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February Update

This past month has been more busy than normal so I haven’t had any real time to be on the computer.  I’ve been busy with all the normal things.  Running the lawn care business, the rice mill, lots of maintenance at Im Jai House, and even a few side electrical jobs.  Plus our vegitable garden at home is growing and is getting bigger all the time.   

We’ve had a few guest come and go.  First Emmet was here, then Adams parents and his aunt.  Then my friend Len from Iowa was here too.  He comes almost every year doing different things with orphanages and teaching English.  He is now going to be building a hostel in the mountains for kids to live while they go to school.  A much needed thing as most of these kids live too far from any school to be able to attend.  I’ll be doing what I can to help, including building a reverse osmosis drinking water system.  Something of which I am in the process of learning at the moment.  I know enough now that I was able to fix Im Jai Houses system.  We may make a video and try and do a little fundraising to try and build more systems and place them in different needed places.  Like orphanages and hostels for kids.                                                             

The rice mill had a great start but it seems to be slowing down at the moment.  I’m not sure if that’s because of the time of year or other reasons.  It seems that people want their cake and eat it too.  We built a rice mill because people wanted to process their rice.  But now they are complaining that the bran that is discharged from the machine isn’t enough.  They use the bran to feed their pigs.  Other machines apparently give more bran than the machine we installed.  There is one discharge part on the machine that spits out stuff you can’t use and another part where the bran comes out.  My theory is that the other machines which are much smaller and lower quality (which they are used to)  don’t separate the bran out from the other discharge as well.  Thus you get more bran but with other stuff in it too.  We are doing what we can to solve this problem to try and bring more people in.  These are just the things that when going into this thing I had no idea about and we are now trying to figure out.  The learning curve is high.

The family is good.  I know most of you already know but Prang is pregnant again.  Yeah!  Abigail is doing good and has started to talk up a storm and really enjoys singing.  She’s a lot better than her dad who can’t sing at all.  Park is doing well and should be getting off of his one years probation here soon.  Ton and Koi (Prangs two younger brothers)  still live with us and work with me when they are off from school.  Ton should be finishing his civil engineering degree here soon too.

Rice Mill Finished

As of Saturday last week the rice mill is finally up and running and producing rice for the village.  Saturday when the machine was turned on for the first time people from the village swarmed in.  It got so crowded the guys trying to do some adjustments on the machine couldn’t work.  Soon it became chaotic and some people were displeased because the bran that is discharged wasn’t enough for them to use when feeding the pigs.  People began to rush home to get un milled rice to test the machine.  It turned into a free day for anyone who brought rice to the mill.  At first I was a little set back but it was pretty much out of my control by then.  People just kept coming and there wasn’t much I could do about it.  But people were excited and we let it go for the first day.  Kind of like a grand opening.  So far a week has gone by and we have seen people come every day.  It’s been a good turn out so far.  Even Prangs family members are getting the hang of running and adjusting the machine.  Our biggest problem now is the cost of electricity.  After a few months of accounting we should be able to see exactly what kind of a profit we are looking at.  All in all it’s been a good and effective project.  Everyone seems pleased.  Click on the photos link to the right to see pictures of the mill. I also added a couple video clips down below too.

Rice Mill

I am proud to say that we (Ton, Prangs brother) and I have finally finished our first rice mill. We saved a lot of time and money on not having to build a main building. Rather just adding to an existing one. We took Dad’s area for the cows which was just a roof. They just moved the cows out into the field. We had to clear out a lot of cow manure and add over hangs on the roof to prevent rain from coming in. We hired some guys from the village to get us wood and bamboo from the jungle for the walls. We then hired this father and his son to build and install the rice hulling machine. They really knew what they were doing and have done some sixty machines or more this year. This machine runs off a ten horse power motor, thus making us have to upgrade our main power service. We are still waiting for the new electrical service to be finished. Then we will do some test runs and then learn how to actually use the machine. As well as teach the people in the village how to use it too. It’s actually pretty basic. The machine takes the rice in its husk form. Sorts out all the rocks sticks and other things brought in from the field. Sends the rice through a series of rollers that break off the husk from the actual seed. Then it is sifted again before it goes through another series of rollers that then polish the seed creating white rice. It’s capable of both brown and white rice. But everyone seems to want white because of the taste. The brown rice is obviously more nutritious but lacks in taste. The shavings that are polished off from the brown rice are saved and fed to the pigs. Maybe that’s why the pigs taste so good?  They’re feeding the pigs all the polished off nutrients from the rice.  Anyways hopefully only in a couple of days or so we should have everything up and running and will have our first running rice mill.  Prangs family seems optimistic about running the mill and the villagers seems excited to have something near by for them to use.  We are all excited to be able to have such a practical resource available for everyone. 

