Today is Papa's 53rd birthday!!!!! 

So once again we have a few more recruits to The Village…About 2 weeks ago, a teenage girl Blanca came to stay for a while. Apparently she wasn't getting along with her step dad, so her mom wanted to get her out of the house.  There are also some more single guys: Teofilo is 18 and his cousin Jose is 28. Teofilo has actually been here for about 3 weeks. This last weekend he went back to his house to check on his work there, where he met his drunk cousin on the side of the road. He offered to bring him to the Village, and give him work to do. So they have been working in the gardens and stuff like that around the land. 

Our numbers are now up to about 55, so every meal we stuff anywhere from 45-55 people on 3 6ft tables with the children out in the pavilion. So we are definitely awaiting the finished dining room!!! 

In the pavilion they have the concrete beams poured and are starting to form for the rest of the ceiling. This will probably take several weeks to prepare for the pouring of the ceiling/floor. Just to explain: the same slab of concrete will be the ceiling for the dining room and the floor for the upper level. 

This month we were able to sell some roosters, a turkey, and some rabbits. Which was a good step towards selling enough to pay for feed. Our daughter Liz is working at an agriculture fundraiser for us, so we were able to get stuff to make rabbit cages. 

Our neighbor has been wanting to sell us his 3 cows. It was more money than we had and more commitment then we can handle at this point. So we just bought one cow and a little heifer calf in trade for our 2 bulls, plus we gave 150 cash besides. The reason we wanted to by a cow, is because our 2 cows are dry at the present and this one will milk till the others have their calves. The heifer calf is still taking 3L of milk morning and evening, so we are only getting a gallon a day for us. But in 2 weeks we will ween the calf, and get more milk then. So we have 3 cows, all are pregnant, and will be having their calves at the beginning of the year. We also now have 2 heifer calves and 1 more bull calf. We are not getting big amounts of milk at this point, but we are building slowly and are quite happy with our beginning. Because of having milk, we used some of the fundraiser money to buy a fridge!!! We are pleased with our bargain: its a 16 cubit for only $465. 

So the seasons here are obviously changing. Last week we had our first days with drizzle and fog, with its dreadful freezing coldness. The roadsides have taken on a fall-ish sort of look. The brothers are planning cool season vegetables. 

The brothers are building another 2 rooms where the mudslide, last year, wiped out 4, and the girls and boys will be switching dorms as soon as they get it finished. The girls will feel a little safer in the middle of things instead of on the edge.