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“Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, good will toward men.”

Season’s Greetings - Wishing you joy and peace this Christmas and a very Happy New Year

Pruning, ploughing, planting and the pond!

We have been busy during December at our Nature Park project in the town of Mekse.  There are three beds of lovely, but a little neglected, rose bushes which we have spent some time pruning.  It is good to get out of the office and do some practical work ourselves.  We employed a local farmer to plough the community garden area in preparation for the winter vegetables – peas, fava beans, chickpeas and garlic.  This is a bit of an experiment as we hope to grow them using only natural pest control methods.  If we are successful, it will be a good demonstration to our volunteer helpers of a more sustainable way of farming and one that is good for the environment.  And after weeks of delay due to the late rains we organized a tree planting day where we invited local church groups to help us plant another 70 trees.  Sadly, we had to cancel the event at the very last moment because the ground was waterlogged after days of heavy rain!!  God clearly has a sense of humour! We are awaiting a dry spell and will try again then.  One good outcome from the rains is that our newly extended pond has filled with water.  It is amazing how quickly this happened.  We hope it will soon re-colonize with pondlife. Work to complete the fence will take place very soon.