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 This summer has truly been "for the birds" and we mean that in the best possible way. From the "Council of the Sky" camp that our church is hosting this week and next, