éxito

so i started working with a farmer about 3 months ago. he had problems with his chickens. they´re layer hens. they were not laying many eggs, he´s got 100, and he was only collecting about 7 per day.

i went to check out his farm. his barn was completely closed off. no sunlight was getting in, and did not have electricity going to the barn, so he couldn´t have a light inside. chickens/whatever animal need some light, at least in the morning, as a sign, in this case, to start laying eggs. also, the floor inside was all wet. needs to be dry, or else they can sicken easily. in the case of their food, they were only receiving half of the necessary ration (they need 4 oz a day for every chicken). he also lives at a pretty high elevation, higher than where i live, so it´s cold, and some measures needed to be taken in order to maintain a higher temperature inside. i gave him some simple instructions at the beginning and did a few follow up visits.

I went there today to see how things were going. he´s now up to 75 eggs daily. before he wasn´t even covering the cost of the feed, now he is with some profit. he´s fun to talk to. he and his wife always invite me in for some coffee/eggs and tortillas after we check out the chickens. he always has a lot of questions about the US. we´ve talked a lot about the educational system and politics in general. today we talked about oil and the middle east.

it´s really fun. i have to travel about an hour and a half to get there and an hour and a half back on a crowded old school bus. but, i always look forward to getting there, and always leave with a strong feeling of contentment. i´ve got a good job.

here´s the new sunday morning tradition. i can buy a pound of strawberries for under a dollar on sunday mornings (market day). what you´re looking at here is a 3 stacker of pancakes. at first glance you may think, big deal, strawberries on pancakes. however, there is that amount of strawberries on every pancake in the stack. also, they are banana pancakes with chocolate chips in them. it´s pretty much bliss every sunday morning in my house.

i´m a chicken consultant now. here i´m giving a training on chickens to a group of women that another volunteer works with. it´s the third volunteer i´ve helped out on their chicken projects. i always wanted to be a consultant.