First let me remind you that Cannibal (Joel’s chicken) laid an egg in the corner of the living room on Friday.  Technically, I guess it’s the dining room, but it’s just one big room, really.  We laughed about the irony of her choosing a “safe” corner to lay her egg in the very room where it would be eaten!  The next day she laid an egg in the PANTRY!!  We didn’t even find it until Sunday, but it was cold, and Becca had chased her out of the kitchen on Saturday.  Sunday she did not lay an egg!  On Monday I let her in the side door to see what she would do.  She walked in, laid her egg in the corner and walked back out the side door!  Hysterical.  But it gets better.

Over the weekend, we moved the chickens’ pen and have begun to try to keep them in it, rather than letting them free-range – eating all our garden plants!  So on Tuesday, when Abigail’s chicken, Attila the Hen, got out of the pen and laid her egg in little nest she’d made before, Cannibal got jealous.  She was banging against the chicken wire, trying to escape from the pen!  Meanwhile, Attila was trying unsuccessfully to find her way back in.  We decided to try an exchange to see if Cannibal would go straight to the side door of the house and lay her egg in the corner, as she had before.

Here’s where it gets amazing: I went to the door of the pen, and Cannibal came running to get out, but Wes did NOT want us to have 2 chickens loose at once, so I didn’t just open the door.  Besides, the others had not yet begun laying, and we want to train them from the start to lay eggs in the nesting boxes.  Wouldn’t that simplify life?  We did NOT want all 4 chickens on the loose – especially while I’m in the middle of school!  So I went inside the pen and prayed, “Lord, if this is a good idea, would you just make it happen?  You sent the animals to Noah on the ark, so you are obviously able to lead them if you want to!  Please sort the chickens how they need to be sorted!” and all 3 indoor-chickens walked into their coop!  So I said, “Lord, do I wait and see if Cannibal comes back out or just let Attila in now?” and out walked Cannibal into the pen, leaving the other 2 inside.  I shut the door to the coop and began to look at how to get Cannibal out of the pen and Attila inside.  Again I prayed, and AGAIN Attila walked right up to the door, which I opened for her.  The coop door was closed to keep the other chickens in, but Attila clearly wanted to go get a drink of water.  She was trying to go in the BACK of the door.  So I said, “Lord, I know this is silly, but if you want this to be successful, would you show her the door?” and she backed out of where she’d been and walked right through the door as I opened it!

From there it was easy to just leave the doors open for Cannibal to walk out of the pen and into the house, which she did.  While she was laying her egg, we decided how we’d catch her to put her back when she was done.  We left the opening of the side door only big enough for her to walk out, and Wes waited outside to grab her.  Apparently he prayed silently and suddenly thought of making a snare out of Joel’s fishing line.  He ran up to get it, yelling that he hoped he didn’t miss his opportunity!  As soon as he had the trap laid, the chicken popped up from her “nest” among the cords and walked to the door.  It’s glass, and with it open so little, she couldn’t find the way out.  At this point, there were people nearby and it was a little more embarrassing to pray for something as silly as a chicken to find her way out of my living room, but I just said, Lord show her the way, and immediately she found the opening and placed her foot precisely in the snare Wes had laid for her!  He snatched her up and put her back in the pen, where she happily spent the rest of the day!!

Cannibal's Attila's and Kevin's eggs

We celebrated with Huevos Rancheros for lunch!  Notice the PINK egg among the others!  Kevin (if you’ve seen the movie UP, you’ll understand why Becca picked this name for her chicken!) has started laying eggs, and they’re beautiful!  Will wonders never cease?

So what is the point of all this?  Well, you know, I think that God DOES care about the silly little things in our lives!  Clearly, he is ABLE to handle the little DETAILS we often don’t bother praying about.  Sometimes I think we don’t want to hassle him with the little stuff.  But, really, is ANYTHING a hassle to God?  I don’t think so!  If he cares about our hen laying an egg in the place she is comfortable (or a sparrow, for that matter) how much MORE does He care for us?!  (Luke 12:5-7)

TAKE A PICTURE!

  It may not look like it, but this is our living room!

 

Not 5 minutes later, she got up and calmly got up, wandered through the room looking for food (as I tossed crumbs toward the door) and walked outside!  I went to check the corner, and look what I found among the radios and chargers!

Radios, chargers, cables, and egg! A perfect nest!

There’s SO much to tell!  Where do I start?  I guess I’ll write chronologically, more or less, and see how far I get!

