Once again I'm blogging on a Saturday. Both Sunday and Monday are likely to be busy and I like to get ahead on my work rather than letting myself fall behind. This week has been cold, dark, and wet. It's a weather situation neither Rachel or I enjoy and on top of that she's been sick. A couple of days this last week she's hardly felt up to getting out of bed. We ran out of clean towels in the bathroom and that's something that almost never happens unless Rachel's just had a baby.
It's easy to overlook how much work it is to clean and wash for eight children, but there's a lot to it. For instance we ran out of towels because Rachel wasn't able to restock it for about two days. So, in just two days we go through an entire bathroom closet worth of towels. (We're also out of washcloths and hand-towels this morning, lol.) It just takes a fair amount of work to cook for and clean up after so many people. When Rachel gets sick for any reason things get wonky around here.
Now, some people might ask: “Why don't the kids help?” Well, they do. Libby sweeps up and keeps things tidy, the older boys wash and put away the dishes as well as helping with the dog, Abby gets the smaller children food and drinks. There's just a lot to do. A big family comes with big work and big bills, lol. Many people get upset if their electric bill is over US$200 (and I can understand that). Rachel and I were very pleased that ours dropped to US$350 last month. During the winter it was right around US$450 a month due to heating costs.
Obviously we chose to have a big family and we love it. We don't mind paying what it costs because it's worth far more than that to us. Still, the fact remains that when Rachel doesn't feel good the work piles up. And when it's cold, dark, and wet in April she's a lot more likely not to be feeling well.
We're supposed to go to Williston for Church and Easter dinner tomorrow. If all goes well I'll take a bunch of pictures and put them in here:
As you can see things did go well. We had dinner at the Church building after Church and then came home to play a little D&D. All in all we had a great time.
Work continues to go well on the game. The Lord blessed us and Les managed to wangle an interview for me with Polygon. They're a big video game news site. They'll doing a feature article on game development in Poland. The article is going to talk about Wastelands Interactive (the production company), Worlds of Magic, and even me. (Part of the story is about how a guy from the US ended up working with a production company in Poland.) It's pretty big news because Polygon is fairly mainstream. When they publish their article it should stir up some noise and may even net us some more interviews.
The word is that Les (the producer) is still looking at different publishers. He wants to make sure he gets us as good a deal as he can. Needless to say, that's something I really appreciate. I've been working on this for more than two years now and I really want to get as much out of it as I can. Keep us in your prayers. It's been a long road and we want to find a pot of gold waiting for us at the end of it, lol.
In other news, I've begun (or re-begun) transferring our DVD collection to computer. Now that we've got a Roku we can even watch the video files on our TV. This is going to make managing and watching our collection a lot easier. It's also going to make taking it with us on our travels a lot simpler. Some of you might be wondering why we would want a DVD collection in Dominica or Scotland or wherever else we end up going. Well, when Rachel and I get comfortable in a place we settle into a nice routine. Part of the routine is our television. Once I'm done we'll be able to carry it with us with almost no trouble at all. That will help make travel feel “homey” as well as exciting :)
Now it's time to change gears and talk a little business. Really this is the “What's been on my mind” section. However, what's been on my mind lately has been business. Lord willing, Worlds of Magic is going to be a big hit and I'm going to have a little money to invest. I want to invest it wisely and in such a way as to help people. Needless to say, that requires some thought.
So, up to this point we've talked about farming, exports, and a little higher tier production. Now I want to discuss another area of production. This will also involve farming and takes advantage of the fact that Dominica is in a tropical zone. However, this farming is going to be for industrial purposes rather than for food. The products that we eventually want to produce are diesel fuel and plastic. Both of those require oil. And oil is something that can be farmed.
You may or may not have heard of Bio-diesel, but it's simply diesel fuel made from vegetable oil or animal fat. It's exactly like regular diesel fuel and can be used in any diesel engine without modification. It's an excellent product and it's renewable. To make it, however, you need a ready supply of oil. In our case we're going to use vegetable oil.
The Oil Palm is the number one source of vegetable oil per ace. Coconut Palms are the second. Both can be grown in Dominica. (Obviously coconuts are all over the place down there.) What we want to do is either buy or lease a few hundred acres of land to farm Oil Palms on. While our first crop is growing we'll build a small facility to process the fruit and extract the oil. Oil Palms produce over 200 gallons of oil per acre. We're going to take that oil and make it into diesel fuel.
At the moment diesel fuel is selling for more than three dollars a gallon. For convenience we'll just run with the idea that we'll be making about US$600 per acre per crop. If we were to buy the land it would take a long time to recoup the cost. So, to start with we'll lease it. There is a lot of completely undeveloped land in Dominica. If we were to offer US$100 per year per acre we would be able to find some takers. In fact, as we'll be producing diesel fuel locally, and as a result will be able to lower the price of fuel to a certain extent, we might even be able to get a little help from the government.
Diesel fuel is a product we can make quickly and easily and it's something we'll be able to sell anywhere. It's also going to lay the ground work for producing thousands of thousands of gallons of oil. We can turn that oil into plastic as well as fuel. More and more plastic products are being manufactured out of vegetable products. What we want to attempt to do it use vegetable oil from Oil Palms to make biodegradable packaging material for our food products. We could make everything from plastic wrap to milk jugs that would break down naturally in land fills. This would take a little more effort, equipment, and know how, but it can be done. And if we succeeded it would make our “Nature Island” food products even more appealing. We would also be able to make things like bottles locally and start making our own Dominican soda to put in them.
There's more to tell, but I've said enough. The plain fact is that Dominica has a lot of resources and a lot of man power. They just need to make better use of them in my opinion. Once I have a little money I plan to start things out with our little chicken processing facility. If that works out who knows where it may lead. I hope and pray we'll be able to go from success to success and have a positive effect on Dominica's economy and people.
That's enough for now. This is over two pages long, lol. So, from me to you, goodnight from South Carolina!
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