Kids clothes, China and puppies

• Kids clothes needed:  Presently there are three children living in Nickelsville, ages/sizes: 4 yo girl, 6 yo boy and 10 yo boy.  If you can share some clothes fitting them it would be greatly appreciated.


From Scott's email update this week: Monday the 28th of March,  there will be a community meeting at the Mennonite Church in Lake City starting at 6 pm, where we will have an open forum with our neighbors and Deputy Mayor Darryl Smith. Any body that can show up as moral support would be greatly appreciated.  We simply want a permanent site to go to in May, and let an experienced shelter organization like SHARE and WHEEL do indoor shelter - both a self managed shelter and a second wet shelter - at the old Firehouse.
As always, any message you send to the Mayor's or Council-Members office carries a great weight.

• Puppies: Four adorable Chihuahua puppies were born in Nickelsville February 21; besides human family they have extended four-legged family, because Mama Xyzema and Grandma Honey Bear are permanent Nickelsville's residents, too.

• From China to Nickelsville.  In November 2010 John had a life in southwest province of China - he has a wife and house there and has been teaching English  for the last five years.  Then he was robbed and lost his wallet and everything in it, including his passport;  a trip to American embassy produced a strange effect - John was sent to back to US to the tune of $1800 (one way ticket) to get his new passport there, because our country is not set up to help citizens who loose their documents in China in any other way.  Before John gets his new passport he has to pay back US government for the ticket (and a new passport, of course) - so here he was, back on the home soil, but homeless.  His story is going to have a happy end, because Nickelsville shelters John while he works for the local tele-com to raise money he owes for ticket, the new passport and of course another one-way ticket back to China - hopefully at the end of April.  Also, Uncle Sam is a lousy travel agent:  John says he will easily find ticket back home half that price, and cursory checking Seattle- Beijing flights on Expedia.com for 4/30 confirms that:  8 tickets in the range $520-$600, and another dozen under $1000.  

Nickelsville's bike fleet 

• More about the greening  of Nickelsville:  Last year residents successfully experimented  with a contained  herb and vegetable garden (photographed last year, check the older posts), and they are going to continue and expand coffee- and tea-container gardening this year, too.  Also, they have a fleet bike, for common use.

• Cooking:  Since Lynnda joined the cooking project we moved from simple soup-making to almost gourmet level, as Lynnda enjoys cooking fuller meals.  On Mondays, when I come alone it's usually good good old West African peanut soup, but when she joins on Thursday it's another story:  shrimp linguini last week, chicken curry with rice today and chicken corn-chowder next week.  Lynnda also likes baking and brings cookies/cupcakes for dessert; now she got her daughter, Brooke, baking for Nickelsville, too - we will taste her cupcakes today.  Thank you, Brooke!