What’s New

A lot of new things are happening in our life over here in Thailand.  The biggest new thing is that as of this Saturday Nov. 29th we will have a new member in our house hold.  I wont go into much detail now other than he is a seventeen year old orphan who Prang and I know pretty well.  He no longer has anywhere to go and it’s either our house or juvenilehall.  This is basically his last chance to show he can be responsible enough to be on his own as a man soon.  We spent some time with him tonight eating out and bowling together.  We all had fun and are looking forward to our new life together.  Hopefully this will be what he needs to get it into his head that he’s got to get his act together before he’s own his own is a year or so.  God knows where I was at his age and that wasn’t too long ago.   So I’ve got heaps of hope for him.
Secondly, thanks to a generous investor whom I have yet to meet and is a friend of Adam’s has committed a big chunck of money to help get our rice mill project up and running.  You can read more about this project by clicking on the link.  As of now we are working out the details about the electrical service and should be able to have the main machine up and running within the next month.  I’ll keep everyone posted as things progress.  We hope for this to be something the village can really benefit from.

On top of everything else I have ben busy with many other things including maintenance at Im Jai, fixing water pumps, managing the care of a new soccer field, planting vegetables,  paid electrical jobs, our lawn care business and even built a new dinning table for our house.  This week we will have Thanksgiving with some 25 people or more incuding the Heine’s, go to a friends wedding and pick up our new house member.  Life seems busy at the moment but we are happy and doing well.  Please keep Abigail in your prayers.  She came down with the same bronchial infection thing that she keeps getting.  We believe that it may be from allergies but we aren’t sure yet.  All we know is that it has accrued three times in the past two months and it’s really hard on her because she looses the ability to breath well.  Pray for her, we are doing what we can to make sure she stays healthy.  Also check out our new pages on the right hand side.  “House builds” and “Videos.”

Steaklets

Our dog Steak.  Who is only just over one year old just had seven puppies the other night.  So now we have a bunch of “Steaklets.”  Sometime late in the night or early in the morning I was woken by our dog screaming.  I went out to check on it and there she was with three puppies in her hole under the house which she dug a week ago.  So I went back to bed relieved thinking to my self, “Ok only three; I can handle that.”  But to my surprise in the morning when I woke up there were seven!  Seven!  What the heck are we going to do with seven puppies!  We are looking for homes and giving them away for free.  We already have a home for one.  We just don’t want a bunch of ”steaklets” running around when we already have three dogs as it is.  You can check out more photos by going to the ”most recent photos” link.

Moving Forward

After Prang not being granted a visa into the United States “moving forward” has become the attitude we are being forced to maintain.  Though she took it rather hard at first, she snapped back into her usual happy, peaceful self in no time.  We are both convinced that Thailand is our home and we are happy to be here.  Though it would have been good to visit everyone and have everyone meet Prang and Abigail, we still haven’t given up hope.  Though trying to get Prang to go back into the US Consulate is going to be really hard.  She never wants to even look at it again.  But I haven’t given up and I am researching a little bit more and will try and apply for a green card for her.  It’s a long and expensive process with a few initial set backs.  One is I don’t have a real official job or a set income so proving that I can support her in America is close to impossible.  Hopefully I can pull some strings or someone can step in for me and we will be able to get things moving.  I’m still not sure if we have to live in the U.S. and wait for the green card or not.  Again I’ll keep everyone up to date on what happens.  For now I’ve been catching up on some of my work at Im Jai and started “raising” (I don’t know if that’s the right word to use or not) mushrooms at home.  It only took 18 dollars to build the mushroom hut and another 11 dollars to buy the bags the mushrooms grow in.  We’ve got a total of 100 bags that will apparently grow mushrooms for three or four months.  This should be enough for not just our house but Adam and Cindy’s as well as another friend’s house just down the street who are fostering orphans.  I’ve also been planting various vegetables and just trying to become more and more self sufficient.  I am still looking around for a rice field to rent and am still trying to get a rice mill started soon in the village.  You can read more about that by clicking on the rice mill link and you can see plenty of pictures by clicking on the recent pictures link.

