Camping

For those of you on facebook, this is probably old news. A recent highlight for me (ha, highlight from like almost 3 weeks ago! That's how long it's taken me to post to my blog again!) was a weekend camping trip at a huge lake/water resevoir with some friends. There are a lot more and better pictures on facebook, but here are just a few:

We took a boat out to a tiny little island way out in the lake where we set up camp. Not much room, not much privacy, but totally fun! The wind got pretty strong out in the middle of the lake, but we found little sheltered areas for our campfire and little grill area. This is basically the whole island:

Our little camp:

Me, Caroline, and Katie:

Alicia and Chastity, our wonderful cooks, grilling chicken, BBQ pork chops, and twice-baked potatoes (SO YUM!):

It was so nice to just hang out, eat, swim, play games, and relax for a couple of days. We battled rain part of the time, we all felt and smelled terrible by the time we headed home, and I don't think any of us really slept well, but it was still such a fun, relaxing, and memorable experience. We even cooked and ate shrimp that the guys caught around our little island!

Here's the whole group of us: Chastity, Alicia, Caroline, Ryan, Melvin, Anthony, Cristian, Katie, and me:

Sugar fast

I've talked about it several times; now I'm finally doing it. And it's surprisingly not been terrible so far either!

I'm finally and officially taking a month-long sugar fast--which means no candy, sugar in my coffee, no baked goods, no sugary drinks, no jam on toast, no desserts, etc. for 31 days. I originally planned for 30 days but 2 days into my fast I forgot and drank 1/2 a glass of orange soda (I can be so scatter-brained).

I'm doing this fast for two reasons: 1) first of all, I know I need it. I, like probably most other Americans and Dominicans, eat WAY too much processed sugar and my body is most likely addicted; 2) It's an exercise in self-discipline. I need to learn to be able to walk through the kitchen when there are cookies or brownies sitting on the counter without taking one "just because they are there," which has been my general excuse.

I'm on day 7 so far and I'm truly surprised at how easy it's been. We even had a covered plateful of rich chocolate brownies sitting on the counter all weekend and I wasn't even tempted to take one. Somehow knowing that it's not even an option makes it a lot easier to say no. Saturday I put two of them in the freezer to save for my end-of-sugar-fast celebratory baked snack and I didn't even lick my fingers!

Until my fast is over if I get in the mood for something sweet I go for fruit. Yesterday I made a sugarless strawberry-banana smoothie! The cool thing is I can still satisfy any chocolate craving I might have, too. Nate makes these amazing chocolate-peanutbutter smoothies sweetened only with frozen bananas and they are SO AMAZING. I can't believe there's no sugar in there!

I'll let you know how the rest of my fast goes.

Sweet home [Indiana]

It's funny how you appreciate home the most when you haven't been there for a while. Ungrateful beings that we sometimes are, we don't see the beautiful things that are right in front of our noses until our perspective has been changed. Growing up I didn't care too much for the day in-day out rigorous farming schedule but my first trip here to the D.R. in 2007 changed by perspective and I truly cherished my last full year (I think my last full year--we'll see how life goes, lol!) on the farm.

A wave of homesickness hit me this morning and so for therapeutic reasons I decided to post photos of home in my blog today instead of photos from here. Pictures can't quite capture the beauty of each season; you can't feel the crisp air of the fall or smell the warm earth of spring, but pictures are the best we can do to preserve memories and moments. I've tried to select a variety of pictures to show the beauty of the seasons from my farm perspective. Hope you enjoy them!

This is a spring morning after chores. I love the brilliant greens of spring in Indiana:


A field cleared for hayseed planting:

Of course, no spring for us is complete without tons of calves to feed. Here's only two, lol:

Summer haymaking is my sister Adrienne's favorite time of the year. If you've never smelled hay drying, you're really missing out!

Summer and fall repair/improvement projects EVERY year, lol! My sister Lisa is on the left, and I'm on the right standing next to my dad.

Our little rat terrier, Scamper (hey, we were all little when we named him). He's getting to be an old boy--13 this fall. He loves to ride on the tractors and our gator. Sometimes he sleeps out in the machine shed so he won't miss a ride in the morning.

My family might kill me for posting some of these, but I have to show us milking the cows ;-) That's Adrienne on the right. The second picture is of my youngest sister, Katrina, and the last picture is Lisa being her lovable, entertaining self ;-)

A relaxing Sunday afternoon last August canoeing on the St. Joseph river with some friends from church:

Every spring my grandpa's and grandma's elaborate gardens burst into fabulous colors that change as the year progresses. Here's one of the several fountains:

A summer sunset. I LOVE the sky in Indiana!

Unfortunately this is a pretty poor example of Indiana fall colors, but it's the best I had on my computer:

An Amish corn field partially harvested:

One of our fields in winter:

Me and my totally gorgeous sisters Adrienne, Katrina, and Lisa:

I'm absolutely LOVING my time here in the D.R., but I have to admit that it will be great to see home again later this year!

Say CHEESE!

Dad, you would be proud. I helped Arlene make cheese today! Well, she actually did almost all of it. Apparently there's a place here where you can buy raw milk. I went with her yesterday to get a gallon and then today she did all the "cooking" of the stuff and later I helped her strain the cheese and knead it to get all the whey out. It was like rubbery dough! It turned out really good and tastes just like the mozarella (not sure how you spell that) cheese you get at the store.

She braided some of the cheese:

It was a fun experience, but I don't think I would want to do that as my everyday job, Dad. ;-)

I only have four weeks of school left, but I'm still SO READY FOR SUMMER!!! And I actually do have opportunities every now and then to do something besides school when we don't have teams. One such fun activity was this past Friday.

Josh and Vicki Mathews are a couple who were interns last summer and have recently joined the SI staff as teams directors/coordinators. They've been here for a couple months already and are getting ready to move into a different house than the one they've been renting. Their new house is only a two- or three-minute walk from our house (yay!!!!). It's actually an older house that hasn't been lived in for a while and needs a little fixing-up and some paint. I had volunteered to help paint whenever they were ready to work on it (painting is one of my favorite jobs!) and Friday afternoon Vicki called me up. The goal was to get enough of the interior painted that they could move in next weekend after the last spring team goes back to the States. So, armed with rollers, brushes, a step ladder, waterbottles and my ipod with portable speakers, we tackeled the high-ceiling livingroom and master bedroom and got both of them finished with two coats in about three or four hours. Afterward Josh and Vicki treated me to Pica Pollo (the Dominican version of fast food: fried chicken and fried green bananas or plantains. It's SO good!) for dinner.

This is the front of the house:


This is the living room with it's HIGH ceiling:


;-) This is such a cute picture of Vicki that I just had to include it:


Josh and Vicki are great people; I'm really looking forward to having them as such close neighbors!