Fulfilling the routine, preparing for the non-routine and living creatively in the times of not enough/too much: That pretty much sums up our week.

The routine of watering the garden, picking vegetables for the kitchen every other day, making sure the zompopos are under control while finding time to do homework and attend Spanish class in the afternoons constitute routine for Dwain.

Audrey’s routine includes teaching school, cooking and attending school. She was forced into the non-routine this week when her voice left her whispering on Friday.

Dwain continues to fend off feeling the loss of all the organic goodies available in Lancaster. This week the children noticed him carrying a new jug in the early morning trek to the garden and wrinkled their noses when they caught a whiff of kelp concentrate. Thanks to the help of the Fertrell Co.in Bainbridge, PA, Dwain is starting foliar and irrigation applications of liquid kelp. Several positive plant responses can already be seen.

New sowings of seeds for transplanting had been put on hold early in the week when the last of our precious bone meal was used. The addition of this one amendment to the combination of garden and forest soil has made an acceptable potting soil for starting seeds. Minus the bone meal…crop failures. If organic soil amendments and foliar sprays are available in our area, we’ve just not discovered them. Thanks to Harlan and Janelle making a special trip to the hardware store on Friday, we now have enough bone meal to start a lot more seedlings.

We discovered stray cows in the garden two times this week. With pasture grass long gone, cattle and horses are scrimping by during the lean, dry months. The offending cows were those of our neighbor down the street who was “grazing” his cows on what they could find on the stream banks. Our first fence repair wasn’t adequate once the cows had tasted the green grass on our side of the fence. With the bulls and cows and calves stretching through the barbed wire as far as they could reach, they quickly found all the weak spots. Most of Wednesday morning was spent with the neighbor stringing patches of barbed wire. So far the repairs have held!

The non-routine here is the anticipation of two service groups who will bring a boost of energy to work projects and interaction with Finca children. A Presbyterian group of 14 from New Jersey just arrived this afternoon. They will be here one week. Next week, we plan to welcome a team of our friends from Oklahoma led by Jim and Betty Geib.

In anticipation of these helpers, the Finca crew has been busy creating construction projects that will be available for the added workers. Dwain even was recruited to build concrete forms Friday morning. A “new” truck was here this week on a trial basis. Those of you who love antiques can see this ’79 (?) Land Rover might be a lot of fun to drive. It has a diesel engine and four-wheel drive.
Javier checking out the new truck.

Saturday afternoon, using buses and taxis (thanks to Andrea’s expertise) Audrey and Andrea ventured into “Centro,” the center of Tegucigalpa where a main cobble-stoned street stretches from one large catholic church to another. Sitting areas outside each church provide places to rest, people-watch and listen to a street preacher. In Centro, the crowded streets, smog, booming music from vehicles, beggars, oppressive heat, and constant car horns painted a culture in contrast to that at La Finca. Daily life here is filled with children’s voices, barking dogs, crowing roosters (any time of the night), squealing pigs, chirping birds, moto-taxi horns, smell of wood smoke and ample place to seek shade. Thrift store shopping, savoring liquados (natural freshly-made fruit juice served in a bag with a straw) and visiting an outdoor produce market were highlights of the trip. The outdoor market consisted of perhaps 100 vendors stationed under various colored small tarps held together with baler’s twine. The tarps hung so low, people much over 5 feet tall had to hunch over to walk through the market. The lychee (going out of season), mangoes (coming into season), and ciruela were delicious!