Adelia looking so big

Lucca!

impossible to get...

Trying to take a picture of both of the kids together is an impossible feat. This is one of about 10. At least Adelia isn't too blurry.

The most beautiful thing

There is nothing more beautiful than having both your kids fall asleep at the same time!

Cactus in bloom

You can eat this fruit

Nesting

I have never seen a humming bird so still for so long.

Our first watermelon!

It wasn't quite ripe yet but the grasshoppers were eating it so I thought we would try it before they killed the whole plant. It was sort of pink but really sweet. I can't wait until next year when we can plant them earlier and try and do a little grasshopper control. Anyway it was still exciting to eat something from the garden.

Alicante

Look at what crossed our path yesterday while leaving the house. It is the first snake I have seen in Mexico. They call it an Alicante. In Jalisco it has an Indian name meaning corn snake. They are not poisonous and have an ironic myth that goes with them. The Indians said that these snakes would drink the breast milk of lactating woman and cows. They would put there tails in the babies mouth so that it wouldn't cry and wake the mother. Sort of creepy. At least we know that it is not possible but it is funny that the first snake I see is a breast milk theif!

Spider webs

I got up early to take a walk (this was a desperate effort to get Lucca to come out) and found hundreds of spiderwebs covered in dew. It was beautiful. Here is one on a rosemary bush.

Missing fall

Look at them apples! Oh cider, leaves, apple cider donuts, fall in New England. Makes me miss home. I am going home to make some apple sauce or something.

Had to put another!

Lucca!

The long awaited Lucca has arrived. Here is a cute picture taken on Saturday, only about 12 hours after he was born.

Nigerian Dwarf dairy goats

So these are the breed we are thinking of getting. They produce less milk but it is more nutritious and they say they are perfect for kids. Also they need less space, food, and housing than average dairy goats that are twice their size. Plus! they are adorable.

The Children

We need some advise. I have spoken with two out of the three orphanages here and it seems that the kids are very busy with other projects, which is great, but I am wondering if anyone can think of another group of kids we could work with. We want it to be about 20 kids, and the same ones every week for at least a year. We want the farm to be like there second home. We can figure out transportation but we need them to be committed. Can anyone think of a group that might fit. I believe this is a very important thing for every child to experience but I have a real draw toward wanting to help children that don't have such an easy life. Thanks for your input!

Slideshow

Full sized Angora rabbit

Who could resist this!

Angora bunnies

We have to get these bunnies. They are too cute! I guess I will have to learn how to knit!

Fixing the greenhouse

Here is our unfinished greenhouse. It needs some work. I am going to sew the doors on tomorrow if I don't have a baby! Then we will need to wire down the sides because the wind blows and the whole thing goes to one side. Not good! We are going to dig out the beds and then add compost to the soil. We don't have great soil but we have all winter to make it better. Our plan was to get plastic so we could start planting now but the greenhouse is so big and the plastic is expensive, sooooo we will wait and just be happy bettering the dirt. The dog in the picture is Ipet, he is are very sweet SPA Doberman. His owners were Japanese and he came with the name. Anyone speak Japanese?

Meet the chicks

Here are our girls! This picture is the first day we brought the chicks home. We had them in the house for a couple of weeks because I was afraid they would be cold at night. They were four or five weeks old when we got them, they are now at least twice as big! They wont be laying eggs until around Christmas, until then they are just getting fat eating all of our hundreds of grasshoppers. We have had a couple difficult learning experiences with our mobile coops. The first day they were out our dogs went crazy and broke into the coop and killed several of the chicks. It was horrible but we have made improvements and they are happy now running around inside. The dogs have calmed down, I don't know that they will ever all just be friends but we can hope! We have 86 chicks left and can't wait until the kids can come and name them. We are in the process of building a sandbag chicken coop. If anyone has experience with building with sandbags we would love a helping hand!