In Which it Seemed Like the Right Bus
8 years ago
Thursday, April 29, 2010
back posting
I haven't been able to update the blog for the past few weeks. So I have posted the last few posts today, but they spanned over the course of a month. We should be leaving Pucon on Sunday. Finally!
slow internet
The internet card has not been working for the last week or so. We have been driving into the town just so we can check our email. We are sitting in the truck as I send this email. Sigh.
We hope everyone had a good Easter! We enjoyed the photos from the Shafer get together. Jake and I spent Easter washing artifacts. We tried to listen to conference online, but the internet card could not handle the streaming audio, so we had to wait a day and download the audio files. So, we heard Saturday’s sessions on Sunday. We really enjoyed conference this year. Jake especially enjoyed Elder Bednar’s talk where he said that archeology can’t prove faith.
For our Easter meal I made chocolate chip pancakes topped with strawberries and whipped cream. I also made Jake some peanut butter cups. He loves Reese’s cups! He ate them all.
Not much else to report. We are still washing, photographing, etc. Hopefully we will finish with it in the next 2 weeks or so. Jake and I are feeling a bit of cabin fever….yeah, I said it. We are really tired and are praying the next month goes by quickly.
So, we are still here. No more earthquakes, at least not this week. No volcanic eruptions. We are still waiting to hear about where we need to take the artifacts when we are done. Jake is waiting to hear from about 5 people on various things and none of them have emailed him back. We don’t really want to lug these artifacts all over the country just trying to figure out where they go!
We are so happy to hear that the Shafer family (Sam, Mary Jane, Bow Harrison, Kate-lin Mae, and Noah) made it home safely! We are sad to miss the big homecoming. He looks so stinking cute! We can’t wait to meet him and see all of you!
Mandy & Jake
We hope everyone had a good Easter! We enjoyed the photos from the Shafer get together. Jake and I spent Easter washing artifacts. We tried to listen to conference online, but the internet card could not handle the streaming audio, so we had to wait a day and download the audio files. So, we heard Saturday’s sessions on Sunday. We really enjoyed conference this year. Jake especially enjoyed Elder Bednar’s talk where he said that archeology can’t prove faith.
For our Easter meal I made chocolate chip pancakes topped with strawberries and whipped cream. I also made Jake some peanut butter cups. He loves Reese’s cups! He ate them all.
Not much else to report. We are still washing, photographing, etc. Hopefully we will finish with it in the next 2 weeks or so. Jake and I are feeling a bit of cabin fever….yeah, I said it. We are really tired and are praying the next month goes by quickly.
So, we are still here. No more earthquakes, at least not this week. No volcanic eruptions. We are still waiting to hear about where we need to take the artifacts when we are done. Jake is waiting to hear from about 5 people on various things and none of them have emailed him back. We don’t really want to lug these artifacts all over the country just trying to figure out where they go!
We are so happy to hear that the Shafer family (Sam, Mary Jane, Bow Harrison, Kate-lin Mae, and Noah) made it home safely! We are sad to miss the big homecoming. He looks so stinking cute! We can’t wait to meet him and see all of you!
Mandy & Jake
FIlling it all back up
Friday of last week we finished up the digging portion of the project. After you finish digging, you have to do what is called “back filling”, which is basically just putting all the dirt you took out back in and packing it down. There were 3 large trenches and one smaller trench. Jake and I filled up the smaller trench by ourselves when we went to the site alone one day last week. The guys that are working for Jake filled up 2 of the large trenches over the space of two days. Then the finial trench that produced so many features was the last one to be filled. Jake was gathering soil samples and recording a few things in that trench up until the last day. Friday morning we gathered some old tree trunks that were piled up on one side of the field we were in. The site is on a cow ranch and they had pulled up a lot of trees when they first started about 30 years ago. We gathered 2 truck loads and heaved them into the trench to compensate for what we took out of the soil and to help pack everything in tightly. It took all 5 of us almost all day to fill up that trench. Jake figured we would be done by lunch time, so I didn’t pack us a lunch… Luckily I had left 4 peanut butter crackers and a smashed Gansito (basically like a little Debbie snack) in the truck and we were able to split that as our lunch. The guys thought it was so funny that I was working as well. They even took photos of me shoveling dirt. I love Jake, but my back and leg muscles were not very happy with him and haven’t been for a few days. We finally finished at about 3:00pm. Even though we have finished this part of the project there is still a lot to be done before we can come home.
The museum in Temuco was assigned by the Consejo (the government department that gave Jake his permits) to take all the artifacts that Jake found. Well, Jake got in contact with the museum to let them know that he was done digging and needed to know what he had to do to correctly submit the artifacts. They told him that due to the earthquake the storage location where they keep all the shard artifacts was damaged and they couldn’t take his artifacts. Everything that Jake found was shards, not a single intact piece. So, Jake contacted the Consejo to see what he needed to do, we are still waiting for them to get back to him. Jake was planning on using the tools at the museum to analyze the artifacts. Now he will have to analyze them here in the cabin and hope that he can borrow or buy the right tools he needs to do so. The Consejo decides where everything that it discovered goes so they may say that the museum in Temuco has to take them anyway. They could say for him to take them to another museum or they could tell him he can take them to the US and analyze them there, giving the museum in Temuco time enough to repair the damage and take the artifacts. We have no idea at this point. For the next 3 weeks or so we will be in the cabin working with the artifacts. Ugh.
We finished the digging at the right time, because the rains have returned in full force! It has rained no stop since Friday afternoon. We will be so happy to return to the states where it will be Spring and hopefully sunny!
Happy Birthday to AJ and Sofia this week! Also, my brother Sam and his family will be traveling to China this week to pick up Noah Benjamin! We pray that they will be able to travel in safety! We can’t wait to meet him!
Mandy & Jake
The museum in Temuco was assigned by the Consejo (the government department that gave Jake his permits) to take all the artifacts that Jake found. Well, Jake got in contact with the museum to let them know that he was done digging and needed to know what he had to do to correctly submit the artifacts. They told him that due to the earthquake the storage location where they keep all the shard artifacts was damaged and they couldn’t take his artifacts. Everything that Jake found was shards, not a single intact piece. So, Jake contacted the Consejo to see what he needed to do, we are still waiting for them to get back to him. Jake was planning on using the tools at the museum to analyze the artifacts. Now he will have to analyze them here in the cabin and hope that he can borrow or buy the right tools he needs to do so. The Consejo decides where everything that it discovered goes so they may say that the museum in Temuco has to take them anyway. They could say for him to take them to another museum or they could tell him he can take them to the US and analyze them there, giving the museum in Temuco time enough to repair the damage and take the artifacts. We have no idea at this point. For the next 3 weeks or so we will be in the cabin working with the artifacts. Ugh.
We finished the digging at the right time, because the rains have returned in full force! It has rained no stop since Friday afternoon. We will be so happy to return to the states where it will be Spring and hopefully sunny!
Happy Birthday to AJ and Sofia this week! Also, my brother Sam and his family will be traveling to China this week to pick up Noah Benjamin! We pray that they will be able to travel in safety! We can’t wait to meet him!
Mandy & Jake
washing, and washing, and washing
Thursday we took a trip to Temuco so that Jake could talk to the people at the museum and see if he could figure out what was going on with his artifacts. The Conejo told Jake that he should ask if the museum in Valdivia could take the artifacts for a while. The woman who is the director is Jake’s counterpart here. She said that they could take the artifacts for a while, but that they couldn’t stay there for long. When we got the museum in Temuco on Thursday Jake was able to speak to the woman he had been in email contact with. He found out that their shard artifacts were being kept in one particular building downtown, which due to the earthquake was damaged enough that the building is going to be destroyed. The museum will have to find another place to store all their shards, and until then, Jake can’t give them to the museum. They have no idea when he will be able to. The Conejo hasn’t told Jake where they will go for good, but at least he knows they can go to Valdivia for a while.
On a plus side Jake was able to find some calipers and a scale! Yay! Now he can at least get to analyze the artifacts while we wait. While we were in Temuco we had to drop off the truck we are renting so they could change the oil and check it out. They gave us a white version of the truck that we are renting to drive around town. They washed the truck and vacuumed out all the dirt we had tracked in since January. They also polished the rubber floor boards. They polished them so much that they were soaked when we got back in the truck! Oh, the smell was terrible! We were afraid that if we put the mats in the bed of the truck they might fly out so we rolled them up and shoved them into the back floor and rode back to the cabin with the windows down. By the time we got back to the cabin I had one MASSIVE headache and went to bed quit early that night. Ugh!
Since then, we have been washing, photographing, weighing, and measuring artifacts. Oh, and watching “Lost”. Ah, the good times and adventures we will be able to share with our grandchildren someday.
There was a 6.2 earthquake that hit north of Santiago yesterday. Nothing we felt. Still no massive repeat quake that is being expected… yet. That’s a lot of fun waiting around for let me tell ya. The weather had been nice and sunny the last two days, which has been a nice change from the cold and rain.
We enjoyed some French toast this morning. While finding maple syrup is very hard to do in Chile, we did top it with some sweetened strawberries and whipped cream!
Hope everyone will have a good week!
Mandy & Jake
On a plus side Jake was able to find some calipers and a scale! Yay! Now he can at least get to analyze the artifacts while we wait. While we were in Temuco we had to drop off the truck we are renting so they could change the oil and check it out. They gave us a white version of the truck that we are renting to drive around town. They washed the truck and vacuumed out all the dirt we had tracked in since January. They also polished the rubber floor boards. They polished them so much that they were soaked when we got back in the truck! Oh, the smell was terrible! We were afraid that if we put the mats in the bed of the truck they might fly out so we rolled them up and shoved them into the back floor and rode back to the cabin with the windows down. By the time we got back to the cabin I had one MASSIVE headache and went to bed quit early that night. Ugh!
Since then, we have been washing, photographing, weighing, and measuring artifacts. Oh, and watching “Lost”. Ah, the good times and adventures we will be able to share with our grandchildren someday.
There was a 6.2 earthquake that hit north of Santiago yesterday. Nothing we felt. Still no massive repeat quake that is being expected… yet. That’s a lot of fun waiting around for let me tell ya. The weather had been nice and sunny the last two days, which has been a nice change from the cold and rain.
We enjoyed some French toast this morning. While finding maple syrup is very hard to do in Chile, we did top it with some sweetened strawberries and whipped cream!
Hope everyone will have a good week!
Mandy & Jake
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