Sunday, January 17, 2010

1-13-10

ONE OF MANY GEM SHOPS AROUND HERE














YOUR RECYCLING CENTER HAS THIS SIGN, RIGHT?





JUST YOUR TYPICAL SIDE
OF THE ROAD FARE






NICE MOUNTAIN CHAIN







"OUR" STREET







Aaron worked at the saw mill all morning with Paul and Bill. Paul let him operate the saw for the first time today. Before he made a cut, he had to do the following: adjust the height of the cut, open water valve to flow onto blade, pull out choke, turn starter key, push in choke the instant the engine turned on, pull down lever to start saw, push it with all his weight. After he had made a slow and steady cut (some of his weren't so steady) he had to pull off on the blade, lift the blade up over the remaining wood in order to bring the saw back to the starting position, turn the engine off, turn off the water valve to a 90 degree angle, and pull it back with all his weight. For the first few days when Aaron was just helping prepare for each cut, he sort of felt like a little kid holding the ladder for his father. But after cutting for over an hour, he longed for the lazy, stand by and watch job. Without a mask, safety goggles, and ear plugs, cutting the wood would be a nightmare. By the end of the morning, we got a tremendous amount accomplished.

Jen is feeling back to normal, but remained working inside as Paul dismissed her from saw mill duty with Bill on hand to help. She is a bit bored in her book classification project, but she will keep on with it and hopes to finish all the classifying soon in order to begin the data base entries. She is wondering why this project initially seemed like a good idea. Working on a farm and creating a database seems like a disconnect. She just thought she left database work back in NY.

This afternoon we took off and headed into town. We noticed there are a tremendous amount of gem shops that litter the highway. We don't know who is finding gems, and of what kind, but there are easily 15 shops in a two mile stretch. The feel is a little different than 46th street between 5th and 6th Aves in Manhattan, what with no Hasids around. We think the gems sold here are considerably less valuable than diamonds, but since we didn't enter any of the shops, we aren't sure.

There is one other thing to report on, and it deals with the baby chickens. Apparently 16 baby chickens hatched not too long ago. The chickens sort of roam free, and over the past few nights, the number has plummeted to 7. Each night, some creature has come along and presumably devoured a whole chicken on 9 consecutive nights. The other day Lara instructed Aaron to "grab one." This was an unusual request, and his momentary delay allowed the chicken to elude him. While they are baby chickens, they're not exactly chicks. They're not of egg laying size, but they're a pretty big. Lara is distraught at loosing all her chickens, so Paul has decided to build a small chicken coop for them to sleep in. For them moment they have been locked in a small cage to remain safe, but it's far to small for their size. No missing chickens for the past two nights, and probably by Friday, the new coop will be completed. Aaron helped a little with the construction, and his job was mostly to shovel out ice hardened manure so the wood frame could rest on a level surface. What a great job that was.

One more thing of note: A new WWOOFer is suppose to arrive tomorrow. Our privacy will vanish.

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