Natural Fertilizer

A friend of mine has been busy creating his own natural fertilizer mix. By mixing cow manure, ash and animal bone all into a three thousand liter tank, then trace elements like zinc and calcium are added along with bacteria to break it all down into a liquid form. A total amount of 2,500 liters has been made. Enough for 125 rai. One rai = 1,600 sqm. A rai is a traditional unit of land area in Thailand. The rai is now considered to equal exactly 1600 square meters, which is 0.16 hectare or approximately 0.3954 acre. So around 50 acres. I was able to use some of it in the village in our family’s rice fields. They really liked it and next year want to use all natural fertilizer instead of those nasty chemicals there using now. Chemicals that have nasty side effects and deplete the soil quality. While natural fertilizer isn’t harmful, increases yearly yield, doesn’t deplete the soil and gives your rice more nutrients. I hope to be able to provide all the fertilizer I can for them in the years to come. Also we are looking for our own rice paddy so we can start growing our own rice. If we don’t rent and grow our own rice than we will join up with different children’s homes in the area and help produce more rice. We are also planning on building a rice mill in the village next year as well. I’ll talk more about that later. You can click on the “Rice Mills” link on the right to read more. For now we need to focus on visiting the US and next year we can dive into these new projects. Either this week or the next we will hopefully be having Prang’s interview at the consulate for Prangs visa. I’ll keep everyone posted. For now please be praying for her visa as well as for us to find a rice field. Click here to see more pictures of our time up in the village

Soccer Field

So we finally have a nice soccer field for the kids to play soccer on at Im Jai House. When Im Jai was first built the contractor promissed they would put in a soccer field for free but never did. So thanks to a generous sponser we finally have a soccer field after almost three years. I’ve ben busy making sure that someone takes care of the grass and that the sprikler system is kept up and running. Last week I brought in two eight meter, cement lighting poles and dropped them a meter deep in the ground and then poured concrete. Soon I’ll have to climb up to the top and mount some spot lights for the late night games. Click here for more photos.
    

Burmese Teak Wood

This past weekend we took a trip up to the village.  Baan and Lu who are staying with us while Adam and Cindy are gone went with us along with Wayland, Prangs two brothers, Prangs mom and another friend. Total we had ten people plus the top of the truck brimming over. We had so much stuff I had install another rack on the truck. It was very rainny and muddy and we had to use four wheel drive to get in. This always makes us feel gratefull for buying a four wheel drive. Plus I think it’s fun. We went not just to see the fam and the church but also to wire our friends new house. A very nice wood house made completely from teak wood from Burma. Very nice hard teak wood that can probably last for some twenty years plus. On another note. This week we should have everything put together for Prangs visa and we can then go in for an interview sometime this next week. So we should know soon if we will be coming to the states or not. We are planning for October 9th. We’ll keep everyone posted.  Clik here or just go to the Most Recent Photos link to the left to see more pics.

Rice Planting

We went and helped out a couple of Faith Full Heart homes just north of Chiang Mai plant rice.  We took along the boys living with us as well as a couple of Adam and Cindy’s kids.  We had fun playing in the mud and water as well as cathing crabs, shrimp, fish and snails.  That night when we went home Prang cooked up the crabs for dinner.  We ate so much we got sick.  I think we have all had enough crab for now.  Click here or go to the photos link to see more pictures.