tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-60049563510519124072024-03-05T05:07:56.951-08:00Tips and Advice on all things Homestead relatedKristahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13161637062303799700noreply@blogger.comBlogger67125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6004956351051912407.post-7882219085919414592021-12-01T07:26:00.000-08:002021-12-01T07:26:20.529-08:00Stories from the Amazon - Memorable horses of my youthI wanted to remember the special things about some of the favorite horses who came through my life during my time in the Amazon so I decided to write some of their stories, hopefully in the order in which they came into my life.<br />
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First off was Nathaniel. He was the first of many horses I have owned, purchased with very hard earned money. I was given permission as an 11 year old to start saving up and earning money for a horse. I pocketed every penny, worked every job I could possibly find and didn't even buy candy or gum. I wanted a horse so bad. A week after m 14th birthday my dad took me to look at a broken down, retired cart horse with saddle sore on his back and it was love at first sight. He taught me so much about horses and horse ownership. I wanted to name him Napoleon after the grey cart horse in<br />The Black Stallion but decided Nathaniel was a better name since it means 'gift from God". I rode him, took care of him and loved him until we went on furlough when I was 16 years old. Nathaniel got sick and went down and since I wasn't even in the country, the other missionaries who were taking care of him called us very early one morning and said they though we should put him down. It broke my heart to not be there.<br />
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Then came Foxy. I've already written a bit about the fireball chestnut mare that she was. She taught me so much more about horses, how to keep my seat in the saddle, how to jump, gallop full speed, and a million other things. She threw me into the dirt more times than I can even remember. I had to tie her to a post and dance a jig with one foot in the stirrup every time I wanted to ride. Once I got on her and both feet firmly in the stirrups, I'd lean over and untie her and hang on for dear life because she would bolt and run super fast. If I stayed on, then she would settle down and we'd usually have a good ride, unless she threw me! One time she was galloping up a hill after a rain. The grass was slick. At the top of the hill was a huge tree with low hanging branches and she was heading straight towards it. Then I realized that I didn't have any sort of control over her speed. Finally at the last minute, I got her to turn and avoid the tree, but her feet slipped out from under her due to the speed she was galloping at and I went flying over her neck to the ground and fractured my wrist. Later, when I took my shirt off, there was a perfect muddy hoofprint in the middle of my back, but I had no bruise or mark or anything. God really protected me from getting trampled.We had many other similar adventures. We had such a close bond and she was a difficult horse to ride and all my friends who attempted to ride her were thrown. She's one of the few horses I've owned that I truly regret not hanging on to forever. Sadly I was at the point of life where I had to go to college and didn't know where life would take me so I sold her.<br />
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Charis came along during the time I had Foxy. She was a pretty 7/8ths dark bay small quarter horse mare, my first registered horse. I saw her at the annual fairgrounds and worked out a deal and was able to acquire her. She was very fun to ride for the first years I owned her. She had two foals for me, a colt who I named Cherokee and a filly who I named Tirzah. Then she never had any more babies. I had a vet examine her later and he told me she had cysts in her uterus. I believe him though because it seemed like she was in heat for 3 weeks out of the month and only had about one good week per month when her hormones weren't making her an angry dragon mare. The peculiar thing about Charis is that she never cantered/loped/galloped. Not even playing around loose in the pasture. I never ever saw her run. She could however trot as fast as any other horse could canter fast. One time when I was teaching kiddos riding lessons in Brazil, we took some horses down the trail to the creek for a fun outing. The kids took all the better horses and I was left to ride Charis. Several of them wanted to canter so we started, and try as I might I couldn't get her to go into a canter . We were all so amazed. It felt like we were flying and I had to just stand in the stirrups because there was no way to sit that big, long, fast trot, nor any way to post it either.<br />
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After Charis came my first stallion, Chancellor. I also found him at the fairgrounds. He caught my eye because he was an Appaloosa and I LOVED those horses with color like that. He was very flashy and perfectly marked and tall. I fell madly in love and found the owner and worked out a deal with him to purchase the horse. Chancellor was only a 3 year old, barely broke. Basically all he knew was to not buck you off, to go when you kick your legs and stop when you pull back on the reins and sort of how to turn. I boarded him at the fairgrounds and every day I would either ride my bike or take the bus and walk the rest of the way to go ride and train him. I figured out on my own how to get him to leg yield, side pass, rollback and a bunch of other cool stuff. He was a lot of fun and I rode him all over the place. He was the sire to the two babies Charis had. After I moved Chancellor back to our farm I'd take him on really long rides exploring different roads, places, and he had a comfy gait that was easy to ride. One time when some friends came to the farm for a barbeque they turned on some loud country music. Chancellor had been on the other side of the hill in the pasture. He got so excited to hear the music that he galloped over and around and around the covered area where we hung hammocks and grilled our food.. He remembered that style of music from his previous owners I guess and apparently he liked it!<br />
<br />Kristahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13161637062303799700noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6004956351051912407.post-37239991431759090172021-01-09T08:39:00.002-08:002021-01-09T08:39:31.478-08:005 Ways to make a little extra money from your homestead: <p>If you're living on a small farm or piece of land, or even if you're stuck in a city there are many ways to make a little extra money if you're willing to put some thought into it, some planning and a lot of hard work. Here are a few ideas that I've done on my small farm or have seen other people doing. Maybe you'll get a little inspiration from these tips.</p><p>Garden. If you have some land, and it doesn't even have to be much, there are many ways to make a little extra money with your garden. The obvious one of course is to grow extra produce and sell it to friends, neighbors, co-workers or set up a booth at a farmers market. My suggestion is to choose produce that you enjoy eating as a family. Don't grow eggplant if you don't like eating it, in other words. If you're new at gardening, don't try growing something super difficult. Look up your growing/planting chart and plant by the moon cycle and weather patterns to have more success. Do your research before you start. Example of my own experience is that I wanted to start a flower market garden to sell cut flowers, but I didn't research the types of flowers that would grow in my area and basically most of my flowers didn't grow, except zinnias. Those grew like crazy. Another aspect of the garden income would be to grow heirloom vegetables instead of hybrids. Save the seeds and sell those. You might need to get a license for that but it is one way to for sure save money if you save your own seed for future years of gardening. The cost of seeds adds up if you don't save every year. You can also grow starter plants and sell to others. We had great success selling herb seedlings every year at the farmers markets. You need to plan well ahead in order for your seedlings to be big enough at the right time to get them in the ground. If you have enough land to have a very large garden you could plant enough to offer a pick your own options and charge people to come pick their own produce. That is quite popular if you have the patience to deal with people coming and walking in your garden and if you live close enough to a large population. We tried it but didn't like that result, but our garden wasn't quite big enough. If you get really good at gardening, you could offer your services to other people in helping them to start their gardens, charge them for the mentorship or for the actual work depending on what you are capable of.</p><p><br /></p><p>Chickens are another way to make a little extra money, and of course there are several ways to utilize them for extra dollars. The main way of course is to sell the eggs. Another way that I've used which made me more money than just the eggs, was to hatch chicks and sell those. Of course that also involves purchasing an incubator. You could also hatch eggs for other people if you get the right kind of incubator. That has been quite good for my pocketbook. The other way to make money with chickens is to gather and bag up the manure and sell that to budding city gardeners who don't have access to manures. Chicken manure is a great way to add nitrogen to a garden soil. </p><p><br /></p><p>Cottage industry is a way to add value to your products. If you take your cucumbers and turn them into pickles you can make quite a bit more money for the cucumbers. Jams are an excellent way to add value to your fruits if you have an orchard or even some berry plants. If you're good at baking, making bread is a great cottage industry food that people love to buy. Another side of it would be the gluten free side of baking and making. So many people now days have gluten intolerances and there's a wide open market for home baked gluten free items. Each state has their list of foods that are able to be made and sold in a home kitchen before having to move up to commercial kitchen production. You need to look up the labeling requirements for your state and make sure not to make illegal cottage foods but this is definitely a way that I've used to add value to my hard work in the garden and orchard. </p><p><br /></p><p>Handmade cards is a way that I personally haven't tried much but have seen several people try and do well at. If you're creative and artistic you can gather flowers, press them and use them as ink stamps or add them to your cards and make very attractive cards that people would love to purchase. </p><p><br /></p><p>Foraging is a good way if you have lots of land or places with woods to forage on. You can find herbs, nuts, berries and probably lots of other edible things that you could use either to concoct remedies if you are into natural medicine or at the least you can use foraging to save money in your household. There are also so many things in the wild that would make great craft items. Think of cool shaped logs or sticks that could become lamps or lampshades or pieces of an art project. If you come across a good nut tree you can gather those and make pies to sell, or grind up the nut flour for baking. Benefits to foraging are that you get yourself out in nature and exercise. You do need to have the knowledge or do the research to know what to forage for as far as plants go.</p><p><br /></p><p>There are so many more options for making money from a homestead but these are a few that I've tried or seen other people try and have been successful in adding income. Place a comment below if you have tried any of these or if you have any other great ideas.</p>Kristahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13161637062303799700noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6004956351051912407.post-35717302784402339612021-01-06T09:00:00.001-08:002023-01-17T07:01:44.355-08:00Stories from the Amazon - Journey Across the LandsEvery year in my hometown, right before the annual fair would be a big parade which usually started at the river where the train station was because there was a large grassy area with plenty of room for the trucks to congregate. The train station was also at the very start of the main road through downtown. <div><br /></div><div>This particular story involves my horse Foxy. She was a wonderful, hotheaded, bright, red, chestnut mare. (all you horse people know what I'm saying!) I was probably around 17 or 18 at the time. Most of the horse people in our city knew who I was by that time and offered to haul my horse into town so I could ride in the parade that year. I loved riding in the parade, which was nothing like any parade you've seen here in the USA. It was mostly about 100 or more men and a small handful of their girlfriends who didn't really know how to ride, riding up main street. Most of the men were being showoffs and pretty much all of them had a beer in one hand the reins in another hand and sometimes they swapped the beer or the reins for a big bull whip which they would crack at random. Some of the horses would freak out with the whip cracking. Most of them were used to it by that time and didn't even notice. In the Amazon of course it is pretty much always hot. The parade would meet in the morning, maybe sometime around mid morning. There was never really a set time to start. Just when enough horses and riders and several big sound trucks playing loud Brazilian country music, called musica Sertaneja, and announcing the upcoming annual fair. I just loved this parade because I'd get to ride with other people, see lots of horses and ride in town. It was fun. And a long ride. It took the good part of about 2-3 hours to ride from the train station all the way up the main street and down a bunch of other streets to the outskirts of town where the fairgrounds were. Horses would be drenched in sweat. Riders would be quite a bit less enthusiastic than at the start. </div><div><br /></div><div>This year when we finally got to the fairgrounds of course all the truckers didn't want to haul the horse back 17 kilometers to the ranch for free and I didn't have money to pay a trucker so I decided I'd ride Foxy back to my home in town and put her in the back yard for overnight till I could figure out how to get her back to the ranch. In Brazil, most people have a house in town and a ranch out of town that they only visit but don't live at. This was the time before cell phones and there were no landline phones out at our farm so we did what most people did and lived in town. Our back yard was huge and plenty big enough for the horse to stay a day or two. </div><div><br /></div><div>After several days of trying to get enough grass hauled over to her by bicycle or armload, I decided it was high time to get her back out to the ranch. I had always wanted to do some endurance riding so I thought it might be nice to give that a try and ride her the 17 km back out to the ranch. Some people were going to be driving out to picnic at our ranch later that day so I arranged with them to bring me back home at the end of the day. I figured I could ride out there in a few hours. </div><div><br /></div><div>The scariest part of that whole ride was the part in town, getting from our house to the exit of the highway. I always knew Brazilians drive pretty crazy, but you never see crazy driving up close until you're riding a horse down the side of a very busy road with not much sidewalk to squeeze up on. But we made it to the highway finally and I decided to ride as far to the side of it as possible and thankfully there was plenty of room alongside the highway that it was a pretty relaxing and peaceful ride for the most part. Until we got to a section where it was a hill and they had cut the highway a little through the hill so I took the high part on the side, not seeing that they had cut the jungle down in that stretch. If you've never tried to walk through cut jungle I definitely recommend you never trying it on horseback! Poor Foxy. I felt so bad that I put her in that situation. She had to lift her legs up very high over logs and branches. I was off of her by now and trying to untangle vines and thorns from her. By the time I realized the predicament we were in, we were already halfway through and it would have been worse to try and turn around. I tried to see if there was a way down the cliff next to the highway but alas it was much too steep, a shear cliff at least 3 horses high. So we slowly made our way, very slowly, picking through the cut down trees and vines. Till finally we made it to the end and the cliff was only about one horse high and not quite so steep so with heart beating we slipped and slid down it and off the torturous cut jungle. Thankfully there was a creek at the bottom of the hill and we went and stood in it for a good long time to cool off, rinse the sweat off the poor horse and soothe her feet and legs before finishing our ride. </div><div><br /></div><div>We finally made it back to the ranch about 5 or so hours after we left the house. The friends who were going to bring me back home had long since left the ranch. I think I ended up catching the bus home or maybe hitching a ride with whoever stopped. It was quite the adventure and looking back I can't believe my parents let me do that! That was a good horse though, spunk and all. One of the best I've ever owned. She would do pretty much anything for me. </div>Kristahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13161637062303799700noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6004956351051912407.post-32331997629616553252021-01-05T22:20:00.005-08:002021-01-05T22:20:41.762-08:00Stories from the Amazon - Trash Dump People<p> This is the story of the Trash Dump People. People who live in the trash dump, building their houses out of pieces of trash, digging through the trash to find enough barely edible bits of who knows what to eat. Sorting the trash and collecting the recycle items, or things that could be used or fixed or sold. This is how they survived. </p><p>This story happened when I was working in southern Brazil as a missionary with Youth With a Mission, (YWAM). Our mission base was in a large, well populated city. Our base director found out that there was a group of people living in the trash dump and we started an outreach to them. He asked for volunteers to go work with these people and I felt God leading me to be one of the volunteers. Somehow we got large donations of food that was still in great condition but the local supermarkets couldn't sell anymore. I was in charge of once a week cooking a huge pot of food for the trash dump people. And when I say huge I don't mean your biggest pot you have at home. It was the biggest pot I'd ever had to cook anything in. It barely fit in the back of the car! We worked together to chop up onions, garlic, vegetables, rice and whatever meat we could find and cooked a big pot of it. Honestly it looked pretty bad but actually tasted great. We hauled that hot pot of food in the back of the car and pulled up to the trash dump every week. After a short time all the trash dump people knew the day we'd show up and were there lined up with their plates and bowls to get a fresh hot meal of decent non trash food. We got to know the people. There were moms with babies, small kids, teenagers, all ages of people in this community making their living digging through trash. </p><p>One day we went out there and there was a buzzard walking around near the people. I thought that was rather unusual so I asked and they told me that it was their pet. They had rescued it when it fell out of the nest or something and the buzzard seemed to think it was a pet dog. It followed them everywhere, never flew and ate beans and rice (which is the staple diet of Brazilians) The buzzard's name was Negao which means Big Black. I remember thinking how funny it was to keep a buzzard as a pet. The lady who sort of owned it was very proud of her pet!</p><p>There were some kids there living in the dump who had their own little house shacks, and they were so tickled that we were interested in them and they were eager to show us their "spot" and their tiny collection of recyclables they had gathered that day. One of them had a horrible cut on his foot that he had gotten from walking around in the trash basically barefoot. We told them about the love of God and tended their wounds and fed them, read God's word to them and prayed with them. I don't think I'll ever forget that time with the trash dump people.</p><p>As we live our lives in comfort and think we have things hard or bad, I often think of the trash dump people. Most of them were pretty content with their tiny shacks made of trash and their meager existence. I think about how God cares about each person on earth, no matter their status or situation. Doesn't matter if you have enough or not enough or if you live in a good house or a trash shack, God still cares and loves you and in the case of the trash dump people, God sent to them a bunch of young missionaries with a heart to serve and encourage them and hopefully show them the love and light of Jesus. I hope that those people were able to feel God's love through our actions. </p>Kristahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13161637062303799700noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6004956351051912407.post-44191297142782438072020-12-18T06:05:00.001-08:002020-12-18T15:33:45.953-08:00Stories from the Amazon - Jungle girl goes to ArgentinaThis story happened during a time in my life when I was working as a missionary with Cowboys With a Mission, a branch of Youth with a Mission, YWAM. The mission was based in Wyoming with another base in southern Brazil. I was to lead a team of missionary trainees on their outreach period of two months. I was so very reluctant and terrified to be the team leader actually but everyone felt like I was supposed to be the team leader, which I guess was good for me and caused me to grow and learn as well. Part of our outreach was in southern Brazil where the mission was based and then we were to go on to Argentina for the rest of the outreach period. I am fluent in Portuguese and was used to translating back and forth but Spanish was a whole other language. I can understand it well enough to get pretty much the whole conversation but not to be able to translate it word for word, like I can in Portuguese. My team got pretty frustrated with me on that aspect since they had been a bit spoiled by the word for word translations they got while in Brazil. <br /><div><br /></div><div>The first part of our time in Argentina was going by bus through Iguacu Falls, which we also got to stop and see. That is one of the most amazing places I've ever seen. The magnitude and power of the water coming over the falls is breathtaking and awe inspiring. One of my favorite memories from seeing the falls with this group of people was when we stopped for lunch, only we didn't really have lunch, only a few apples. There were coatimundis running around everywhere in that park. We sat in the lush manicured grass of the park and ate our apples with the coatimundis climbing into our laps trying to steal them from us. It was entertaining and I'm not sure I've ever been around wild animals so closely as to have one climb in my lap! </div><div><br /></div><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgPfETeG02DI5ywHXHvsEpqRJpO6Udi4M0CrKvnTBqYVCpDbBViLgsAu8-IwbEqTxu6h07kwBVu0lMsxV34Nv4fMWXxfgTB2lYJ_B5-G0fQSIr3Bfa8ZF4iBh3rLYZjKA3f-C0RcubrOw8/s1280/iguacu+falls.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="576" data-original-width="1280" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgPfETeG02DI5ywHXHvsEpqRJpO6Udi4M0CrKvnTBqYVCpDbBViLgsAu8-IwbEqTxu6h07kwBVu0lMsxV34Nv4fMWXxfgTB2lYJ_B5-G0fQSIr3Bfa8ZF4iBh3rLYZjKA3f-C0RcubrOw8/s320/iguacu+falls.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><div><br /></div>Our travels took us to Buenos Aires where we did some random community service jobs for some churches. During that stay, one day I was walking down the street and there was a tree next to the sidewalk and thousands of fruit had fallen to the ground. It was an apricot tree and I picked some up and ate them, never having eaten a fresh apricot or even seen a tree. It was the most delightful fruit I'd ever eaten and I filled my pockets and hands with what I could find on the ground. Even though it's a silly memory, I still think of that huge tree with all the apricots going to waste on the ground. </div><div><br /></div><div>Next we travelled to the plains area of Argentina and stopped at a very large cattle ranch. Very large as in you could ride a horse across the land all day at a lope and never reach a fenceline. It was amazing. We helped work the cattle and ministered to the ranch hands. </div><div><br /></div><div>Then my favorite part of this trip, and the whole point in telling this story, was our next portion of the trip where we went to a desert area of the country. We got to the pick up location and were transported out to the community by tractor and trailer. We piled up our bags and selves in the the trailer of the tractor and endured a very dusty ride for several hours out to the Puesto (post). Basically it was a house and little ranch. There were lots of these Posts within several hours walking distance of each other. We got to the first one and were greeted by a pair of kids. Apparently their parents hadn't gotten the memo that we were arriving and weren't there. We never found out exactly where they had gone but they never got back during the time we stayed there. The kids said we could spend the night out under the stars. We helped them gather firewood and do their work there and then we asked if we could pray with them. At this point another person had joined our team and did actually speak Spanish so that was very helpful in communicating. The kids told us it had been 11 months since it had rained and they asked for prayer that it would rain. Of course being the gung ho full of faith young missionaries that we were we prayed fervently for rain. That evening the kids cooked some form of delicious looking pizza over the fire oven and served it to us, one tiny piece per person. We then picked the flattest most comfortable looking sand to lay out our sleeping bags in. I had yet to unroll my sleeping bag which was a borrowed one that I had brought from the States. To my utter horror and dismay, when I unrolled it in the sand that night I discovered that instead of being a nice adult sized sleeping bad, it was a child's size one! And did you know that it gets really cold in the desert at night? Even in Argentina! But since that was all I had, I tried to scrunch my tall self into that tiny bag. Before we had even had time to really fall asleep, God answered our earlier prayers and the sky fell open and torrential rain started coming down. We all grabbed our sleeping bags and ran for the tiny house and the kids said we could lay our sleeping bags in the one room. So 13 of us (I think that's how many we were) crammed like sardines in the tiny one room house with a leaky roof and dozed the rainy night away. </div><div><br /></div><div>The next day we hiked for a few hours through the sand to another puesto and shared the gospel and prayed with the family. They asked for more prayer for rain and we once again prayed with them that God would send more rain. That second evening we were scheduled to leave and the tractor trailer came and got us in the midst of a second rain. It was so amazing to see God answer those prayers and that those people actually saw that prayer being answered like that. </div><div><br /></div><div>We had more stops at different places and ministering in churches and with different people. On our way back to Brazil to catch the flight back home, we had to go through Iguacu Falls again, only we missed the bus. Our bus from Argentina didn't arrive in time for us to catch the only bus leaving. So we ended up sleeping in the bus station on the floor. One of the team members left their nice shoes sitting in plain reach for someone to steal. They didn't listen to my suggestion to hide their shoes and sure enough, sometime during the night when everyone was dozing, the shoes got taken. </div><div><br /></div><div>I feel like now that I'm older and more experienced I would like to have a repeat on that trip, but I'm sure in so many ways it was a growing experience for me and for all of the team. And to see God work in such miraculous ways will never leave my memory. </div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div>Kristahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13161637062303799700noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6004956351051912407.post-17798216675268576872020-12-15T06:46:00.005-08:002020-12-15T06:46:42.929-08:00Stories from the Amazon - The Tale of a Million Feathers<p> This story happens one year around the beginning of dry season. One hot day in the Amazon, we were enjoying a relaxing get together with some friends at our farm. Meat was on the grill and the hammocks were strung. We had been doing some work on the farm and our reward was a little bbq, good Brazilian style. In the middle of the day, the heat on a full belly of food is like a tranquilizer, making sleep necessary in a softly swinging hammock with a muggy breeze blowing hot air in your face. </p><p>As we were all laying in hammocks or nibbling still on the meat chunks, a car pulled up to the farm gate and a man approached the gate carrying two boxes of chicks. We gestured for him to come in the gate and he did, carrying his boxes. He began his sales pitch by saying he had a box of laying hen chicks and a box of meat broilers. With very convincing words he soon talked us into the great deal he had for us and we bought the chicks. It took a little convincing on my part too to talk my dad into letting us get the chicks. I was after all working on a new chicken coop and we'd have lots of fresh eggs to sell or eat and lots of homegrown chicken to eat and sell. It was a great plan!</p><p>Excitement took over all sleepy nap thoughts and I rushed to put together a warm brooder type spot for 200 chicks. The best place I could come up with was the spare bathroom. The chicks in the layer hen box were darker orange and looked like little Rhode Island red chicks. The meat birds were yellow puffs and both types looked like what the guy said they were. I soon had them situated in their new living quarters with food and water and we all went back to laying in our hammocks. </p><p>About an hour or so later, the guy showed up at our gate again, this time carrying 3 boxes of chicks and a deal we just couldn't pass up. After all, what was 300 more chicks.... We could handle it! Not a problem.</p><p>So now the small spare bathroom held 500 little chicks. (whatever possessed us) A few of them didn't make it through the first days in the bathroom in rather overcrowded conditions, but then I got them a better place and they started to grow and a few more died from random problems, but then they all evened out and got to growing. Then one day I was watching them and noticed that all of the chicks that were supposed to be the layer birds seemed to have lost their orange color and were yellow chicks. Then they grew a bit more, and I noticed that all of them seemed to be turning out to be roosters. Then they stopped growing and started crowing.</p><p>To my great horror, I realized that we had been totally taken by the sleazy travelling salesman. He sold us 500 all the same, bantam roosters!!! None of them were laying hens, none were meat birds. All were tiny little roosters, so small you had to eat an entire one just to feel like you had a meal. Their drumsticks were the size of a thumb. </p><p>We decided that we didn't want to keep feeding these horrid tiny creatures so we called all our friends together and had a butcher day, which actually ended up being a butcher week. It took us about 3 or 4 days of work and an assembly line to get them all hand processed. We didn't have a fancy plucker or anything to make that job easier. It was hands on, everyone doing something. We filled a chest freezer with tiny bantam roosters and we ate those things for almost a year. We sold a small handful to friends, we gave away more that I can even remember and we ate tiny chickens for so long that by the time we finished them we were so sick of chicken we didn't want to eat it for a long time after!</p><p>They were tasty once you got past the thumb sized drumsticks, but goodness we wanted a fat juicy beef steak. Pretty sure my family wanted to disown me after that adventure and we all learned our lesson (I think?) about travelling salesmen!</p>Kristahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13161637062303799700noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6004956351051912407.post-42596689437617096102020-07-22T06:26:00.000-07:002020-07-22T06:26:00.739-07:00Recipe from the Farm - Cucumber Corn SaladI came up with this yummy salad recipe yesterday while making lunch for the family and trying to avoid our standard go to salads. It was fresh and delicious.<br />
