succeeding days. The garden and lawn were well watered, but we still didn't have water in our tank. While I worried about erosion and drowned vegetables in the garden, I still had to use my household water two or three times before dumping it out. We no longer had to dump it onto the yard, though, as the yard had become a swamp.

Finally, FINALLY, we got water into our tank, and life is back to normal again, in regard to water usage. I am relieved. Apparently, the double use of wash water was resulting in clothing that didn't smell all the way clean. We're all thrilled to be using the dishwasher and taking showers again. Probably the prettiest sound in the world, to our family right now, is the sound of the toilet flushing!

Water Restriction Update

Just so you know, the fact that we have received a wonderful gullywasher of a rainstorm here at our property hasn't released us from our water restriction situation. Although the garden and the yard are thrilled with the rain they received last night, inside the house it's the rain over on Celaque mountain that really counts. That rain comes down the river in which resides the open end of our PVC pipe. The pipe carries water to the first water tank (which we share with a community of other water users), and then another pipe brings the water from that tank to the tank on our property.

Allen drove past the river this morning, and said that the water level in the river is higher, but it's not all that high. Later today we'll check on the water level in the first tank, and see how much water has gotten to that point. If that tank is full, then we might be receiving water from there tonight (our water agreement sends us water from that tank certain nights of each week).

So, that's the situation right now. It's waaaaay better than before, but we're not all the way into water-happy territory yet. Gotta go . . . I've got buckets of water to schlep from the laundry room to the bathroom . . .

RAIN!

Wow! Gullywasher! We had an hour of hard, tropical-style downpour this evening - it just ended!

I do believe the end of the dry season is in sight now! Thanks for praying!

(Every sentence in this post ended with an exclamation point!)

A Rain Update and a Bridge Update

It's coming! It's coming! The rain, that is. We've not yet had any real rain, only a couple of teensy drizzles - the kind you wouldn't even mention normally, but in our dry situation we're excited about anything that could be taken as a sign that the weather is changing for the rainier! Yesterday we had enough drops that we could see polka dots in the dust - about one raindrop per square centimeter. Not exactly a thorough wetting, but hopefully it's just the beginning.

This morning is cool, hazy, and breezy, with the feel of impending rain in the air.

The family has done an amazing job (if I do say so myself) of restricting our water usage. We still have about 4 feet of water in our big tank, and we've been using water at a rate of about 2 inches per day. With that rate of usage, and the weather looking and feeling so much like rain, we think we'll probably start getting rain from the river again before our tank runs out. Several areas around us, including the city of Gracias, have received nice rains already. Of course, we're still praying, and still conserving, until we actually see water running into our tank!

Meanwhile, Allen and Russell have been working steadily on the bridge in El Mongual. Here are some pictures from about 2 weeks ago, of the crew preparing to pour the deck of the bridge. The deck, for those of you (like me) without a lot of knowledge of construction terms, is the part of the bridge you actually drive on.





In the past two weeks, the concrete deck has been poured, as well as the safety walls on each side of the bridge, to keep people and cars from going over the sides and falling into the river. I'd better make sure and send the camera out for some more recent pictures. This morning Allen told me that they only have about 6 more days of work on the bridge! Of course, once this project is done, there's another bridge project waiting to start!

Dry, dry, dry

Rachel and I were about a third of a mile from our property when we took this picture, of the smoke from a fairly large fire. Allen estimates that the fire was about a half mile from the spot where we took the picture . . . which means that the fire was slightly less than a mile from our home.

This is the closest fire to us that we've seen. It was put out that same night, so it was probably someone burning off a field, and not a "wild fire." Still, we know how easily a fire can get out of control, and things are soooooooo dry right now.


Speaking of things being dry, we get our water supply from a river which flows down from Celaque mountain. During the dry season (January through mid-May, more or less) the water levels in the local rivers lower significantly . . . and this year, our river has gone completely dry. At the time we found out that we weren't getting any more water, our big water tank was half full (see, I'm an optimist . . . I might have said it was half empty).

The rainy season officially starts in mid-May, and we usually start getting some sporadic rains before that date, so we're hopeful that, with some very stringent water usage restrictions at our house, we can hold out until the water rises in the river again.

We are doing two loads of laundry each day. That's only a bit below normal, and family members have been advised to not deign an item of laundry "too dirty to wear again" until it's really too dirty! When the water from the wash cycle is draining out, we catch the water in a large laundry tub, and we use that water for flushing the toilet and watering the plants. After the rinse cycle, we again catch the water, and we use that rinse water for the wash cycle of the next load.

We aren't using the dishwasher for now. Instead, we're washing dishes in the sink, and again saving the dirty water for flushing and for plants.

We're purchasing drinking water in the city. A five gallon jug of water costs about $1, if we reuse the jug. Normally we filter the river water for our drinking water, so this is another way to stretch our water supply.

When we can, people are taking showers at Russell's house in town. Otherwise we are trying to limit ourselves to sponge baths. That's by far the hardest part of the restrictions - we're all starting to feel a bit grungy.

As I'm typing this, we got a sudden cold wind . . . and we looked out to see dark clouds heading out way. We're praying . . . !!!!!!!!!

TEN Puppies!!!!!

Sometime last night or this morning, our Rottweiler-mix, Pepper, gave birth to ten puppies under the back porch of the team house! Although we intended to breed her sometime in the future, her first heat snuck up on us, and in spite of our best efforts . . . well, you know the rest of the story.

