The day after we arrived, we began tilling the garden, building the coop, and acclimating ourselves to Appalachia. We were disappointed that the mountain folk did not come down to meet us but we were assured that they were "shy." Regardless, the chicks arrived and we continued building the coop out of boards and "things" that we found laying around the mission. Lois and Ralph both turned out to be amazing people and Stacey and I fell in love with their two granddaughter, Destiny and Kirsten, who were their permenant wards. 
Kirsten is four and, at 32 months, came into the custody of the grandmother due to "circumstances" that are beyond our control and, for which, I refuse to discuss here but...use your imagination...or nightmare scope. Regardless, both girls are doing well and, while Kirsten was talking at the level of a 9 month old when she was almost 3 years old, she is so well adjusted that you'd never know the truth. In fact, she reminded me of my own daughter and, had Lois said, "Take this child and give her a good life...", that baby would be sitting beside me as I write. 
Destiny was also a darling and I love this picture of her. She was posing for the camera because we were planting corn and beans. The beans are from the Bednarski's (friends) who gave them to Catherine for her birthday. It was really cool to see the actual beans from the party being planted in the ground.
I already mentioned that Stacey was an amazing sport. Here she is building a chicken coop with Ralph, the pastor guy. She never complained, even when the 50+ chicks arrived and were jumping around and she had to keep scooping them up and trying to contain them...which was hilarious. Like a comedy routine. Of course, there was also the moment when I found the 4-5 foot black snake hangin' in the mission, eyeballing our lunch...resulting in my screaming my butt off and running out of the building like a little girl who had seen a spider on my tuffet. Short story: snake is currently in 5-6 pieces and Stacey was trapped in the chicken coop, holding four chicks, yelling "Hey, if there's a creepy crawlie thing out there, can you please let me out of here????"
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