Here I am back to work at the Juniper Tree. I had a couple months back in Canada, enjoying some winter activities, and visiting friends and family. My wife and I had lots of opportunity to share about our ministries in Peru. When I got back to the Juniper Tree there was lots of catch up to do as far as property maintenance. Luckily I had my friend Mike along with me who help a lot with his hard work and great ideas. What we accomplished in the week was cutting all the grass, which was like a hay field, cutting and burning many weeds and we worked on the gardens. Mike came up with the idea of making a portable pig pen that we could use to put the pigs in the garden. They could root around and work up the soil while at the same time leave their fertilizer behind. It is working great and the gardens are really beginning to take shape. Near the end of the week we started forming and pouring cement sidewalks. This was something I had wanted to do for a while as it really starts to define certain areas of the property and when we get some grass in those defined areas the home will really start to take on a finished look.
Here is a picture of the area of the garden that the pigs worked up and then we levelled and planted many carrots and cucumbers. My idea is that I will keep this section for growing vegetables that the pigs can eat. Any outstanding veggies can go into the houses for our kids to enjoy, but some of the veggies that are not so impressive can be enjoyed by our pigs. The rest of the garden I would like to divide into 4 sections and have each house look after 1 of them. They would each have their own garden plot where they could grow whatever they want and the children could learn about agriculture. We have our first team of the year coming in the first week of April. They are a team that brings a lot of skill with them so we are now starting to prepare for their arrival so that we can keep them busy. I will have them continuing with the sidewalks and grass, building sunrooms at the back of each house, installing many electrical components such as lights and plugs and maybe an alarm. We would also like to finish off the entrance way at the Oasis center so that might be something they will work on. Later on this year we have many teams coming and one highlight will be the arrival of our playground equipment.