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Cucumber Corn Salad<br />
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Ingredients:<br />
3-5 medium sized cucumbers (I used 3) sliced thinly<br />
Small sweet onion, chopped chunky<br />
About 4 sprigs of cilanto<br />
1 Avocado<br />
3-5 cobs of corn (or 1-2 cups )<br />
1 Lime<br />
Salt and Pepper to taste<br />
Garlic powder if desired<br />
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How to put it together:<br />
Slice the cucumbers thin and add to salad bowl.<br />
Chop the onion thin or chunky ( I did chunky).<br />
Remove the skin and seed from the avocado and slice up into the salad bowl.<br />
Add chopped cilanto and the juice of the lime.<br />
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If you're using cobs of corn, cut the corn off the cob, or if you're using a can of corn, drain the water. Using around 2-3 tablespoons of Olive Oil (or other oil) Place the corn in a skillet with the oil and saute it until it looks golden brown and cooked. Stir while sauteing. Add the corn to the cucumber/cilantro/avocado. Mix well and add salt and pepper and garlic powder to taste.<br />
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Enjoy!<br />
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Kristahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13161637062303799700noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6004956351051912407.post-23451853067575022002020-03-23T08:15:00.002-07:002020-03-23T08:15:56.173-07:00Gangrene MastitisThis is a nasty subject but since this is a homesteading tips blog, and I can't find too much on the internet about gangrene mastitis in goats I figured it would be a great idea to share my experiences in hopes that it will help someone with their goat care and husbandry and possibly save a goat's life.<br />
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My case started out two years before now. One of my favorite does, a heavy milker with a beautiful udder, was acting off one morning. I took her temperature and it was high. I milked her as usual and everything seemed ok. I didn't notice anything off about the milk. I decided the temperature was high enough to warrant a trip to the vet. The vet examined her and decided that she just had a upper respiratory infection. He gave her antibiotics, banamine and b-12 dose. When we got home I kept an eye on her and she just didn't seem to perk up any. By evening I knew something was terribly wrong. I noticed that her udder seemed cool and blueish. Never having seen anything like that before I had no idea what was going on with her. I ran to google and discovered that she most likely had gangrene mastitis. Everything I could find about it was negative and disheartening. I rubbed essential oils on her but there was nothing I knew how to do until the next morning,. I tried to get ahold of the vet who had treated her the previous day but he wasn't in the office that day. So I ended up taking her to a different vet and he immediately said it was gangrene mastitis and he would put her on IV antibiotics and lance the udder. Heartbreakingly, she died on his operating table. I feel like if the first vet had correctly diagnosed her or even if I had known about this, maybe she could have been saved.<br />
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Fast forward to this week. I have a very special doe who came all the way from North Carolina. She was due to kid with her first kids. All had been going good, her first freshener udder was beautiful. Friday evening I was going to farmers market so the girl who helps me did the milking. I always check on everyone when I get home and I noticed this doe laying in a certain spot and not eating. I figured she was just sleeping since it was late at night. The next morning she was still lying in the same exact spot, and when I looked closer, one side of her udder was a tiny bit blueish and cooler to the touch. I immediately called a new vet that someone had recommended to me and hauled her over to him. He started her on extra high doses of two kinds of antibiotics plus some thiamine to help her. That night, Saturday, she wouldn't eat or drink anything I offered her. Sunday morning she aborted her twin kids. They were both dead already when I found them. But she almost immediately started to eat and she drank a whole bucket of feed. However, even after a dose of oxytocin she was not able to pass the afterbirth. We went back to the vet on Monday morning and he got about half of the afterbirth out of her, flushed her uterus and then decided to infuse the gangrenous side of her udder with Chlorhexidine in order to cause the tissues to slough off faster.<br />
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Two weeks have passed since her first diagnosis of gangrene mastitis. The upper part of her udder is hard, as is the teat part. There is still some soft tissue in the middle of that side. It smells awful and is black and oozing. The antibiotic treatment is over. Now we just wait for the next thing to happen, Which I'm not sure what that is.... Hence this blog story. I'm currently milking out her good side every evening. She eats and licks me while I do that. I'm her baby now since she lost hers.<br />
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Her udder completely dried and got hard and began to separate. As it separated over the course of several weeks I sprayed the inside with several different options of medicines but the one that seemed to work the best was one called Underwood's. It helped heal the healthy section of udder as the dead part dislocated itself. I'll include a sequence of pictures. Not for the faint of heart.<br />
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These pictures were when the udder first started to die and I was still milking out the black dead gangrene fluid.,<br />
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The dead side beginning to separate from the healthy side.<br />
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That was the progression of the udder dying off and finally falling off.<br />
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Fast forward to a year later and she was all healed and successfully had a healthy doe kid and is currently milking very well on her one teat. Her nickname has become Uniboob.<br />
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I hope that this little blog post might help someone who has a doe with gangrene mastitis. The most important thing and what saved this doe's life is a very quick diagnosis and strong antibiotics from the vet. If you suspect your doe might be having gangrene mastitis and you want to save her life, don't delay. Rush her to the vet as soon as possible.<br />
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Best wishes and happy Goat Farming!!Kristahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13161637062303799700noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6004956351051912407.post-30900166455179510812020-01-19T23:10:00.002-08:002020-01-19T23:10:53.801-08:00Stories from the Amazon - Crazy Bull part 2If you read the previous story about Crazy Bull Part 1, then you might have a little idea of how this one goes... We raised rodeo bulls at our farm in northern Brazil. I taught horseback riding lessons and my husband rode bulls, did bull fighting and stock contracted and we even put on a couple of rodeos (but that's another story). Some bulls worked out and bucked good but others were crazy and only wanted to kill the one crazy enough to try to ride them. With one string of bucking bulls we had, you really could only go out in the pasture on horseback if you wanted to come back alive. It was a daunting way to earn a living.<br />
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One particular bull was a very big and mean to the bone Charlois/Brahman cross (kinda like the other one from story Part 1) They maybe even came from the same farm, who knows... They both didn't buck very well and tried to mush you into the ground if you fell off them wrong, or even if you fell off them right too. We decided that this one should also go to the butcher. Unfortunately, this bull had the uncanny 6th sense that something was wrong the day we tried to corral him into the pen. Instead of following the other bulls into the arena, he headed off the opposite direction, down the road that ran through the middle of our 300 acre ranch.<br />
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The road went about halfway through the property and ended at a creek, where we had our swimming hole. Past the creek was about 100 acres or so of beautiful virgin jungle, never cut down by man. Huge, towering trees, monkeys swinging in the tops of the trees, jaguars, multitudes of snakes, birds, butterflies and other creatures. There was a path through this jungle that went to the end of our property and behind us lived a little old man. He lived by himself on his probably squatted land where he raised his own food and occasionally he would come through our path to get the the highway to go to town. He was a sweet, friendly old man. Sometimes I'd ride my horse there to check on him and see if he had any cacao fruit that I could eat. We didn't have any cacao on our farm and it's so very delicious to eat the fruit part. In case you don't know, the seeds are then dried and processed into chocolate.<br />
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Before the road got to the creek, there was a little field, very surprising field in the middle of the jungle. It had been there since we bought the ranch. Trees never grew there, just wild tall grass. I rode my horse back there many times, exploring and discovered that there was a path into the next door neighbor's back pasture. The fence was long since rusted and fallen apart. Occasionally I'd ride back there too and I probably knew those back fields better than anyone of the other neighbors.<br />
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Well, this rank bull ran down the road and discovered the field and the way into the neighbor's land. For a week, the guys would take the horses and try to herd the bull back up to the front of the property where the rest of the herd and the arena and barn were. The instant the bull spotted anyone on horseback, he would dive into the thick jungle and there was no way to get him out. This went on for a whole week. I kept telling them they should take the dog and he would get the bull out of the jungle.<br />
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I raised Australian Cattle Dogs who were bred to work. I had a dog trainer friend who had trained my dogs to work cattle and he could get those dogs to do pretty much anything. It was amazing to watch them work, especially the rank bulls we had. The dogs could be sent far out into the pasture and herd the bulls all the way into the corral and we didn't have to do the work. The reward for their labor was a nice swim in the water tank. They loved it. Max and Melita were the dogs' names. But my husband didn't like Max and Max didn't much care for him either and also wouldn't listen to him, so the hubby refused to take the dog.<br />
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Finally after a week of not getting the bull, my horses were getting exhausted and the guys were also getting pretty tired. The dog trained came out for a training session and I asked him if he would go out the next day with the dog and the guys. He agreed and the next day all the guys, about 5 of them including the dog trainer, took the horses and Max. At about dark, which in the Amazon is 6 pm, the guys came wearily back with the horses and no dog and no bull. And boy was I hopping mad! I told them we were going out again at the crack of dawn and we were going to get my dog and shoot that bull and at that point I didn't even care if we got the meat from the bull. They told me what had happened and why they lost my dog. Apparently Max had gotten the bull out of the jungle in less than 5 minutes and they shot the bull but the bullet didn't kill the bull and he took off running into the deep jungle. Max, who had never heard a gun, got spooked and also took off into the jungle.<br />
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At the crack of dawn, the horses were saddled and a plan was made. We decided to split up. Husband and two guys were going to go the back way and see if the bull was in the back part of the fields and the dog trainer and I were going to go by way of the side of the highway and see if we could find Max. We went along whistling and calling for him. Finally two ranches down (probably at least two kilometers) we found Max at the neighbors house. He was sure glad to see me too. We were up on top of a hill at a place where one fence ended at another fence. We decided to wait for the other guys up there. As we were looking down the hill into the herd of the neighbor's cattle, we saw the ornery bull, grazing happily with the cows. The dog trainer had the gun and decided to ride down real quiet like and see if he could get a good shot at the bull. I opted to stay at the top of the hill with my horse and Max and wave down the other guys when they showed up.<br />
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The trainer rode down very quietly and I watched him lift the rifle and take careful aim but nothing happened. No shot fired. And the bull bolted again. Only the jungle was pretty far from him and the dog trainer stayed really still with his horse and the bull settled down to graze again. Once again the same exact thing happened and the bull bolted again. By this time the other guys showed up and they were galloping around trying to prevent the bull from getting to the jungle. To my great horror, all of a sudden the bull starts coming up the hill to where I'm standing. I started making a plan, knowing that a fence meant absolutely nothing to that rank creature. I decided the horse could fend for it's own if needed and I'd grab Max and run out of the path of the bull. He kept coming, closer and closer. With the four guys hot on his tail. Full speed in my direction! When he was about 100 feet or less from me and the fence, the dog trainer took another shot and this time the gun fired the bullet and it went in at a place that actually worked and the mean bull fell to his knees just a few feet away. It was terrifying and horrifying all at the same time. I felt sorry for him but relieved that he was finally done fighting. We called the butcher who came right away and picked him up. The horses got a week of rest and extra rations and the dog was appreciated by all forever after that!Kristahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13161637062303799700noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6004956351051912407.post-60014100333381197042020-01-19T22:44:00.001-08:002020-01-19T22:44:21.710-08:00Stories from the Amazon - The night I almost met a famous person!This adventure happened during the time when I was in my early twenties and living in southern Brazil in a beautiful city called Maringa. I was working as a missionary with the organization called Youth With a Mission (YWAM) I worked with that organization for around 5 years or so in various parts of the world and doing an interesting variety of tasks. At this point I was doing rodeo ministry, where we would follow several rodeo circuits in southern Brazil and share the gospel, hold Bible studies for them, help in any way behind the chutes, pray with the cowboys before their rides, go with them in the ambulance if they got hurt and many other things. Since I also knew two languages I was called upon to translate for any English speaking cowboys as well.<br />
