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Yesterday we started our duck flock by purchasing a pair of little ones. The two are from a local seller who was supposed to have three chicks available but sadly, they lost one to the heat. Now the babies are in Mama’s care. One, the yellow one, is a Pekin duck. The dark chick is a Cayuga mix. The sound the duck chicks make is so similar to the sound the chicken chicks make it is a little unnerving. Obviously, the grown-up sounds of either species are vastly different from the chicks, but to see those little duck beaks open up and produce a peep seems incongruous.
Nevertheless, they are here, and we are making a place for them, hopefully, we will build up to about six hens and a couple drakes, but we start with these – not knowing what we have at the moment because it is difficult to tell the sex of the little ones. If we end up with more males as we try to get the population in our enclosure right, I will simply process them for consumption. But it will take time, and multiple purchases, to get the number of hens and drakes we want to end up with. We already have several people requesting duck eggs when we have hens producing those eggs.
Nate and Cori are serving this week as interpreters and soul winners for the medical team currently at the clinic in Honduras. The teams this week are opticians and general practice doctors and staff. We were told that on Monday, they sawn and treated six hundred persons and of those contacts sixty persons accepted Christ as Savior. An amazing approach to making contacts with the local population by meeting a need that they have little or no access to on their own. Mama and I have talked about helping on one of these medical teams but so far, we have not been able to do so. Constraints of either time or finances have limited our availability. But we certainly are thankful for the ministry that connects professionals who will sacrifice both their time and money to meet this need. For Cori and Nate these are difficult but rewarding weeks of activity – from 7 am to 9 pm - when these teams come to work at the medical center in El Progresso.
Mama is getting her long-awaited crown set today. She has been struggling for nearly a month with the temporary crown so it will be nice to have the permanent crown placed. It should be much smoother and far better fitting than the temporary. After the appointment, which should not take too long, Mama and Victoria will travel to Denton to run some errands that require the stores they have access to there. Right now, we are trying to limit our travel as much as possible because of high gasoline prices, but some trips are unavoidable. Or at least they seem so. It is so easy to shop from home now that we would not have to go out much at all, but Mama and I are sort of old fashioned in that way. We like the outing as much as the ability to see what is available to us as we shop. We probably end up spending more that we would have otherwise, but we still like to do our shopping in person.
The past few days of cooler temperatures has been a blessing. By cooler I mean that the highs for several days have been in the mid-eighties. That beats by twenty degrees the highs we had for the week prior. Unfortunately, we will rise into the triple digits in a few days. So, the respite will be over. Our animals and plants have responded well to the cooler temperatures. Mama and I were given a reprieve in the daily watering of our struggling plants, but those ministrations will resume soon and linger for the next ten to twelve weeks. Not unexpected for us, but we will take any reprieve we get from the heat.
Lately I have been studying worms. I am happy to say that the initial bed we created for the red wiggler worms is doing well. We are keeping them fed with vegetable and paper products we would normally throw away. They seem to be content with the offerings because every week we are required to provide more feed to them. It is a win-win for us and them. I am also learning what it will take to improve the habitat in our garden to allow the worm population to grow there. Several of the routine practices we employ to prepare our garden for plants have contributed to the rapid decline in the soil and based on what I am reading it will take a couple years to restore the garden to productivity. Thankfully, we can start now to do so using simple, inexpensive techniques. I am looking forward to that.
Bella, who has been with us for a week will be picked up today by her family. I think she has lost a couple pounds in the time she has stayed with us. Victoria has taken her on walks with Kira and Kobe and Mama has been judicious in feeding her. For this week as I have worked from home, Bella will lay in the doorway of our bedroom and watch me between her short naps. It is fun having her around, but I am sure Gracie wants her roomie back.
Tonight, should be our last night of spraying chicken butts. Hopefully, it is helping.
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