Materilistic

People from A-land time there stuff as much as we do.
Most vans like this will carry 15 or 16 people plus all their stuff.

Crazy Landlord-

I love B-town and most of the people, and I try to love the rest. Which there are some people in my life that no matter what I do I cannot win. One of these thorns in the flesh people is our landlord here at our office. He is an old man with nothing better to do then complain to me about sky falling. I first met him not too long after Jeff left. We actually rent a few acres of land and office from him. Please keep in mind that we have signed a 10 year contract. The man problem is that when we signed the contract we said that we would make certain improvements. But these improvements could be made at anytime over the next 10 years. So my first week after Jeff left this guy shows up who I have never met before and starts yelling at me for not building a garage and planting more fruit trees. The first outburst of this kind I was quite kind and gentle and said that I did not know anything about building a garage which I had never heard of this. When we rented the office two years ago we completely remolded the office, we planted dozens of trees on the land, and we built a fence around the land and made a thousand more improvements. Which to my knowledge is really not that common here, actually most improvements are the responsibility of the landlord. But the land and office are truly one of the nicest places in all of B-town.

We had a huge incident yesterday. He showed up no hello just grabbed my by the arm and dragged me around to where we were keeping the sheep. The sheep had chewed the bark of six trees. He started yelling at me and asked me why I let this happen and what I was going to do about it. The bark was already gone off the trees so I asked him what he wanted me to do. He kept yelling at me and asked me what I was going to do. The trees are not worth anything and are only very small poplar trees. Then he started yelling again about building a garage. He then told me that I had completely ruined his land in just the short time of three months that I had been running the office. Then after calling me a few choice words and yelling some more which he at this point became incomprehensible.

I pointed out to him that other then these six poplar trees that are missing a little bit of bark that all the fruit trees are doing really well and that all the crops were producing wonderfully. In two years we had turned his land from some of the poorest land in the area to by far the best. At least this time I did not laugh in his face, last time he started yelling at me I made fun of his childish behavior and told him that we still had eight years in our contract. Laughing at someone is not the best way to handle and angry old man, but I had nothing else to do. He request were so absolutely ridiculous I wondered if he was even in his right mind. Actually I do not think that there is anyway that this old man will even be alive in eight years, so I do not see why he is going to give himself a heart attack over when we build a garage. Really it does not matter because he is not going to be able to use it for another eight years. It could be possible that he wants us to make all the improvements then he is going to try to take his property back. This has happen to many of my friends in this country, the moment they finish making the improvement on the house then the landlord makes some excuse to take it back. I have tried so hard, and have been reminded of the beatitudes. So blessed are the meek because they will inherit the earth, or maybe just a small piece of property with six poplar trees without any bark.

The Office- August

The Carrots

Squash

Onions

California Poppy

Corn

Cabbage

Our lambs have really grown and most are just as big as their mothers.

The apricot tree

These are the tree seedlings from Shidan. Thanks Josh for the help.

Acacia tree

Pictures from a morning ride!

Just about every morning I am out on my bike up on some mountian trail or riding through some river valley. And every morning there are so many amazing things to see. Most mornings I do not carry my camera. I guess it has all just become the normal scenary for me. But I thought I would put just one mornings images from my ride on my blog for you to see.

These are a few images from my little village that I live in. This man who is a good friend of mine is making bricks for his house . The first step is seperating out the rocks .

These are his two children and yes , his youngest in this picture has blond hair .
Which is truelly rare for A-land.

There are always lots of young guys just hanging out.

Worst Birthday Ever!

Actually other then being violently sick really it was not that bad of a birthday.
My friends tried so hard to make it a special day. They had lots of birthday decorations, which I must say are very hard to come by here in A-land. They also made Cappuccino cupcakes, which again the ingredients are hard to come by here. And then to top it all off they even preformed a comedy act. But other then the party I spent must of the day in bed. I hope this is not prophetic for the next year.
I also recieved dozens of emails and birthday cards from friends and family all over the world. So it is hard to have a bad birhtday when you know that you are loved by so many people. Here are a few pictures from the party.