It's been a while since I've posted photographs so I'll start with a few.
Views from a mountain about 4 km southeast of the farm
The fields
Grapes growing on the vines
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The Syrian family seems to have settled in. The first week was quite difficult but last Sunday life started to settle into a normal pace as the children, mother, and father began to feel more relaxed as the fear and feelings of uncertainty which result from trauma like what they have been through began to lessen.
The afternoon tea break
The clothing shortage has mostly been taken care of. There are still a few things we need for the mother and father but the children now have quite a lot of clothes.
At first the older children tried to change their clothes several times a day, but their mother quickly stopped that. She told them that she didn't have the time to wash that many clothes every day.
The baby in one of her new dresses
One friend brought a bicycle and M won't let it out of his sight.
M with the bike,
he'd probably sleep with it next to himself if he could.
My sons fiancée, who lives in a small town in far eastern Turkey and is a real whirlwind, sent these clothes for the children. She had organized a small campaign to collect clothes in the town.
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This is one of the new additions to the farm. My son found her Tuesday evening and brought her home. She was in really bad condition and that night we just tried to get her to drink and eat a little.
On Wednesday we took her out in the sun and washed her, and we got two medicines for her skin problems, medicine for intestinal parasites, a special dog food for dogs in her condition, and medicine for her badly infected eyes.
We named her Samantha and today she seems to be doing much better. We hope that she will continue to recover and become a part of our family.
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And this is the other new addition to the farm. We named her Kiraz (cherry) and she is about nine months old.
She was raised with a rope instead of a bridle so we're using that for now but if she accepts it we will try to get her used to a bitless bridle this summer.
We don't plan to use horseshoes, at least for now, because she will be in the fields, but we have to get the necessary hoof care tools.
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