HOT

Dear Family
Ok folks. Today is very hot! It is 91 in our kitchen. 95 in our bedroom and 99 on the porch. This is the first day that it has been so hot. And there are plenty more days coming.
I am watering my garden regularly now. It is hard for the girls to haul all that water. The carrots are growing well. Peppers are finally flowering. The tomatoes have fruit. The eggplant is iffy sometimes. The corn only grew 3 stalks. The papaya trees were transplanted this week to various places outside the garden. That about sums it up.
This week Clint is hoping to get our water pump in so that we don't have to haul so much water by hand. But our inverter is not quite strong enough to handle the load so we will have to run our generator to fill our water. Right now we don't have a water tank so we will be filling a large 30 gal basin for now. Hopefully when we get back we will be able to put up our big metal water tank.
We are trying to finish up some little projects this week before we leave next week. We are going to be pouring a cement pillar under the cement spillway on the village spring. The village spring was man made in the sixties. It has a 30 ft cement spillway. Over the years since the war, it has not been maintained. The water has eaten the soil out from under the spillway for about 15-20 ft. That doesn't leave much holding it up. The cement is holding itself together over a 10 foot drop. If
the cement breaks and falls, Clint says it will most likely take the whole damn with it, losing a valuable water resource for the village. This is not their only water supply but it is a large pond reserve that would be bad to lose. We are going to put a cement pillar under the spillway to help support it. We have plans in the next year to put multiple pillars under it but we are starting with one.
We are purchasing food this week to be distributed to Tronquera and Santa Rita.
We are also trying to get the windows in the church done. The church members from here and Santa Rita are volunteering their time, while we are supplying all the supplies, lumber, nails, generator, etc. There are 4 big windows and one small one. Also two interior doors. The next step will be to purchase paint for the church. I was hoping to do that before we leave but it looks like we will have to wait until we return after Christmas.
This week was an exciting week. I got to talk to almost everyone on Monday when I went to town. Then Clint when to Puerto on Tuesday, back on Wednesday morning. Then Brandel fell while playing (where he shouldn't have been playing) and got a large cut under his arm. It took 5 stitches to close it. I had never thought of it before, but the skin and area under your arm is very tender and often used by adults when interacting with children. Try putting a child on your lap without reaching under
his arms or picking him up for any reason. So Brandel has been a lot more careful in his play in the last couple days. This is the third time in his life he has had stitches. I just wonder how many more he will have.
We decided to leave a little bit earlier to save ourselves some hassle of trying to finish packing Sabbath evening in time to leave at 6:30 am Sunday morning. We will leave Thursday or Friday, Oct 25 or 26. So that means I can talk to you all that much earlier. :)
I am going to go find somewhere a little cooler to rest.
Lots of love to all of you.
Love
Marilyn