Friday, July 15, 2011

1, 2, 3…3 * 2:1

Be careful to leave your sons well instructed rather than rich, for the hopes of the instructed are better than the wealth of the ignorant.
- Epictetus
Before diving into the latest goings on at Fazenda Alfheim, I wanted to take a minute to congratulate our youngest son, Pelle Martin Hesketh, for graduating yesterday with a 2:1 classification in Geography from the University of Leceister. A 2:1 is also known formally as an upper second-class honors and is sought by many employers and academic institutions. Both his grandmother, Mette (see previous photo), and Johannes attended the graduation ceremony. We could not be more proud or pleased for Pelle...and for Johannes and Esben; all three graduated with upper second-class honors from first-rate UK universities.

And while neither Lone nor I could attend Pelle's graduation, we will have every opportunity to celebrate his grand accomplishment when he arrives in Brazil on Tuesday, July 19th, for a six-week visit, long enough to participate in the Hesketh family reunion in the second half of August, and to join us on August 6th to watch Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows - Part 2 with our dear friends Vivian and Luciano…can't wait!

When he arrives, he will be welcomed into our newly painted house (after much searching Lone managed to find an ochre color that passes the Skagen, Denmark test). Lone's joy at successfully transposing a tiny bit of her moderland‏ to Fazenda Alfheim clearly shone through in her work. And while she certainly earned a gold star for creativity, I am not sure that we can entirely overlook the productivity implications of her artwork.

In addition to newly-painted houses, Pelle will enjoy the privilege of traveling along our newly repaired entry road. Esben and the workers installed four drains to help keep our 1.8 km entry road high and dry during the rainy season. Esben also oversaw the repair of our crumbling bridge, which has never looked better.

And while on the subject of bridges, the bridge in front of our property (the one about which we have been fighting with the mayor of Natividade da Serra) continues to progress.

In addition to house painting and road repair, Esben and Paulino, our newest worker, who also happens to be João's brother, dug out one of our biggest ant colonies (supervised, naturally, by a peep of hungry chickens).

Paulino also helped Clair and Dener cut wood to fuel our newly installed wood-burning stove.

The wood-burning stove is intended to ensure that we survive what to date has been an unusually cold winter. We also hope that our survival extends to our ten guests during the Hesketh family reunion. Despite the fact that five are traveling from Canada, I am pretty certain that they are not used to housing sans insulation.

In anticipation of the arrival of our many guests, Lone has been busy stocking up on food. Thankfully Jamie dropped by for a week, time enough to lead the slaughter of a 70+ kg sow and the making of bucketloads of sausages!

Not wanting to be limit our diets to pork, we are also fattening (on oat pastures) approx. 100 chickens for the two-week event. Double yummy!

As busy as this made the ladies, they did not limit themselves to preparing meat, picking and juicing a small ton of lemons. Add this to our existing stock of winter honey, guava and roselle (Hibiscus sabdariffa) as well as the daily production of milk and eggs and we should be well-prepared to feed a small army.

Finally, a startling example of how far the US has declined and Brazil has prospered over the past several years: