The crops are starting to wind down, just a few more days worth of canning to go , right now they are cleaning and salting peppers for use through the winter . Today we need to put up a little more fence to divide off the fruit trees and the strawberries, then we will be able to turn the goats out into the field to clean it off before we call in a plough. Speaking of plough, we just received word that friends of ours back in Canada have sold a piece of land, and are going to use some of the proceeds to buy us our own tractor for the fields, It will also be a great source of revenue for the farm.
Now that they have a little more time, we have begun working at some of the other projects , The sewing shop is up and running, and already Marat has taken to it and is doing a great Job
Of course this is all under Aigula's watchful eye .
We have two more shops that we are working on , they need about $500 each to be fully up and running. then we have someone that will spend 2 days a week at the farm teaching woodworking as well as wood carving,
The other project room will be to make baskets .. the one below is made by Acel and her family. The cool thing is that it is made out of rolled up newspaper. Acel and her family will come out to the farm a couple days a week to teach and guide the kids with this . We think these will sell great , as well we will make them to fit the jars of canned goods that we produce on the farm.
We are also going to put in a weight room for physical training for the kids .. they work so hard in the summer, all physical, and if in the winter the heavy work shuts down, It will also help to direct their energy from less productive activities. Tomorrow we will pick up the weights .. It will be about $250 for this, It any one would like to sponsor this, just let us know.
Over at the boys side , we fired up the new heating system, and it all appears to be working , no leaks in the 10 radiators around the house .
The new windows are in there , so we will not be using cardboard to keep the cold out this winter.Now vlady will start working on the indoor washroom with toilet, sink, shower and a water heater .
Over at house five , the renovations are under full swing. This house has a large field with it, but needs so much work. It is located about 5 or six houses down from the rest of the farm houses , and is at the end of the large back fields. We have been working with a family for several years now that has been struggling . They have 4 kids, and although they are hard workers, they can not get jobs that pay well. The husband has sheep and works well with animals, and the wife was raised in and trained as a market gardener . If all goes well, they will be able to come live here and work on the farm. This would be such a step up up from where they are , and would be a stepping stone to a more prosperous future for them . They could even work part time at the farm and eventually find jobs off the farm.. lots of possibilities, but first we need to bring the house back from the edge...
They guys have just finished the new foundation all around .
When they started the foundation , we noticed a lot of structural problems as well, so we are striping off all the old plaster, then repairing cracks and putting mesh on before putting new cement paging.
We will be working on this for the next few weeks with hopes to have it all fixed up and the yard back under control before we leave in a couple weeks .
If the weather cooperates we will be cutting the hay on the weekend , then bailing on Wednesday and bringing it up to the mountains for the cows .. I got a call yesterday that the cows have started wandering down to the village and are terrorising the villagers looking for a new food source.. so Wednesday we will get that looked after , as well as bring a load of coal up to the family looking after the cows We also have another 28 tons of coal ordered for families in need .. we will have a few coal depots around the valley to help throughout the winter as well.
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