The puppies may be from our male rottweiler, from our male lab-mix, or from some other unknown dog. Happily, Pepper seems to be a natural at mothering, and she's not had any difficulties dealing with her big batch of babies so far. Large black dogs are in good demand around here, so we don't expect to have any trouble finding homes for all of these pups.

Pictures will follow, although my past attempts to photograph black dogs have been disappointing. We'll see what I can do.

El Mongual Bridge Project - lifting the beams, part 2

Here we are, looking at the far end of the beam we're working to lift. You'll recall from the previous bridge post that we've already started building a tower under the other end of the beam. The front end loader has been moved, and is being connected to this end of the beam.

Of course, the logs which were used for rollers have to be taken out from under the beam.

The base for the second tower is carefully created, once again making certain that it is level and secure. Having the beam fall is the biggest concern of this job, and building an unstable tower would make this much more likely.

This tower is built up until it is taller than the previous tower.

You might notice, in these pictures, that Russell is able to lift the beam several feet at a time, while the workers are building beneath it, and you might wonder why he could only lift the beam a few inches at a time when it was still up on the hill where it was poured. The answer is a fun fact of physics, which Allen wanted me to be sure you knew. Think of an old-fashioned see saw, which might be a heavy wooden plank balanced across a log. If you tried to pick up the plank when it was lying flat on the ground (before it became part of the see saw), you'd probably have to use both hands to lift one end, and you might just barely be able to lift it. However, when the plank is balanced on the log in the middle, then you can lift one end of the plank quite easily, perhaps even with just one hand. That's because you're only trying to lift part of the weight of the plank, and because the other end of the plank is being pulled downward by gravity, which also helps make it easier for you to lift. At our bridge construction site, the towers are acting as the center log of the see saw, making it possible for the front end loader to lift an end of the beam much higher than it could previously do. It sure is handy to know about physics!

Now the guys have moved back to the first tower, and will make that one a few feet taller than the one they just worked on.

These huge, squared off logs, by the way, are from those trees which were mentioned in a previous post, which we cut down to use for this project. Some of the wood was left round, to use for rollers, and some was squared off for use in the towers.

I think you've probably got the back-and-forth process figured out now.

We're getting close.

The front end loader yanks one end all the way up!

With the front end loader moved to the other side of the river one last time, pieces from the tower which is no longer in use are put into place to raise the remaining tower higher.

Now we're really close!

Success! Now both beams are in place, and we can all say a prayer of gratitude and breathe a sigh of relief!

El Mongual Bridge Project - lifting the beams, part 1

So far, I've explained the movement of the beam to where it is sitting at the base of the supporting walls, waiting to be lifted up on top of them. This lifting was the most dangerous part of the job.




In the photo above, the workers are creating the base of what will become a tower of squared off logs and other materials. Russell is at the controls of the front end loader, keeping the beam up off the ground while the base is created below the beam. Eventually this tower will be 9 feet tall, and will hold up one end of the 20 ton beam - so having a solid, level base is extremely important. (Oh, and just for fun, check out the tiny goat in the top left corner of the photo. It just happens to be a goat grazing next to a house far in the background, but we think it's funny how it looks like a tiny toy goat atop the beam!)




With the base carefully made level and stable, it was time to add logs to the tower. Again, Russell lifts the beam, the men put down the squared off logs, and then the beam is lowered to rest upon the completed part of the tower.




The logs are quite heavy - something like 600 pounds each.




With a couple of feet of tower built at one end of the beam, Russell lowers the beam to rest on the tower. He and the crew (and the front end loader) will move to the other end of the beam, to get to work on building the second tower.

My garden at the end of March

Yes, I do know that it's April now, but I took this picture a few days ago. The garden is still doing pretty well. We currently have Roma tomatoes about the size of small grapes, cucumbers (from a volunteer plant, so we'll see whether they turn out to be edible or not) about 2 inches long, teensy little ears of corn, cabbages about the size of softballs (from seeds I planted back in November!), and occasional yummy peas (I definitely need to plant more pea plants).

I've got lettuce plants going to seed, lots of garlic sitting around doing nothing special, some newly planted beets, radishes, and onions, and a second batch of corn just starting.

I let some of my green beans stay on their bushes until the seeds were big, and then I tried planting the seeds. So far, nothing has sprouted. Either I didn't let them mature enough, or something else went wrong . . . or maybe if I'm just patient a bit longer, something will come up.

This is the very worst of the dry season, so it's very hot, very sunny, and very dry. I'm watering the garden multiple times each day, especially when I have new seedlings coming up. So far I'm planting all my seeds directly in the garden, and that's been working out okay, except for the seeds I've saved from previous plants. Clearly saving and using my own seeds are skills I still need to work on.

I'm continuing to have to fight off grasshoppers and leaf cutter ants. If I were trying to garden without the use of pesticides I think I'd have to give up. I am trying to use the pesticides sparingly, however. Generally, if I can keep the bugs from eating the tiny newly sprouted plants, then when those plants get older they do okay even when they are somewhat nibbled. If the bugs attack the tiny new plants, though, those plants tend to just die. Oh, I had an attack of leaf cutter ants of a different variety than I'd seen before, and they were eating only the garlic plants. I specifically planted garlic because it supposedly repels most insects, so I thought this was kind of funny. Anyway, I won that battle, and at the moment things are under control in the garden . . . at least the last time I checked, a few hours ago. However, I never know what I'll find when I go out there!

Colorful bug

I thought this was a pretty bug. It might be a stink bug, though, so I didn't bother it - I just took the picture!