Farm Friday

It's hard to believe that February is drawing to a close. Temperatures begin to drop a bit here as our families Stateside report temperatures rising and snow melting away! It's odd to be living below the equator and experiencing opposite seasons. This month our family reached the exciting milestone of living in Zambia for 6 months. Time marches on, and rains continue to fall as rainy season reaches its peak.

Strawberry tunneling was finally finished yesterday. The strawberries are happy, happy, happy now.  And we are thankful it is done.

Aerial view of the tunnels ready for plastic

Stretching the plastic into place

Plastic on! Hopefully the berries will appreciate the drier conditions.

Raspberries continue to produce in abundance. After consulting with PSI, we discovered the reason for the lack of sweetness is due to the heavy rains. Apparently the rains somehow decrease and dilute sugar content. Our kids have been thrilled to gobble up the berries that are not selling because of this. Raspberries hang on...you will be tunneled next!

Gooseberries are being harvested twice a week. These fruits are sold to a local grocery store in Kitwe. It is encouraging to finally have some income during the rainy season.

At the end of March we are hosting a food production specialist team who will be helping us set up our processing building to produce jam and bottle honey. We have over 6,000 pounds of strawberries in our freezer waiting to be made into jam (minus what the kids and I snitch on occasion). Getting the building up to food production specs is demanding our attention. The floor must be tiled, all the cracks in the processing room must be sealed. An air conditioning unit will be added to regulate the temperature of the room to keep our fruits stable. A water filtration system is also being added so we can process with clean water. We are looking forward to this new venture to provide more opportunities to employ workers; widows who will have a regular income to provide for their families. We pray that as the business grows, Lifesong Farms impact will be positive and long-lasting. 

Work at the new farm progresses. The pump house for the irrigation system is finished. As is the security fence surrounding the property. The sea container conversion to housing for our night guard is almost complete. Currently we are beginning construction for a cooler that will be used for our berry harvest in July. In the next few weeks, preparation of the strawberry beds must begin. We anticipate the arrival of 100,000 strawberry plants the first week in April. 

Maybe we should just move in here as we wait for our own house to be finished. hmmmm....

Pump house complete and ready for the irrigation system to be added!

Working in the mud to prepare a path for the security fence.

We are thankful to continue to see progress in spite of the challenges of working in the rainy season.  We are getting used to frequent delays due to rain, stuck equipment, and power failures.  It is certainly an exercise in patience and perseverance.  As we look back on the last few weeks, we can only thank God for His protection and blessings.  We are reminded of the scripture which talks about how we plant and water but God gives the increase.  We hope that our efforts and attitudes are pleasing to Him and trust that He will indeed give increase to Lifesong Farm.

Just another day.

A cobra measuring over 5' long killed a few feet from our future cooler on the new farm.

Our family and Lifesong Farm thanks all of you for your continued prayers and support.  We could not do it without you.  May our God richly bless you.

Guest Blogger...Child #3

Today you have the opportunity to experience Zambia through the 9 year old Claire Filter. Enjoy.

Zambia is awesome. We have everything we need. We have yummy food, cold water and awesome animals to catch and enjoy. Some of my favorite things to do here are, pick mangoes, catch chameleons, play in the mud at the farm and eat strawberries, raspberries, blackberries and gooseberries from Lifesong Farm. We have had lots of adventures since we moved here. I will tell you about a few of them.

Adventure #1 The Monkey
Us kids were at Lifesong Farm in the mango grove. We have a fort there and we play in it a lot. Once Savannah was pretending to make a salad with a Zambian baby named Mitzi. Suddenly she yelled, "Whoa! Guys! Monkey!"And sure enough there was a big monkey sitting in one of the mango trees. We chased it while baby Mitzi just stared. By the time it got to the bushes, we called the grownups and they came out. Caleb had a spear and was thinking about killing him, but we all said, "No!" We let him go. He finally slipped under the farm's electric fence and got away. We named him Strango. (Because that comes from strawberry and mango, that's what he likes to eat)

Adventure #2 The Chameleons
We were all at the new farm unloading the sea container when Miss Alisa came with 2 chameleons, a boy and a girl. The chameleons were married, but they fought a lot. The McBs wanted to keep the boy but we told them we would keep them both and give them the babies. So we took them home. We let them climb in trees and then they both got away. The boy was named Samson and the girl was named Delilah. Since then we have caught about 8 chameleons ourselves. What's awesome about a chameleon is it changes colors when you put them on a different tree. We put them on a green and yellow leafed tree and they turned the perfect color to match. They are pretty fast, everyone thinks they move slow and steady, but you kind of have to move fast to catch em.

Adventure #3 Hunter
At the new farm in the tractor shed, we sat talking with the McBride kids when Sis said, "A puppy!" There was a cute skinny puppy sitting on dad's backpack! Us and the McBs had a name meeting, we chose Hunter for his name. When Hunter was a little older he got attacked by mango flies. Mango flies are flies that lay their eggs in dirt or poop and then if a dog sits in that spot the mango fly larva burrows into their skin. One day we noticed Hunter had little holes on both of his sides. There are big dogs here too so we thought that he got bit by one but then we noticed there were all mango fly larva. They must have hurt really bad because whenever we would touch Hunter he would cry and cry. We didn't know how to get them out. At first Dad was pulling them out with a tweezers but there were too many to do that plus Hunter didn't like it he was howling. So Dad had the idea to drown the mango flies. Next day, we filled a tote up with hot soapy water and put Hunter in it. The mango fly larva couldn't breathe so they started backing out of Hunter's skin. We lifted him up and dad started pulling them out with a tweezers like crazy! It took a long time. After we thought they were all out, we got a big screen and dumped out the water on the screen. Us kids wanted to know how many there were. We counted 92 mango fly larva, but we had pulled some out earlier so I estimate that there were probably 125  in Hunter. I think that's about right. I think this story is really gross but kind of cool.

This is Hunter and Larissa right after we found him. He is lots cuter now but I don't have a picture of him.

This is the village we built in the mango grove

We have had lots of adventures, but there are too many to say all of them so I am going to stop with that. If you come visit, I am sure that we would have some more adventures with you.