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One fine afternoon while resting at the mission base, one of my friends and coworkers, Lene, came running up to me very excitedly and told me that she just found out that two famous Brazilian country singers (ZeZe de Camargo e Luciano) were staying at a hotel one block away from our mission base and they were going to be performing at the local county fair that evening. She explained that she wanted to tell them about Jesus and she had a plan as to how we could get close enough to them to talk to them! I was a little skeptical since this duo was very famous and they had bodyguards and lots of security and the line of fans trying to get in to see them was two blocks long! <br />
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Lene suggested that we pretend I was an American tourist and didn't speak Portuguese and she would be my translator and we would get into the hotel and try to bump into the Duo. (I know, pretty deceitful, but kinda true) I thought it was a crazy idea but by this time her excitement had become contagious so I agreed. We dressed up and drove the one block to the hotel. The valet took my car and escorted us right past the huge long line of fans into the hotel. We explained in our English/Portuguese combo that we would like to find out about reservations and tourist info. Somehow we made it up an elevator to the very floor where this singing duo were. They were just leaving to head to the fair for their evening performance. Lene ran up to them to give them a tract but they guard wouldn't let her and she ended up giving it to him instead.<br />
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We decided to follow them to the fair and try again from there. So I drove us to the fairgrounds in my little car. As I found a parking spot I confess I did a bad job of parking so I tried to restart the car to fix it and the car wouldn't start. I had mild misgivings about this but figured we could work that out later.<br />
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As we were buying our tickets to get into the fairgrounds, a very distraught lady in high heels and sketchy clothing came up to the ticket booth, begging to be let in because her boyfriend was playing in the band and she needed to see him. Of course the ticket lady didn't believe her at all and refused to let her in. Lene and I discussed it and decided to offer a ticket to this frantic lady if she would get us in to talk to the band guys. The lady of course agreed and we bought her ticket, which meant we needed another. Lene stayed back to get another and I followed frantic lady who started running at full speed! She stopped at some steps to shed her high heels. It was the craziest thing ever but I kept up with her sprint and poor Lene followed at a much slower pace. I didn't know whether to laugh hysterically or what. The frantic lady got to the back door of where the band was and she was let in. We reminded her that she was supposed to let us in too, but by that time she was refusing to even look at us. We found out later she was the trumpet player's girlfriend. We passed tracts out to whoever would take them from us and finally we wandered around and managed to talk with the cousin to the duo.<br />
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Eventually we decided it was time to go home and that we weren't going to actually get to talk to them. The car started right up and we went on our way home. Until we were about halfway back to the base..... Then the car lost power. I tried everything but eventually we figured out that if we turned the lights off, the car would go real slow. We made it home past midnight by the light of the moonlight!<br />
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It was such an adventure full of adrenaline Years later after we had parted ways and done different things in the mission field, I got a letter from Lene . She had moved up to northeastern Brazil and had attended a church conference where there was a really good trumpet player. In the course of her conversation with him, she found out that he had been the trumpet player for that duo, with the frantic girlfriend! Somehow I feel that our prayers and attempts to witness and reach them were a little water on the seed of salvation for that man.<br />
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Finding that out impacted me in such a deep way. Even if we think our attempts and hard work and whatever isn't working, God still sees and waters and grows and eventually the fruit will come. We can't give up on doing good works and especially on doing to work God has called us to.<br />
I hope this little story encourages you in your walk with God!Kristahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13161637062303799700noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6004956351051912407.post-70141930783714902012019-09-30T06:25:00.000-07:002019-09-30T06:25:07.685-07:00Stories from the Amazon - Twitter PitterThere is a type of bird in Brazil that is very pretty, and sings beautifully. They are called <a href="https://neotropical.birds.cornell.edu/Species-Account/nb/species/paltan1/overview" target="_blank">Palm Tanagers</a>. One day my brother, who was probably 9 or so, was playing with his friends at one of the mission base houses. There was a palm tanager nest in the rafters of their porch. One little baby bird got scared and fell out of the nest. For some reason they didn't, or maybe couldn't, put it back in the nest and my brother John brought the baby home to me, since everyone at that time knew me as the animal person who would take in anything and care for it.<br />
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We weren't quite sure what a baby palm tanager would eat but we figured that fruit was probably a good option so I began to feed the baby chunks of papaya and banana and other fruits.He loved the fruit. He would sit there doing a happy dance with his mouth open as I shoved small chunks of fruit down his throat. We named him Twitter Pitter. Twitter Pitter grew his feathers and bonded greatly to me. He could be anywhere in the house and if he saw me he would fly to my shoulder and sit and discuss life with me, and beg for food too. I loved that little bird so much. He was a very pretty greyish green color.<br />
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After a while, it came time for us to come to the United States for our furlough. I never wanted to come on furlough and I cried and threw fits and begged and pleaded to stay home but of course it never worked. We arranged for someone to care for all my animals which at that time of my life was one dog, one cat and Twitter Pitter. Our furloughs were always around a year long and since I never fit in and we traveled across the country and lived out of our suitcases for a good part of that time I didn't look forward to them. The only good thing was getting to see the grandparents and get spoiled by them as well as seeing aunts, uncles and cousins.<br />
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When we finally returned to Brazil, I was so excited to see Twitter Pitter again, as well as my dog, Lobo and the cat. My heart was broken though to discover that Twitter Pitter had died not too long after we left. The people who were taking care of him said they thought he died of a broken heart. He became very depressed and wouldn't eat and passed away. That of course made it all worse and many bitter tears were shed. To make matters worse, a week or so before we were to return home, my dog ran away from the people who were taking care of him, never to be seen again. The bitter sacrifices of a missionary kid.....Kristahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13161637062303799700noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6004956351051912407.post-18668381952405412522019-09-02T07:17:00.000-07:002019-09-02T07:17:45.786-07:00Stories from the Amazon - Took the ToucanWhen this story happened, I was a teenager and well known on the mission base as being the crazy animal lover kid. Actually, when we left the mission base and moved into the city, our old house became known as the Farm House, which really tickled my funny bone.<br />
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My parents and almost all the other families on the mission base were full time missionaries. However, occasionally, other people would come on short term mission trips. Some would stay a year, some only a few weeks. We kids, always looked forward each summer to seeing if any new people would arrive and what they would be like. Some of them we really liked, like the short termer who would always fix my toy horse's broken legs, or the other one who would cook up some tasty homemade tortillas for the gang of kids. One summer, an older lady arrived and she went to one of the Indian villages to spend a few weeks. We kids never really got to meet her because she didn't spend much time on the base. When she arrived back to the mission base she brought back with her a baby Toucan which she rescued from the Indians.<br />
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If you're an Indian, you are surrounded by jungle so to survive you pretty much hunt and fish. Some villages cleared a bit of jungle and planted something called Manioc which is sort of like a potato, except some varieties of it are poisonous at one stage of the harvest. The Indians had a way to extract the poison and turn it into one of their staple food items, called farinha, alongside whatever meat they could hunt. Usually the meat hunted was monkeys and birds, with the occasional tapir or deer. They were expert marksmen and could shoot a bird down out of the tops of the trees with an arrow. Sometimes the birds, or monkeys, came with babies. Whenever that happened they would bring the baby home and raise it. Usually the baby turned into dinner later but occasionally you'd find someone with a pet monkey.<br />
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Well, this short termer felt bad for the pretty little juvenile Toucan and bought it from the Indians. But of course she couldn't take it back to the United States so whoever she was staying with told her about me. She called me up and asked me if I'd take care of the Toucan and let him go whenever he got his wing feathers in and was able to fly. I agreed and brought Took home. He (or she, not sure) was beautiful! I'd never thought too much about toucans and their big beaks. I always thought those beaks would be heavy for some reason. But his beak was so lightweight and he would take the chunk of fruit and toss it in the air and gulp it down mid-air. It was very fascinating to watch. He was sweet and would let me pet him and hold him.<br />
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Finally the day came when I felt like he was old enough to be released. I opened the cage door and after a short while Took ventured out and stayed around my brother's orchid collection, which was near the cage. He came back and forth, returning to eat his daily fruit, for several days. Then about the third or fourth day of the cage door being open, I saw another toucan flying around in the tops of the palm trees near our house. That was the end of Took. He joined up with the wild toucan and off they went. It was happy-sad. I'd see him sometimes flying around with his new mate. He never came back but he would squawk at me if he ever saw me walking under the palm trees.<br />
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I'm pretty sure <a href="https://neotropical.birds.cornell.edu/Species-Account/nb/species/whttou1/overview" target="_blank">this </a>is the kind of <a href="https://neotropical.birds.cornell.edu/Species-Account/nb/species/whttou1/overview" target="_blank">toucan </a>he was.Kristahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13161637062303799700noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6004956351051912407.post-26506565814359238782019-08-18T10:24:00.000-07:002019-08-18T10:24:01.485-07:00Stories from the Amazon - Horse in the HouseFoxy was my beloved second horse, a chestnut fireball, full of energy, challenging, fun and I loved her maybe more than any other horse I've ever had. She is probably the horse who made me the rider I am today and taught me so much about communication between horse and rider. We had many adventures together. This particular one happened after probably a year or two of owning her when I was around 17 or 18.<br />
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Every year in our town, before the annual state fair, there would be a parade down main street. They would usually always start by the train station by the river. Our town was a river town, right on the banks of one of the larger tributaries of the Amazon river. It was called Rio Madeira, or Wood River (translated). Years before I was born they harvested rubber out of the jungles and there was a train that carried the rubber to wherever they took it. This was long before my time though and all that remained was a train station museum and some old tracks and a few really old trains with trees growing up out of them. It was right next to the river and eventually they turned it into a very pretty park area where you could go sit and watch the river or eat dinner on one of the floating boat restaurants.<br />
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The area was large and all the local ranchers and their wannabe cowgirl-friends would saddle up horses and ride up the main street all the way to the fairgrounds. It was quite a long ride and took most of the day. Lots of beer and drunk people would be happening as well. I enjoyed it because it gave me the opportunity to ride my horse in a new place and with lots of people and to show off my true cowgirl skills a little too, if I must be honest. To be able to participate in this ride you had to first get your horse into town. Most of the guys with the trucks for hauling livestock were more than happy to grab your horse from your farm on their way into town. Getting the horse back to the farm was the big problem... but we'll get to that part in a little bit.<br />
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This particular year, someone had brought Foxy into town for me to be able to ride in the parade. Since I was becoming very well known in the ranching and cowboy circles in our town they all wanted me to participate. Probably also because I was the pretty American girl who had a way with horses. Anyway, I saddled her up along with everyone else and tried to avoid the craziness of that many horses in a crowded area and finally the parade started. It was a crazy mess. Every year was the same. The huge sound trucks were blaring loud Brazilian country style music. Sweaty horses were walking, trotting, prancing, nervously jingling ill fitting bits in their mouths. There always was at least one or two drunk guys showing off their skills with the bullwhip. Some horses didn't mind the loud cracking whip. Some took off down the pavement with their riders hanging on for dear life. Some people had fat, expensive, purebred stallions. Most had average or below average horses in all ranges of thin to fat, well kept to just pulled out of the burr field. Some horses had anywhere from one to three riders. Every third horse you saw was a stallion but I never saw any horse fights and surprisingly very few accidents or injuries.<br />