We’ve been traveling a lot – as usual – between home and the big city an hour and a half away.  So we’ve had to leave our new chickens in the care of other people.  Sadly, we just found out that someone fed them their meal on a Styrofoam plate … and they ate it – Styrofoam and all!  So we researched “what to do when you’re chickens eat Styrofoam” (gotta love having internet access again!), and gave them a laxative – olive oil.  They haven’t laid any eggs since the plate incident, and we’re REALLY hoping this will help them! Honestly, I’m just glad it wasn’t something I did!

About 2 weeks ago, a crew from the church’s TV station came to do a simple interview with us.  They were putting together a Christmas special for the show “Nuestra Fe” (Our Faith), and they were going to interview us about our Christmas traditions and how they point to Jesus.  Well, we thought we were going to be a segment of the show, with interviews with other people combining to make the whole show.  Nope!  It was the Williamson Hour!  We sat in our brightly lit living room (as it poured outside) and visited with Pastor David Romero … for a LONG TIME!  We were supposed to do 4 10-minute segments, but on the first segment, no one saw the “2 minute” cue, so we didn’t wind down the conversation.  By the end, we all felt like those 10 minutes would NEVER end!  That’s because there were 16 of them!

Setting up the living room for the interview

We also thought that we could make mistakes and fix them or try again or whatever.  Nope.  Each take would be edited, I guess, but just things like which camera would be used, not to edit out Spanish errors or awkward silence or anything like that!  That’s pressure in any language!  We do know that at least one person invented a word that does not appear in the dictionary … yet, but we think it was understandable.  We had a good time, and we hope and pray people were pointed to Jesus.  We know people watched because we got all sorts of emails and notifications from people who were watching.  Ellie even got a facebook friend request!

The show must not have been a complete failure, since they aired it again yesterday.  One of our staff got a phone call from her family in another city that they were watching us on TV!  Of course, since we can’t get any channels here at camp, we’ve never seen the show, but 2 of the TV station staff have said they’re bringing us a dvd next week!

You may ask (as I did) who actually watches the channel.  Does it really get the Good News out to people who need to hear it?  Let me share a few things we recently heard.  First of all, when we were on vacation and had cable in the hotel, we were channel surfing, looking for something decent that we could watch as a family.  As we climbed toward the English-speaking channels, we heard a voice we recognized, went back a channel, and there was Pastor David, interviewing a guy from Argentina.  We left it there and ended up watching for over an hour.  It was nice – and even uplifting!  But how many families end up doing that?

At the church staff’s Christmas party last week, people were sharing experiences they had related to the ministries of the church.  One young pastor, Leo, shared that as he was walking into the bank, a woman he passed burst into tears. “Oh, great!  What did I do now?”  Well, it turns out she recognized him from TV and went on to share what an impact one of the shows had had on her.  She was going through a hard time in her life, turned on the TV, and the show that was on was a real encouragement to her – Leo’s show.  Stories like that make us excited to be a part of a greater ministry here in Honduras!

More on Christmas later!

Hint: they're a little smaller

Joel’s chicken lays green eggs.  Abigail’s lays blue ones, but she’s on sabbatical.  Apparently she recently decided she wanted to be a mom, but her previous caretakers say she should be back to laying as soon as tomorrow.  We shall see.  Becca and Ellie each have a chicken, but they won’t be laying for about another month.  But just THINK!  At Easter, what a time-saver!  Just boil and hide – the eggs are already colored!

Wes and Abigail brought the chickens home late last week, and they’ve been happily – more or less – pecking away at the soil, our flowers and each other ever since.  They’re not going to be free range exactly, but we needed to make modifications to their home today, so they had a few hours to run free.  Yeah, it was going to be ONE hour, but … well, they didn’t want to come back.  By afternoon they were ready to go in, but one – Attila the hen – was afraid of the door.  She kept getting close and running the other way!  So we’d try to get behind her and encourage her along.  Ever tried to herd a chicken?  Not so much.  They pretty much just squawk and scatter.  How can ONE chicken scatter?  GOOD QUESTION, but she can!  After about an hour of running in circles, coaxing, and – yes – praying, Wes and I finally trapped the chicken between us.  I pinned her down while Wes got a good hold on her and shoved her into the pen.  I’m sure she’ll be happy to go in on her own next time!  Of course, we hope we don’t have to let them out again for a LONG time – at least till next week.

Note our brand new harvest place mats - hand made by Grammie!

