The oxen arrived!

Plowed ground means work. Dwain has been working extra long hours this week to clean the grass out of the plowed furrows and sow onions and carrots. Harlan and some of the children have been helping. Since the available garden ground is sod that includes Bermuda Grass, the grass clumps need to be removed, roots and all.

Also, agricultural classes from the primary grades at the school located on La Finca have been visiting and working in the garden on Thursdays. Dwain’s learning curve involves harnessing any available energy that comes within the sound of his voice. He also attempts to divert children’s attention away from the enticing siren call of the green mangoes hanging overhead in the garden trees. This coming week students at colegio (high school) have vacation. Hopefully that means more spare time to work in the garden.

The Horst children are counting down the last few weeks of school. The Lewis & Clark expedition along with the Erie Canal, Robert Fulton, U.S. immigration in the early- to mid-1800s, fractions, Roman numerals and creative writing fill the school days for Angelica and Ali. Zack continues adding books to his kindergarten reading repertoire. Writing sentences, learning new words, finding perimeters, counting money, creating patterns and exploring the layers of the earth are samplings of activities in Zack’s day.

Dwain takes a break from work to speak with Harlan & Janelle who are shopping in Tegucigalpa and have found an unusually big stash of bone meal and blood meal.

“Joyful, Joyful, We Adore Thee” (an opus from Beethoven’s Symphony No. 9) . . . This tune wafts from the colegio across the street and from one of the boys’ dorms located beside our house. Every day for the past many weeks this has been our background music. At the colegio, students play this song on their plastic recorders constantly throughout the morning hours. It’s the only song they seem to know. One evening when Audrey investigated which boy was playing the tune in his dorm even on his day off of school, she learned the children’s repertoire consists of this tune in several keys and “Feliz Cumpleanos” (“Happy Birthday”). She wrote notes out to another song they knew and demonstrated on her recorder. The boys were elated! They begged for lessons every Saturday.