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Crowds of people would line up on main street to watch us parade past. I loved the excitement of it and seeing all the horses. Eventually, hours later, we would finally arrive at the fairgrounds. Horses all covered in sweat and tired and very well mannered by that time.At that point everyone would now have to figure out how to get their horses back to the ranches. Some people would board them at the fairgrounds for the duration of the fair so they could ride around during fair time and show off or attract a girlfriend. Some would haul them home right away. I decided this particular year to ride Foxy back to our house in town and from there figure out how to get her back to our ranch.<br />
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We had a huge back yard and the grass was tall and needed to be mowed down anyway so I thought it would work out great. Now our house in town was a half hour bicycle ride from the fairgrounds, if you went pretty fast. It was pretty much on other side of town. So after a bit of a rest and a cold soda, I hopped back on her and we started for home, leaving all the excitement behind. Traffic wasn't too bad and we took the roads that were a bit less traveled. We arrived at the house around late afternoon to discover nobody was home and all the doors were locked, including the side gate that went around to the back yard. Thankfully I had a house key and was able to get in but not a gate key. I had Foxy on the front varanda area but it was rather slippery cement and I didn't think that was too good of an idea.<br />
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Our house was very large, by Brazilian standards, as it used to be a cheap hotel. It had a very long hallway with rooms on either side, a small living room in the front and a small kitchen in the back. I decided that since nobody was home, the best way to get Foxy to the back yard was through the house. Cautiously, I led her down the hallway and into the kitchen, a little terrified lest she spook at something and end up with some huge disaster. Thankfully she was well behaved, or maybe just exhausted, and she quietly walked through the house and out the back door. She happily munched down the tall grass in the back yard and my family was rather horrified when I confessed to having the horse in the house!<br />
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After a few days of riding her around town, it was time to take her back to the ranch. Being mostly without money and now all the guys with trucks would only take her back there for a rather large sum of money, I decided adventure would be the solution and I'd ride her back to the ranch. It was 17 kilometers out of town, but I still had to ride her through town on rather busy streets to get to the highway where it started the count for 17 km. I told the family my plan and someone was going out to the ranch that day and they thought I might arrive around noon at which point they would be leaving the ranch. I started out at the crack of dawn that day. My saddle was strapped down with extra rope, hoof pick, pocketknife and water bottle. The cars whizzed by us, honking their horns. When we finally got through town to where the highway started we both were drenched in sweat already but at least now we could ride off the pavement and on the side of the highway where it might be a little more peaceful. And indeed it was very nice at the start. We traveled at mostly a walk with some trotting on the good stretches. Until we got to a section where they had chopped the jungle down along the side of the highway. I had chosen to go up this little hill a ways off the highway and didn't see that the jungle was chopped down at the top. By the time we got up there and started picking our way through the fallen trees and vines, I realized that was a huge mistake. Poor Foxy did her best to get through it. I had to get off and help her over trees and cut vines that jumped up and wrapped around her legs. It was very slow and hard going. Unfortunately there was a cliff on the highway side of that mess and I couldn't see any way to get down and no way to turn around either. After a long time we finally made it to the end of the cut jungle. If you've never seen cut jungle and you get a chance to see it, never attempt to walk through it! It's more difficult than any ninja warrior course. At the end of the stretch, there was still the cliff but it was a little shorter and we slid down it into a small creek. Thankfully we both stood in the creek and I splashed water on us both and refreshed us. We finally made it to the ranch by about mid to late afternoon tired to the bone. My ride home had left already so I had to hitchhike back to town.That was the only time I ever attempted that ride from town to the ranch and it was very memorable. We were so tired for days but that little horse took good care of me on that ride.Kristahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13161637062303799700noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6004956351051912407.post-39767415165936885022019-07-29T13:46:00.002-07:002019-07-29T13:46:49.826-07:00Stories from the Amazon - Swamp Kids!Missionary kids are a very unique type of people. There are actually books and studies out about them, although I haven't read too many. Actually any kid who grows up in a country that isn't their parents' native country is called a third culture kid. Missionary kids understand each other. They have a special bond that only they have. We didn't fit in except amongst ourselves. We weren't Brazilian and we weren't American. We didn't have the new clothes, the boyfriends, the shopping malls, the cliques, the video games, the tv and the school clubs. We had experiences that nobody else had. We had depth of knowledge, character and maturity. We knew several languages from a young age. We had seen things and experienced things that most people never would. It was very hard as a kid trying to fit in and find my identity, purpose and destiny. (I finally did, I think) Now I appreciate that childhood and everything that I experienced. Then, not quite so much.<br />
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But this story isn't about third culture kids. It's about swamp kids. We were our own little gang. Mostly it was me and my brother, John, and his best friends Paul and Tim, and my best friends Naomi and Marva and then there were the younger ones and the ones that didn't live on the mission base all the time. But every day we would get together and explore, play and imagine up things to do. One of our favorite things to do was the swamp!<br />
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The mission base had a road that went sort of in a circle and all our houses were around the road. The road was about a mile or so long. There was a mechanical shop for the men to fix the vehicles. There was a little carpenter shop to saw up wood for house repairs. The termites pretty much ate everything so repair was a constant battle. Of course our other favorite place was the swimming pool. We all learned to swim there. It always seems so big and wonderful, until I went back as an adult and saw just how small it really was! There was also the office building where all the missionaries had a quiet cubicle to work on the Bible translations. And our school was there as well. Missionary teachers would come for the school year or sometimes for more than one school year. We all pretty much had class in one or two rooms and it also had a little library. But in the middle of everything was the swamp! It was full of mystery, excitement and adventure for us kids.<br />
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The road that went around the mission base had a steep hill that went down over the swamp. On the side facing the middle of the mission base there was almost a little swimming area, if you were brave enough. On the outside part of the swamp was the "scary part". It was darker, denser and more mysterious. One day in our adventuring we decided to explore the scary side. We decided the best way would be to build a raft and float out there like Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn. So we dragged some logs out of the jungle that we thought looked like they might float. We lashed them together with vines and got ready for the sink or float trial run. It barely floated and we discovered that only about 2 of us at a time could stand on it before it started going under. We took turns and poled the little raft around through the dense swampy vegetation. It was very interesting, exciting and probably more dangerous than we knew at the time. We did that until finally the logs got so waterlogged they wouldn't float anymore.<br />
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There was a little bridge that went across the swamp that started at a house real close to my house and ended up right behind our school. Sometimes I'd go to school that way if I was running late. It was one small board wide, mostly only fit one foot at a time. The boards were attached to 4x4 posts which were stuck into the swamp. They sagged in the middle and kind of bounced if you ran on them. My favorite thing to do was try to run across the bridge, which was really quite long, going all the way from one side to the other. There was a small tree right about in the middle. All the kids got good at their balancing in order to be able to run across as fast as possible. One day we all converged at the tree and decided to explore the middle of the swamp. We divided up into two groups, one for each side of the bridge. We all jumped in and started wading around in the mucky swamp, trying to stay out of the mud by jumping from tuft of swamp grass to the next tuft, sometimes missing, sometimes getting into a patch of razor grass which cut just like the name indicates. We discovered all sorts of interesting swamp creatures (but thankfully we didn't run into any anacondas or other snakes) . At the end of our adventure we were covered in mud from head to toe.<br />
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At the swimming edge of the swamp there was a little creek that fed into the swamp. It had cool, clear water and my brother used to go there and catch beautiful tropical fish for his aquarium. Sometimes we would go catch a little bigger fish and make a small fire and roast them and eat them. They were only bite sized but it was a fun thing to do in the shady area next to the small creek.<br />
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In the Amazon there are two seasons, rainy and dry. In the rainy season it rained pretty much every day and the rivers flooded. The swamp also flooded and our favorite thing was when it flooded over the road. We would get on our bikes and ride down the hill as fast as possible into the water at the bottom of the hill. The other kids would stand by to get sprayed by the water and we would see who could go the fastest and make the biggest spray of water with their bike wheels.<br />
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One time while playing in the flooded swamp, I looked down at my bare feet and there was a leech, stuck to the top of my foot. I ran screaming up the hill and when I got to my house, I dumped a whole container of salt on my foot. Needless to say, we couldn't find the leech under all the salt. We think maybe it shriveled up beyond recognition.<br />
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The swamp holds so many good memories for me. Almost all of them involved returning home with stained red dirt clothes from the mud. And looking back I'm truly grateful we never encountered any snakes or alligators, although I'm sure they were there.<br />
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<br />Kristahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13161637062303799700noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6004956351051912407.post-9966330346533852002019-07-26T09:46:00.001-07:002019-07-26T09:46:26.901-07:00Stories from the Amazon - Rabid HoneybearI was around 14 at the time this story takes place. I had my first horse, Nathaniel, at the time. Every day I would ride him. We went everywhere together. Sometimes I'd pretend I was Alex Ramsey from the Black Stallion and he was my firey Arabian stallion galloping along the beach. Sometimes I'd just sit on his back while he was grazing and read whatever book I currently was on, always a horse book. Usually we would discover trails in the jungle that nobody else knew of or I'd practice my equitation and dream of riding in the Olympics some day. He was a wonderful first horse and patient with all of my learning about horses.<br />
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Our house was being remodeled and we were living in what the mission base referred to as the Children's Home. It was called that because sometimes during the school year a missionary family would live there and take care of all the missionary kids so that the parents could spent time in the Indian villages. My brothers and I stayed there in that purpose a few times. But this time our whole family was staying there. I liked that house because it was the only one that had a basement and it also was right across from the swimming pool<br />
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One afternoon, after my daily ride, I had ridden over to the Children's home before taking Nathaniel back to our house for the night. It was almost dusk and the sun was beginning to set. Suddenly an animal came out of the jungle towards us. I had never seen that kind of animal before. It looked like a cross between a cat, monkey and something else... I moved the horse and the animal followed us. We moved again and I jumped off the horse. My brother came around the corner of the house and saw it too. I yelled at him to get something to catch it in. I thought it must be hungry and need a home. I was the kind of person who would bring home random animals and save every creature who came across my path. John ran in the house and came back with a basket. I left Nathaniel grazing and John and I opened the wicker basket and scooped the animal up. We took it in the house and shoved a banana into the basket. We had no idea what it might eat but we figured it might like the banana, since it kinda looked like a monkey. I told John that I was going to run Nathaniel over to our house and grab a extra wire rabbit cage I had over there and I'd be right back.<br />
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Hurriedly I took the horse back and got him settled for the night and ran back to the Children's home with the cage. When I opened the front door, the first thing I saw was mom and Celia (the lady who lived with us) up on the kitchen counter with butcher knives in their hands and screaming. John was running around the house and the animal was chasing him. Immediately I jumped up on a chair since I had no idea what was happening! John jumped up on top of the kitchen table. We all were wondering how on earth now we were going to get that animal out of the house. Just then the animal followed John up on top of the table. He hopped down the other side. We started throwing things at it. It bit all the way through the dog food dish we threw at it. It also completely shredded a foam cooler we tried to trap it with. Finally one of us grabbed the broom and were trying to herd it out the front door with the broom. Well instead of herding the creature, it attacked the broom head and wouldn't let go. I yelled at John to just carry it outside and throw it towards the jungle broom and all. He and I did that. We got as close to the jungle as possible with the animal stuck to the end of the broom, running as fast as we could and heaved it as far as we could and sprinted to a safe distance away to see what the animal would do. Thankfully it sauntered off towards the jungle never to be seen again.<br />