Ellie made a delicious apple pie with Abigail’s help. Ma Ingalls has (had?) the BEST recipe! It’s a new family favorite! Becca’s stuffing was YUMMY, and the turkey came out JUST RIGHT! Joel was in charge of the green beans. The whole family helped with washing dishes all day. We have just enough leftovers to enjoy but not get sick of them! Though we could go for another pie!
Thanksgiving is not the same without a football game, so we watched the usual one. It’s great, ‘cause we get to see the Eagles EVERY year – and they WIN every year (in the end). Ever seen the movie “Invincible”? It’s become our Thanksgiving football! It even snows a little every year. Only in the movie, but shhh… we don’t talk about that!

Bliss, by Ellie and friends

We also worked on a puzzle all weekend. It’s a lot less fattening to do a puzzle of chocolates instead of eating whole boxes of them! It did inspire us to make brownies one night. All in all, we’re thankful for a good Thanksgiving holiday! Maybe next year we’ll have company!

In the bathroom, I thought, “Maybe I should just go past and greet him, tell him I don’t have any money, but…” and then the song started playing in my mind, and it hasn’t stopped. “Silver and gold have I none, but such as I have give I thee. In the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth rise up and walk! He went walking and leaping and praising God…” Hmm… So I go up to him and say … what?! “I have no money, but I’ll give you what I have…?? And what IS that? Why can’t I say “in the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth rise up and walk!”? I don’t know about you, but I want to see a lame man walking and leaping and praising God!!

I found Wes and got a little cash. I had decided to go back to where the man lay and ask him his name – maybe sit on the floor with him just to be on his level and not towering above. Then I would tell him I would be praying for him. It didn’t feel like enough. But when I got there, he was gone. I feel horrible. I don’t know that I will be back at that grocery store again. It’s 5 hours from our home. I can pray for him. God knows his name. But I feel this sadness every time I think of that man. I greeted him as I would anyone else I passed by, but that was IT.

Sorry there’s no happy ending. Just some deep ponderings going on that I wanted to share a bit of.

It’s a big deal that Alex and 2 cousins all graduated tonight from the same school.  As far as I know only one parent of the 3 kids finished 6^th grade!  And in this little school, there were 7 graduates – 3 from “our” family!  We had asked ahead what it meant to be padrinos, and they said, “No, you just walk the student down the aisle.”  Answers here generally start with no.  I was wary, figuring there had to be something they weren’t telling me!

We arrived and lined up in the school yard with Alex.  Immediately someone came up to Wes and said, “You’ll be doing the opening prayer,” and walked away.  He went out to make sure he knew the name of the school, confirmed how to say the word “graduate” in Spanish, and stuff like that.  One set of padrinos hadn’t come at 6:30 (an hour late); so they put that student at the back of the line and started announcing us.  Thankfully, we were 4^th in line and could watch what we were supposed to do.  No one had told us anything.  We saw that the woman took the hand of the student to walk him/her in.  I wasn’t sure Alex would want me to do that, but when our turn came, he grabbed my hand, and in we went!  Of course, they announced his name and his padrinos, “Wesssst y Cindy Wiwiiillian.  Som,” with a giggle.  Each student’s guests sat at a designated table, so we were there with his family.  (He’s Leonel’s son – Joel’s best friend.)  There were 11 of us around a table meant for 5.  No problem.

The program was nice.  After opening prayer, we sang several verses (there are 6!) of the Honduran National Anthem to a recording of the music.  Alex was the valedictorian, with a GPA of over 98%!  Four students graduated with honors.  Three of them were the cousins!  As each student was called to receive a diploma, their parents joined them up front.  It was really a family affair.  Leonel has often been the only father at school events, but it appeared that every student at least had a father figure in attendance.  Isn’t it interesting that those who made it to graduation had a father figure in their lives?  I wonder how many of those who didn’t, don’t.  A woman who spent 25 years in the US and is teaching English at the school made them mortar boards, and she had prepped them to toss them on the count of 3.  She put on “We are the Champions” by Queen and when the chorus began she counted to 3, and they TOSSED!!  We were trying to control our giggles as we sang along.  They must have played it through nearly 10 times!

To begin the reception, which took place in the same seats, the graduates were called up front and the padrinas of the boys and the padrinos of the girls were called to join them.  I looked at Leonel and said, “You didn’t tell me about this!”  We had to dance while everyone else sat watching us!  So here we are, 6^th grade boys with a woman and 6^th grade girls with a man, and we had to dance for one very long song!  Those poor boys!  Alex told me he’d have told me about it, but they hadn’t told him either!  His mom was sitting in the corner laughing … until they yelled, “change!” and the MOMs had to dance with their sons!  It was really cute.

