I just want everyone to know that I went start to finish with a pot of boiling water and that saying is false.  Let me know some other cute witticims that I should debunk while I have tons of time on my hands.

Also, today I taught a 3rd grade class the American ABCs to practice standing in front of class. I feel that it went well.  Here´s to practice!

Here is what´s new.

I have a vivero (read:reforestation) project in its planning stages.  This shall be a working triumvarate between the primary school, the mayor´s office, and the military.  All have pledged their support thus far and the initial figures for the tree count is around a thousand.  I expect the number to dwindle as we nail down some more of the specifics, but no matter what this should be a large project!  Our main goals are shade (including the river which has the problem of drying up because it evaporates) and direct consumption like fruit, medicial, and firewood.

Vermiculture…  Thanks to PCV Greg Fraser I have been able to bring worms into my site and they are not dead as of this writing.

I am still slowly getting my permanant life together.  I purchased a bed and a fairly large table for my personal space which is still not ready.  This will explain why there has been a bit of a backlog for mail since I dont really have the surface area to organize myself.  I´ll give a general shoutout to everyone who sent Christmas wishes to me I received your mail and will get back atcha´.

If you haven´t been checking (shame on you) there are newish pictures on my flickr account for your enjoyment!  Just to save you and me the time, I am indeed kissing a very dead, fried fish in one of the photos (try and contain your jealousy). Once I get my hands on a stove and gas tank here i will let you all know how many variations one can make with the options of tortilla, beans, and rice.

This is going to be a short post.

Happy New Years!

The house is coming together pretty well and I getting a head start on some secondary projects.  The first one is gross and wonderful because it turns gross stuff into wonderful stuff.  Let me explain.  Vermiculture is the process of using earthworms to eat organic matter and turn it into humus, which is worm castings or dookie.  This value added soil greatly improves soil it is added to and will reduce the need for fertilizers.  The additional worms that come about through reproduction can be fed to livestock, especially chickens.  The literature says that if fed a worm (high in protein) every day, a chicken will eventually go from laying an egg every three days to every day.  That is huge if we are talking about self sustainance farming.  That could be the tipping point between breaking even and having a surplus to sell.

The second project is small gardens which I will try to put into the school and (possible) the military garrison up the road.  Hopefully by growing vegetables some variation can be introduced into a diet of just rice, beans, and cuajada.  God knows my diet could use some sweet, green, delicious, variation.

Ok folks, I have a local mailing address!

Lucian Reynolds

Cuerpo de Paz

Las Pavanas, Somotillo

Chinandega, Nicaragua

Central America

 Also, I have new pics up.  Check ‘em out.