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We didn't know what that animal was for a long time until we finally figured out it was a <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kinkajou" target="_blank">Kinkajou</a>. Looking back now we think it must have had rabies because it just kept trying to chase us and bite us. Thankfully nothing bad happened to any of us except for the lost broom and the shredded foam. We still laugh about this story, especially remembering the two women on the counter with the butcher knives and my brother on the kitchen table.<br />
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They told me for years after that to never dream of bringing home another stray animal!Kristahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13161637062303799700noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6004956351051912407.post-57643500282461088392019-07-25T14:46:00.001-07:002019-07-25T14:46:36.954-07:00Stories from the Amazon - The time I almost became an Indian...Ok, maybe not quite an Indian but almost! But let me start from the beginning.<br />
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My parents were missionaries to Brazil. They went there in 1974 (I think) and their objective was to work with native Brazilian Indian groups to translate the Bible into those languages. After working for several years with several hostile Indian groups (a story for another day), they were finally assigned to work with a very small group called the Banawa and my dad had gone on a few trips into the village without the rest of us to start making contact with the people. This Indian group was very excited to have us come live with them and they eagerly started building us a house and we started preparing for a long boat trip and a long stay with them. Now you have to put out of your mind any sort of modern luxury or convenience and think of America in the 1800's or something like that. There were no toilets, no stores, no doctors, no running water, nothing anyone of us today is used to. But my parents loved God and wanted to share the word of God with these people so they were willing to give it all up and go to the middle of the deep Amazonian jungle. I was 10, and my brothers were 8 and 1.<br />
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We packed up everything we thought we needed for 6 months in the jungle, into a small aluminum boat with an outboard motor. I took my cat and my parakeet. Actually, more like begged until they finally got tired of me and said yes. The cat traveled in a pillow case at our feet. Every night she would get let free to hunt mice and use the bathroom. Apparently we always found her again since she made it all the way to the village with us. We carried large amounts of medicine for every tropical disease and problem we could imagine.<br />
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With lots of prayers, excitement and wondering what this new adventure would bring us, we set off on our journey. My dad had detailed maps of the rivers which he had gotten from the government and we had extra fuel and were piled high with everything. Around mid afternoon of the first day I began to wonder where we might sleep that night. My parents just kept saying not to worry and that God would provide a place. And indeed, God provided! Right before dark we came to a little house on the side of the river. The people there were so happy to see us and they gave us a place to hang our hammocks and something to eat. Every night for the 10 days of the trip there was a place to stay right at dark. We would go all day in the boat and not see a soul until it was time to find a place to rest at night. In exchange we would pass out malaria medicine, treat wounds, bring news from the outside, etc. At one stop my baby brother drank some bad water and ended up very sick the next day. We stayed a couple days in one place for him to recover. At another stop the people we stayed with stole most of our supply of eggs. And at another stop the people were so thankful for the medicine we gave them that they offered us a pair of live chickens. I was very excited about that gift. We named them Henny Penny and Chicken Little. They made it to the village with us. Other people gifted us with pineapples and bananas in exchange for the medicines or the visit.<br />
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At one point, my dad got confused with the map because he thought we were on a different section of river than we actually were and there was an island. Eventually he got it figured out and we passed some other Indians in their boat. They invited us to spend the night in their village. We followed them and they led us through the jungle. We could do this because it was the middle of rainy season and the jungles alongside the rivers were flooded. While we were following them, a branch snatched my parakeet cage and tossed it into the boat. It had been sitting on the bench next to me so the bird could catch the view. Instead of being smart and leaving it down, I put it back up next to me again and again a branch snagged it. This time however, it threw the bird cage, with my dear little parakeet, into the water. Try as I might, I couldn't catch the cage in time and that was the end of my pet. I cried bitterly. That was one of my first lessons in learning to hear God's voice. If I had left the cage where it had gotten tossed the first time I wouldn't have lost my precious little bird.<br />
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We went down so many different rivers, each one so beautiful. Finally we came to the last river which would take us to the village. It was a small river, actually a creek by Amazon standards. But because it was rainy season the water was high and we were able to take out boat up it. The villagers were so happy to see us. They hadn't quite finished our little house yet so they let us stay in someone else's house for the meantime. All the Indian children were fascinated by us, and we tried to learn how to communicate with them. We learned a few words and ate bananas with them. My mom cooked simple meals over the fire. We took our baths in the river like everyone else. We slept in hammocks with mosquito nets.<br />
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My parents began the long process of learning the Banawa language. To learn a language like that first you have to learn the individual words and then try to figure out how they put sentences together, learn the verbs if there are any and so on and so forth. Lots of times the Indians would just laugh at us but some of them seemed to like helping us learn their language. My brothers and I mostly just explored, imagined, played, ate bananas, swam in the creek and played more. It was a wonderful time. Until, after a couple weeks, my dad became gravely ill with Malaria. He started taking the medicine but it wasn't working. There are two types of Malaria and evidently he had gotten the worse of the two and he wasn't responding to anything.<br />
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Now, in case you don't know much about Malaria, let me explain: It's HORRIBLE! It is actually a parasite that feeds on your red blood cells. You feel flu-like symptoms but let me tell you, it's way worse than any flu you can imagine (unless of course you've had Malaria) You get chills so bad that even 20 blankets can't warm you, then fever so bad you feel like you'll melt into a puddle. And back and forth. And don't even let me get started on the body aches. If not treated you can die.<br />
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So, my dad was in the hammock with all this. Then a day or so after my dad's symptoms started, my mom also came down with it! They started trying to radio back to home base and tell the other missionaries what was happening, but the radio wouldn't work. My dad was so weak by that time and he couldn't get it to work at all. My mom wasn't quite as bad but she was still also very sick. My brothers and I were sitting under a banana tree one day eating bananas and talking to each other about what would happen. Honestly, being the oldest I was very scared that my parents were going to die and we would live for the rest of our lives being raised by the Indian people and never see our home or friends or family again. It was a very scary thought, although when you are 10 and 8 and 1 you don't fully grasp the magnitude of something like that.<br />
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It must have been later that same banana eating day when we all together as a family prayed for the radio to work and be able to call for help and my dad tried it once more and miraculously it worked long enough for him to tell the folks at the mission base our dilemma. They said that they would contact another missionary from a different organization who had a float plane and he would meet us at the bigger river, which was 2 rivers away from the one we were one. That was the closest river that the plane could land on. They arranged the time, which was the following day around noon or so. We packed up a few things, just what we could carry in a small bag. We left most of the stuff there. The next morning the Indians saw how weak my dad was. He couldn't even hold the handle of the outboard motor. He had to lay in the bottom of the boat. They offered to help us get down the river to the bigger river. I'm so thankful they did.<br />
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The problem now is that the river had gone down a bit since it was the end of rainy season now and all the rivers go down. It was very difficult to get the aluminum boat around all the fallen trees and branches. A few times we had to duck all the way down in the boat and the sides scraped on the trees as we snuck under. A few times we had to all get out of the boat and they dragged the boat over a low tree. A few times my dad was able to muster up enough strength to pull the string to the motor and use that to gain a bit of time. We finally made it to the meeting place. We left our boat with the river people and the float plane arrived. Benny Da Merchant was the pilot. He was known as being a very crazy pilot, taking risks and doing things most normal people wouldn't do. I guess maybe that's what made him a good missionary pilot. His float plane was small and we all crammed in it along with another missionary pilot from our own mission base. Us kids had to sit on the floor. The floor which you could see the river through the holes in it. I don't really remember that part too much, but I do remember hoping we wouldn't fall out somewhere over the jungle and also that the old plane would make it into the air with all of us aboard. Benny had to take the plane around a curve in the river in order to have enough room to get up the speed to get airborne. It was quite a ride, but we made it safely back to the mission base and my parents got the treatment they needed to live and not die. And best of all, we didn't have to become Indians!<br />
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(story subject to editing whenever anyone who knows more details reads it and corrects me! lol)Kristahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13161637062303799700noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6004956351051912407.post-14692137377394704282019-07-19T16:10:00.001-07:002019-07-19T16:10:12.193-07:00Stories from the Amazon - The Blind Dog Sees!Crime was very prominent in our town, being the gold rush city that it was. Houses were close together. As in, close enough that you could hear your neighbor's argument, or see in their kitchen window to see what they were making for lunch and you'd better have curtains on your bedroom window. Everyone had tall brick walls (except our neighbors had a short wall) and most walls had shards of glass sticking out of the top of the wall to help prevent thieves. And everyone had a big, scary dog or two in their back yard.<br />
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My choice in dog, since I was the only dog person in the family, was a Great Dane. I got my first one for a Christmas present when I was 14 years old, shortly after I got my first horse. Her name was Mandy. I guess my family thought that with all my daily rides on the horse, I needed some extra protection. And she was a very loyal protector, defending me from anything (or anyone) she thought was a threat. Actually, she was quite aggressive and my later Danes never were quite as "bitey" as that first one was.<br />
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This story isn't quite about her though. This story was about one of the first amazing miracles that I personally prayed for and saw God answer my prayers. It was probably a turning point in my faith and in my walk with God.<br />
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I had a litter of Great Dane pups out of Mandy. She always had huge litters and I learned how to bottle feed puppies and rotate them so all could get enough to eat. It was a lot of work, but I loved it and the sale of the puppies funded my horses. It was easy to sell her pups too since everyone needed a big dog and the life expectancy of big dogs is not terribly long, and when you add all the dog diseases in the Amazon, it was even less. Mandy lived until she was 7 years old.<br />
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This litter was doing great at weaning time, eating their puppy mash. One day I fed them and I noticed that one puppy ran into the porch beam instead of going around it to find the platter of food. I found that very strange and observed him more and he couldn't find the food until I showed him. After a day or so of watching that behavior I took him to the vet who sure enough diagnosed him as being blind. He did all the examinations and confirmed that the dog couldn't see. With a heavy heart I took the puppy home and sat on the porch with him in my lap and started discussing the matter with God. I don't think I even really prayed too hard except for asking God what I was going to do with a blind Great Dane dog who was going to get huge. I reminded Him that he had cured all those blind people in the Bible and I told Him that I believed he could heal the puppy too if he wanted to.<br />
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After a week or two of taking care of the puppy and making sure he found the food bowl and didn't get hurt or anything, one day we were on the porch again and I only had one or two pups left from the litter. He was sitting down and it looked like he was looking at me. I took a step to the side, very quietly and his gaze followed me. I did that again and again he followed me with his gaze.Very excitedly, I did the blink test with him and sure enough he blinked with both eyes! He could see again! It was amazing. I told some other missionary friends about his story and they had been having lots of theft at their mission house. They fell in love with him and his amazing miracle and I sent him to live with them. He ended up loving all the kids and being the perfect dog for them.<br />
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My faith was strengthened and grew considerably to know that God even cares about little things like a blind puppy and a young teenager.. Through the following years even to today, I pray for all my animals and regularly see the love and care that God has for me and His creation. I hope this little story of a modern day blind eye seeing will encourage you in your faith too!Kristahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13161637062303799700noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6004956351051912407.post-92194298264920578812019-07-16T09:21:00.001-07:002019-07-16T09:23:30.841-07:00Stories from the Amazon - Crazy Bull part 1I married a Brazilian rodeo cowboy. He was a bull rider. Well, he tried to be at least. He wasn't very good at staying on the bulls for the whole 8 seconds. He was also a wheeler dealer and like to do trading and all sorts of deals. We won't go into some of the really frustrating deals he did, but one of them involved acquiring a herd of bucking bulls. He figured that if he couldn't be a champion bull rider like he dreamed, then he could be a stock contractor and put on rodeos. I liked that idea much better. However, he ended up going to ranches and bringing guys to try out the young bulls and see if they'd like to buck. They always made a day of it which included barbeque and plenty of beer. I guess they figured that if they drank enough it would make getting bucked off an unknown crazy bull a bit better. I definitely didn't approve of that part of it, but to be a supportive wife, I usually tagged along and gave my opinions on the bulls. The bulls that didn't end up being good bucking bulls went to the local butcher and we made at least a little money back on them.<br />