After the dance they brought punch out to the adults and asked us to wait till everyone was served so we could do a toast.  I forgot and took a sip.  Oooops!  But I was SO thirsty!  And we waited SO long!  There were about 30 adults there, and it took half an hour to serve us punch!  Finally we all rose and the teacher said some words and then said, “So now what?  Do we lift our glasses?  Or do we just drink?” She was trying to make it really special but wasn’t at all sure what to do!  Cute is the only word I can think of for her, but I mean that in an honoring way, not at all  demeaning.  She’s just an adorable and vibrant teacher.

After our cake, people began thinking of going home.  Thinking, but not going.  It was POURING!  We became one of two taxis, taking everyone home.  Picture ladies running, all decked out, to the car with napkins on their heads to ward off the torrential downpour.  Not too effective!  Wes must have taken nearly 30 people home before he came back for us!  Then the 11 of us who live on camp piled into our SUV and we slipped and slid up the mountain to camp!

It was a wonderful cultural experience!

As I siphoned water from the bottom of the tank, I started sucking out dead fish!  What!?!?  That’s not allowed!  But yeah, there they were.  I think that’s when Chris (he’s a guy named Chris – you probably don’t know him) discovered the electric shock from the fountain pump!  Also, the ammonia level was soaring and not a trace of nitrite.  The fish were crowding around the water that falls into the tank from the plant beds, gulping for air.  These guys were in trouble!  This called for drastic measures – this was do or die, and they were dying left and right.

Step one was starting a slow, steady water exchange until we reached an almost 100% exchange.  Goodbye ammonia and nitrobacter.  Goodbye weaker fish.  A 100% exchange is not usually recommended, but we were going for it.  Once that was started, we put a grounding rod right next to the outdoor outlet.  The whole electric system is grounded, but this was an extra measure, and it took care of the electric shock from the pump.  Then we increased aeration in the biofilter and the two plant tanks.  The idea there was to move the water more – especially in the biofilter.  I thought maybe there wasn’t enough water circulation in the biofilter, and not enough oxygen for the bacteria to really flourish.  That could result in toxic levels of ammonia.

The immediate result was healthier looking water, and healthier acting fish.  Then they started dying.  We lost about 70 in 24 hours.  Fortunately, I had bought far more fish than the system can handle when they get big because I wanted them to produce enough ammonia to start the nitrification cycle so I can put plants in.  Four days later, they are doing great.  No more gasping for oxygen, no more dying fish, and they are eating like little piggies.

So what happened that caused everything to go south?  Did some die from ick that then rotted at the bottom and gooped up the water?  Did the frog eggs poison them?  Was it the electric shock?  Was the biofilter not working well and the ammonia level got too high?  I dunno.  But next time around I will acclimate the fish like I know I should, I will have some salt already in the water to ward off ick, and I will be more aggresive in aeration and water circulation – especially in the biofilter.

Today I have over 150 thriving fish.  Tomorrow I will test for nitrites.

Gulping for Air

Thing is, those were free and unfortunately were doomed from beginning.  But I learned a lot from them, and things have been going… well, going, since I bought some quality fingerlings from a breeding company on the 4th of this month.  These little guys will be two months old on Saturday and they are much bigger than the other ones were at four months!  There have been challenges with these little guys.

First on the list was the ick.  Yeah, ick.  It’s easier to say than ichthyophthirius multifilis.  Ick shows up as cottony growth on the fish, they bang themselves against anything in sight, and eventually die, and it is very contagious.  I don’t know if it came from the breeder or if it was because I listened to the breeder when he told me how to introduce the fish into the tank, but either way I’m wasn’t very happy when I saw ick in my tank.  Let me explain… ick can come from drastic changes to water quality, which stressed the fish.  Mr. Breeder man told me to float the bag with the fish in it in the tank for 10 minutes before putting them in… i was planning on 45 minutes.  He told me to just dump them in rather than slowly mixing the tank water into the bag before dumping them in… and I was planning on the former.  Well, he’s an engineer, and I’m just… just me, so listened to him.  Grrrr!

Now, with food fish you can’t just treat the tank with normal ick treatment, so I did some research and ended up treating the system with salt.  Aquarium salt, which I had to buy in a pet store in San Pedro.  They looked at me a little funny when I asked for 17 pounds of the stuff.  Over three days I slowly added salt to the system, and in the end lost about 10 fish to ick and the the system is clear of ick!

Next entry has to do with frogs and electricity…