The rains came a few days ago.  In beating buckets full.  It’s been so intense it has felt like weeks of rain even though it’s only been a couple days.  Our dry and dusty town has become a wet and muddy slough.  It’s been so uncharacteristically wet here it’s almost hard to believe these sunny…

This is a welcome sight: In case you can’t tell by this blurry picture, it’s my work permit.  I got it a few days ago to the tune of about $67 for one year, whereas it used to be about $40 for 3 years.  BUT the important thing is that I, and my family, have…

Well, it’s been an interesting 2 weeks in the countryside (to say the least).  Instead of a long post in the form of a recap with new things added in, I thought I’d just give some (not very scientific) statistics: Number of scorpions captured/killed within the house:  4 Number of Shelob-sized spiders killed within the…

You’ve seen the gruesome sight before.  Tom (i.e. the Cat) is in hot pursuit of Jerry (i.e. the Mouse) in one battle in their epic war of dominance over disputed territory (i.e. the Kitchen).  Jerry scurries, legs pinwheeling, circumnavigating around a kitchen table, then darting into the sanctuary of a half-oval shaped hole in the…

Well, we’ve survived our first week in the countryside.  We’ve had a few challenges in our initial adjustment period, but I’m not complaining.  Let’s just call it challenge assessment.  As many of you know by now our first week brought a plague of mites.  (We call them mites, but identifying them as such has been…

Well, we’re here.  Our visas are still in process, but hey, at least they’re in-process.  We have until the end of the month before they have to be renewed, but in China you don’t want to cut it too close.  So far we’ve done a lot of cleaning, reorganizing, and figuring-out of our new "temporary"…