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We had a rodeo arena with bucking chutes and the whole works. I think he traded a car for it or something. It was portable and could be set up at different locations to hold a rodeo. Actually, most rodeos in Brazil consisted of bull riding and maybe a few saddle broncs. There wasn't much of the roping events or any of the other normal rodeo events that you would see here in the USA. He would invite all his rodeo buddies over every week to practice riding the bulls in hopes that they would improve and that they would train the bulls to buck better. I learned to pull the bucking strap and to help with all the work involved in that.<br />
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There was one bull, a rank Charlois/Brahman cross, who didn't buck very well and who mostly just tried to kill you if you fell off. We decided that it was time for him to go to the butcher. Now, usually we would call the butcher and he would come out and slaughter the bull and haul him back to the butcher shop in his truck, all quartered up. He would pay us a certain amount and that would be it. So we arranged the day and we got all the bulls into the arena. For some reason we let all the other ones out and just kept the butcher bull in the arena by himself. Looking back, I'm not sure why we did that... .<br />
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Well, somehow the bull knew it was the butcher's truck when he pulled in and came down the hill towards the arena. He took one look at it and took off, through the fence, head through the huge steel panel, galloping full speed through the tall grass with the large arena panel firmly attached to his head and all of us watching with horror! I think he may have had a small sting of panels that stayed attached for a while before letting loose. At some point he managed to get his head free of the panel and he was gone, headed for the jungle. The guys grabbed some horses and guns and followed. The girls went to the horse barn and watched. The bull ran up the hill towards the jungle on the left side of the property. One of the men took a shot at him. We thought , Yay, now they killed him and the butcher could drive up the hill and get him. But instead, the bull came charging back down the hill towards the neighbors to the right, bellowing and furious. We perched up high on top of the horse stalls in case he would try to attack us in his rage. The men galloped in full pursuit. We heard another shot and again thought they had managed to kill him. But instead, the same thing happened! Back and forth several times. Later the guys said he kept jumping all the cross fences and the boundary fences.<br />
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Finally at dusk, one of the guys came back to the barn and said they managed to get the bull dead, but in the farthest back corner of the pasture, with several cross fences and lots of jungle and no way for the truck to get back there. We would have to drag the bull with the horses. Now, my horses weren't particularly strong or ranch horses and the bull was huge, so we decided we probably needed at least three horses to drag him out. The butcher had long since gone back to town and told us to call him when we caught the bull. This time I got on a horse also to help drag the bull out. It worked, the horses were tired, the men were tired and the bull was probably the toughest meat anyone ever ate but such was the nature of life, especially in that culture.<br />
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Hopefully this story won't offend anyone but it was a very eventful adventure in my life. Stay tuned for crazy bull story part 2! It might just be a little crazier.<br />
<br />Kristahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13161637062303799700noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6004956351051912407.post-9376291277054377722019-07-11T18:52:00.002-07:002019-07-11T18:55:36.039-07:00Stories from the Amazon - Horse tradingAs a white girl in another country you get to experience lots of different sides of humanity. One of these was a pretty obvious nickname I happened to acquire in my dealings with the horse people of my town.<br />
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By the time this story happened, I was already a young adult and getting my name out there as the knowledgeable horse person in town. Our town was very large with around 400 thousand people in it by this time. When I was a child it was a very small town of only around 40 thousand, so I've been told. They discovered gold in the river beside the town and overnight it became a gold rush city, full of crime, greed, lust and all the sins of the flesh. We were quite protected in our mission base and worked mostly deep in the jungles with the native Indians. By the time teenage years arrived for me, my parents missionary work had led them to become more involved with the Brazilians themselves and we moved to town and got a ranch. But that's another story for another day.<br />
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Horses continued to be a big part of my life. I came to the USA to study more about horses and then life led me around the world a bit but I eventually came back to my hometown. There's a saying in our town that says whoever drinks of the muddy waters of the Rio Madeira will always return. In my early to mid twenties I returned and started the grand plans of beginning a Riding School. Many people who knew me begged me to teach their kids or themselves. I doubted myself at first and didn't think I could actually do it, but having the great desire to work with kids, and also especially with horses, I made plans and everything started to fall in place. With help from some generous friends I was able to get a horse barn built and an arena fenced off. I already had a few horses but figured I needed to get a few more really gentle horses.<br />
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I was dating a guy at the time who told me about someone who did some horse trading. Now, my favorite thing to do on the weekend was to go to someone's farm and look at their horses for sale. I usually didn't end up getting any but sometimes I'd come across one that looked like it might be suitable and on the rare occasion I'd manage to work out some sort of deal with them. So I took him up on his offer to go visit the guy, Polones (which mean Polish) He was a smallish middle aged man, who looked like he had been on a horse most of his life. He was what I always figured a horse trader would look like, with his string of trading horses, a few real decent ones and a bunch of average, some skinny, some fat, some big and occasionally a pony. He lived on the "poor" side of town but that didn't bother me. As soon as he met me I became Americana (American) I'm pretty sure he never called me by my actual name. He must have thought I was rolling in cash the first time we met because he brought out his best horses. I rode them all but when I laid eyes on one little sooty palomino mare, I knew I had to have her. He insisted she wasn't for sale and no amount of haggling, dealing, or begging made him change his mind. I think I ended up with a horse or two that day but dreamt of the palomino mare for months. Occasionally I'd trade him back a horse that wasn't working out too well. One time I ended up with some half crazy horses but I enjoyed the bantering and bartering back and forth.<br />
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One half crazy, or should I say all crazy, horse I got from him was a grey gaited mare. She was a pretty thing and smooth as butter to ride, and light in the bit.... if you could catch her, saddle her and get on her. She could only be caught with stealth and a good lasso. Once you caught her you had to very carefully ease your way to her exactly by her shoulder. If you got too far back she would swing around and kick you and if you got too far forward her ears would stick to her neck and all you'd see would be big, ugly, yellow teeth coming at you. If you survived that and got the saddle tight and managed to get on unscathed, well she was a downright comfortable ride, the kind where you can carry your drink and not spill a drop. I decided however that having kids around a horse like that would not be a good idea so she only stayed for about a week or less and I traded her back from something a little more gentle.<br />
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Then one day I was looking at some horses and I saw her, the sooty palomino mare! Only she was thin as a skeleton and half dead. But I knew it was her and this time he was willing to let me work out a trade and I got her. I named her Esperanza because I had hope that she would be healthy again and that she would be a good lesson horse. When I finally got weight on her she turned out to be everything and more than I knew she would be. All my students begged to ride her and she would tolerate anything they did, except riding double. She'd buck them off if two kids tried to ride her. After a while I started teaching kids with special needs also and she was perfect with them.<br />
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One day while doing some horse trading with Polones, after a few times of meeting him. I asked him why he was called that. He started telling me that he was born in Poland and his mother was Polish but his father was Brazilian. He weaved a tale so fascinating, and I was so gullible at the time that I believed every word, until he busted out laughing at me because he couldn't believe I believed him for so long. He laughed at me every time after that too. I guess it became our little inside joke. </div>
Kristahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13161637062303799700noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6004956351051912407.post-24437557072804306942019-07-09T09:15:00.002-07:002019-07-09T09:15:25.767-07:00Stories from the Amazon - Donkey AdventuresI met my best friend when we were 6 years old and my mom told me there was a new missionary family who had moved onto the mission base with a girl my age and I should go meet her. I was shy but curious about a new potential friend so I went over there. Her mom had to wake her from a nap, but when she came out and we sat on the steps and have been best friends ever since.<div>
We both loved horses and every day was spent imagining up adventures with our toy horses and dreaming of real horses. One day when we were around 11 or so her dad decided to give her a donkey. We both were thrilled about having something almost like a horse. She named her Spunky and the little donkey definitely fit her name. We didn't have a saddle or bridle but I think we did have a halter and we would take turns riding Spunky. We had a little stick and we would tap the side of her neck to get her to turn one direction or the other. The halter worked only to stop. We decided that it would be nice to have some stirrups so we got a rope and tied a foot loop in each end and laid it across Spunky's back. Of course if we fell off the stirrup rope would be of no help and would just come with us. </div>
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One day we decided that Spunky was strong enough to carry both of us together and why should one of us walk when we could ride double on her. There was a building just down the hill from my house and it had a big porch. We took Spunky to the porch and I got on her first. Best Friend was going to use the porch to get on behind me. Next thing I knew I was lying on my back and gasping for air and my best friend was doubled over laughing her head off at me and Spunky was nervously grazing nearby! When I finally got air back in my lungs I was laughing too. Poor Spunky did not think that was a good idea and like a donkey lightening bolt she catapulted us off whenever my friend started to sit on her. Needless to say we never tried that again!</div>
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Not too long after that attempt, my best friend's dad got another donkey, this time a male. We named him Brutus and he was a much gentler, or maybe just lazier, donkey. Any time we could we rode those two little donkeys around. One day we were riding along the river road. Normally there wasn't too much traffic on that road. I was riding Brutus and she was riding Spunky. All of a sudden there was a very large truck driving pretty fast towards us. She and Spunky got up the embankment to the side out of the road. But just then Brutus decided to show the stubbornness of donkeys and balk in the middle of the road. I was tapping him and kicking him and he refused to move. Right when the truck was almost to us and I was about to jump off and run for it, Brutus lazily moseyed off the road. My heart beat faster for quite a while after that. My friend of course just laughed her head off at me again. </div>
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Those were the biggest of our little donkey adventures, although we enjoyed them for several months before my family moved back to the USA for a year of furlough and not too long after that my friend's family also left. I'm not sure what happened to the donkeys after that.</div>
Kristahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13161637062303799700noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6004956351051912407.post-57278602879423307462019-07-08T07:12:00.001-07:002019-07-09T09:16:59.488-07:00Stories from the Amazon - Sunken Canoe AdventureI grew up in a family who lived and breathed adventure. I mean, who packs up their life and travels to a foreign country without knowing the language and goes to live with a Brazilian family who also doesn't speak English? And then go to the middle of the deep Amazon jungle and try to make contact with hostile native Indians? You have to have ADVENTURE as your middle name to do that, maybe even as your first name! Growing up like that me and my brothers were always into crazy things and doing things that most people never would attempt. More of those stories later though.<br />
This story is about one of our crazy, fun adventures we did for fun, not for life. My dad decided that it would be a good bonding thing to do a family fun adventure every year. Each year the adventure varied and was different but the goal was to create a memory and bond as a family. I'd say it definitely worked.<br />
This particular year we decided that we'd like to kayak down this river called Rio das Garcas, or in English, Swan River. This was one of our favorite swimming rivers. It was an incredibly beautiful, smallish river (by Amazon standards). It went behind our farm and I could ride my horse for about two or three hours through trails in the jungle to get to a lovely part of the river where there was a little old lady. (you can read that story in my blog post called Old Wives Tales). If you drove in the car you could get to another area of the river where there was a river beach and we liked to go there on Christmas day and enjoy the swimming and have our Christmas dinner at the beach.<br />
Well, we thought it would be fun to start our trip by that beach and kayak downriver till we got to another swimming area miles down the river. There were three of us and only two kayaks. We had a nice proper fiberglass kayak and we had an inflatable kayak that sat two people. My brother was probably around 12 years old or so and we decided he could go in the fiberglass one and my dad and I would go in the inflatable one. We set off down the river, cooler with water and food in our inflatable boat. David, in the good kayak, was speeding all around us back and forth. Our kayak was very unbalanced and every time we'd get going fast it would start to spin in a circle. The going was very slow but the river was lovely and we were enjoying ourselves. Around lunchtime we decided it might be good to stop and eat our sandwiches and we saw a beach area by the side of the river. David went on ahead and had already pulled ashore. Dad was paddling our boat and I was in front keeping it going straight when all of a sudden I saw, lurking just under the water, a stump. I yelled and used the paddle to try and push the boat off the stump but we were going too fast and we went right on top of it and to our horror, POP, HISS, BUBBLE, BUBBLE, SINK!! We had to swim to the beach area dragging the flat kayak behind us. My brother was yelling and hopping up and down he was so mad. All I could do was laugh at the very unfortunate disaster we now found ourselves in. And it was pretty funny to see how mad my brother was too.<br />
The beach was small and there was a very steep bank going up. Now we had to figure out how to get three people home in one small kayak. We climbed the bank and it looked very familiar to me. Sure enough, it was the little old lady's house who lived several hours horseback ride away from our farm. At least I knew where we were and we could walk home! We dragged both boats, paddles, cooler, swimming flippers, up that steep bank and ate our lunch. Then we got everything distributed between the three of us and started hiking back along the trail. David was huffing and ranting about our ruined kayak trip the whole hike back but I saw it as just part of the big adventure and since that was our plan in the first place, I felt like it was fun anyway. It took us all afternoon to hike all the boats back to civilization. We ended up going to a neighbor who had a road to his house. This neighbor also had a waterfall right by his house. The neighbor had a truck and he drove us over to our farm, which was a few miles down the road. Somehow we were able to connect back with mom. Those neighbors laughed at us for a long time after that. The crazy American people who tried to float down a river in a blow up boat!Kristahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13161637062303799700noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6004956351051912407.post-50275723112163201912019-07-03T17:40:00.000-07:002019-07-03T17:45:16.551-07:00Stories from the Amazon - Runaway HorseI was the typical horse crazy teenage girl, madly in love with everything horsey. After the passing of my first horse and spending a year on furlough in the USA, we were back in Brazil and I had money saved up again to buy another horse, my second horse. There was a place in town that was similar to what a fairgrounds would be here but they also boarded horses there and had a bar where all the local rich land and cattle owners would congregate. I enjoyed going there to walk through the barns and dream of having another horse. In that time I met a guy who spoke English and he was quite excited to be able to practice his English on me and he also had some horses and did some horse trading. He found out I was wanting to get another horse and he just so happened to have a feisty chestnut mare that might fit me perfectly. We drove over to his land and I tried the horse out, Her name was Foxy. I was in love at first ride and ended up buying her on the spot After the typical back and forth horse trading banter we agreed on a price and I took her home.<br />
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My first horse, Nathaniel, was an easy going, gentle, very calm horse and I kept him tethered to a rope and every day I would move him to a fresh grazing area. He never minded if the rope got wrapped around his leg and he would just wait patiently until he was rescued. Foxy on the other hand, from the moment I got her home, I knew there would be no way to tether her like that. She was a red headed hot head.<br />
My brother had a duck pen that he had recently built for his duck raising project. It had a low fence that if you tiptoed and jumped a little you could get over it without using the gate. We decided that it would probably hold my new horse. Sometime during the night it rained, which wasn't at all unusual since half the year in the Amazon it rains. The next morning I woke very early with the excitement of a new horse. In my pj's I went out to see her and make sure she was okay. To my horror, there was no horse in the pen! I looked all over on the fenceline and found a spot where it looked like she had just jumped out. I ran back in and woke my dad to come help me find her. We looked everywhere. No Foxy in the yard, not in the neighbor's yard, not on the gravel road. But then we found her hoofprints and they led out of the gate of the whole mission complex. Someone must have left the gate open during the night or early morning and she found her way out.<br />
My dad got on his little motorcycle and started following tracks. I was in short boots with no socks, and I'm pretty sure I just threw some clothes over my pj's and followed the tracks by foot. By the time huge blisters started forming and I almost couldn't run any more I heard the motorcycle coming back. "She went across the airstrip", he said!<br />
Now you must understand, our mission base was located on the back side of the airstrip and there pretty much was no fence on that side. at that time ( now there is) There was a road to get into town that went right past the back side of the airstrip. Not many people knew about the road except for those who lived back there like us. And the crazy thing is that Foxy's previous owner used to work at the airport and he would occasionally ride her to work. Somehow she remembered that and figured out where it was and crossed the airstrip and was peacefully grazing grass by the airport. We rode the motorcycle back and were trying to decide how safe or dangerous it would be to drive across and get her when all of a sudden the airport police came across with their sirens going. They started yelling at us that we couldn't be there so close to the airstrip. We told them about the horse and they yelled even more, saying they would have shot her if an airplane had been landing. Thankfully, no airplanes and I was able to catch her and walk her all the 8 kilometers home in the mud, with no breakfast and blisters on my heels.<br />
That was the very first of all our crazy adventures. She was quite a mare! And yes, I did find her a safer place to live besides the duck pen!</div>
Kristahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13161637062303799700noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6004956351051912407.post-60500228675262661602019-07-01T07:37:00.002-07:002019-07-01T07:37:40.262-07:00 Blogging challengeI have never participated in a blogging challenge but one of the Facebook groups I'm in put one up and I decided to try it out and see if even with my busy farm schedule I could maybe succeed in at least posting more that one or two a year! So this blog is the beginning of that challenge.<br />
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As I have been thinking about the challenge many ideas have been coming to mind on how to actually succeed. (And if anyone has suggestions please comment and let me know) As you might know if you have read any of my previous posts, I grew up in the Amazon jungle. From a very young age I was an avid reader, mostly of horse books, but as I grew older my interest in other books grew also and although my busy farm life keeps me from reading as much as I'd like, I still manage to squeeze in a book every so often. One of my most treasured memories of life in the Amazon was when I was probably in 5th or 6th grade and we had a missionary teacher come and this teacher had us read a book and then figure out how to write a letter to the author. I'm not sure how the teacher managed this feat, but to my great delight and astonishment, a while later the author I chose even wrote me back and encouraged me in my desires to be an author. I have written the beginnings of at least a dozen books by now, just never have managed to finish one yet. I'm hoping that by doing this blog the inspiration will flow enough to get closer to my childhood dream.<br />
So, after saying all that, I'd like to start sharing more about my adventures in the jungle on at least one of the days of blogging. We are challenged to write three posts per week. One would be my jungle stories, the other maybe some homesteading tips or current farming life, and the last I'm not sure yet but open to ideas, but thinking of leaving it open to whatever mood I'm in that day or maybe it will be recipe day (since one of the books I'd like to write is a recipe book)<br />
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Hopefully you will read my posts and comment and enjoy this small journey with me on this crazy thing we call life. Somehow I manage to have a pretty exciting one so I'm looking forward to sharing some of my adventures.Kristahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13161637062303799700noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6004956351051912407.post-52225330733731969542018-12-16T16:32:00.004-08:002018-12-16T16:32:26.291-08:00How to build a chicken coop.<a href="https://7e5d00p2hhj9edd1rdqfme1ed8.hop.clickbank.net/" target="_blank">How to Build a Chicken Coop!</a> I thought it might be time to throw out some homesteading tips since that is the actual purpose of this blog! One of the first animals most people get when they buy some land or decide to try their hand at homesteading is chickens. They are the starter animals. If you can succeed with chickens you have the good chance of doing well with raising your next animal. Plus they have the benefit of providing plenty of eggs for the family and depending on how many chickens you have you might have enough to sell to family or friends or co-workers. This helps the self sustainability by allowing the chickens to pay for their own feed. <br />
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The first thing you need before you get the birds is a place for them to live. There are plenty of options for chicken houses but you can find some plans <a href="https://7e5d00p2hhj9edd1rdqfme1ed8.hop.clickbank.net/" target="_blank">here</a>. Some ideas that I have personally used have been a hoop house made with cattle panels, a bit of chicken wire, a tarp and some 2x4's That was a easy, couple of hours and under $100 project. I'll try to add some pictures here. For the more fancy ones look at <a href="https://7e5d00p2hhj9edd1rdqfme1ed8.hop.clickbank.net/" target="_blank">how to build a chicken coop</a>.<br />
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If you decide to get chickens you want to decide if you start with adults, half grown pullets or chicks. Sometimes for beginning chicken keepers, starting with adults is a good idea because you can by-pass the tricky, fragile chick stage. However you have the downfall of not knowing exactly how old those hens might be, plus most chickens egg production starts to fall off after the second year of laying and then you have to decide what happens to those hens. Are you strong enough to turn them into chicken stew or do they become pets and you feed them till they die of old age? With half grown pullets, you'll most likely have the highest cost per bird since you will know how old they are and they will be getting ready to start their peak production. You will be able to get lots of eggs from them before they need to be retired. Chicks are lots of fun, but much more work. They require special feed, heat lamps, and a brooder house but they can bond to you (as much as a chicken can) and they get to know you and can become very friendly and gentle. Plus it's always fun to raise up a little chick and then the proud moment when they lay their first egg. The most important thing though is safe and secure housing for them.<br />
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There are many things that love to eat chickens. Skunks, Opossums, Raccoons, Foxes, Owls, Coyotes, Stray Dogs and Cats and probably more. Those are what I've dealt with in my chicken keeping. Providing a safe enough coop for them is important, or else you might lose your favorite hen or have to keep replacing them which ends up costly and sad.<br />
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Much success to you on your <a href="https://7e5d00p2hhj9edd1rdqfme1ed8.hop.clickbank.net/" target="_blank">chicken coop building</a>!Kristahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13161637062303799700noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6004956351051912407.post-4155584019174259852018-12-16T16:07:00.000-08:002018-12-16T16:07:00.203-08:00Goat Milk Soap!My current journey in homesteading and farming as a single woman now include a small business making goat milk soap from the milk from my goats. It started because I had way too many milk goats and too much milk and not having a licensed dairy I was unable to sell the milk. So my creative thinking had to work overload and I decided to give the soap making a try. Since I wanted to be as natural and from the farm as possible, my focus became using the goats milk and as many herbs and natural colors as possible. <br />
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Currently I have a list of over 20 types of goat milk soap that I regularly keep in stock, plus some that I try once or twice or seasonal scents. The goat milk makes such a wonderful bar of soap with so many qualities that benefit the skin.<br />
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My soaps are now located in about 5 different local shops, plus local farmers markets and craft fairs, plus my new website: <a href="http://www.goatmilksoapsandstuff.com/">www.goatmilksoapsandstuff.com</a><br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjIrt8N_oJ-naPs-6gu1jVYSLodn61wwvghB_PrRTA7T7B8dxeqNjQ7dOiwPUxac4w9OERdPPIycxgBLaD_J7bRWkkHJ6eLw7HL0ZPzL24k6Mvbb5kpInh8N4o4FYfvgjS23yXnA4j8dP0/s1600/32634.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="709" data-original-width="945" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjIrt8N_oJ-naPs-6gu1jVYSLodn61wwvghB_PrRTA7T7B8dxeqNjQ7dOiwPUxac4w9OERdPPIycxgBLaD_J7bRWkkHJ6eLw7HL0ZPzL24k6Mvbb5kpInh8N4o4FYfvgjS23yXnA4j8dP0/s320/32634.jpeg" width="320" /></a></div>
This is one of my personal favorites. It is Citrus Sage and has ground sage grown in our organic garden. It smells very fresh and light.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiLNXSn1z7m73ifvn9BoxovxAO70RzGVqJuK4tfIhgzgWXqgl4Vz6n7Bt_Cou_Fg7qmO6cs2lyFK9zn5dzhILu_pxhRCRT-qvwDO2NcO6RmzzlGjEp8noqdpttN9jzfQi6tDE0ylT-JkmU/s1600/lavender.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="758" data-original-width="568" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiLNXSn1z7m73ifvn9BoxovxAO70RzGVqJuK4tfIhgzgWXqgl4Vz6n7Bt_Cou_Fg7qmO6cs2lyFK9zn5dzhILu_pxhRCRT-qvwDO2NcO6RmzzlGjEp8noqdpttN9jzfQi6tDE0ylT-JkmU/s320/lavender.jpg" width="239" /></a></div>
This is one of my best selling soaps, scented with Lavender. Who doesn't love lavender? Ok, well since I'm in the business of selling scented things I have discovered that actually quite a few people don't care for lavender. It's still one of my favorite scents as well as to consume. Yummy cup of hot lavender tea... Anyway, back in focus. This soap is very gentle and soothing.<br />
Both of these plus more can be purchased on my website: <a href="http://www.goatmilksoapsandstuff.com/">www.goatmilksoapsandstuff.com</a><br />
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<br />Kristahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13161637062303799700noreply@blogger.com1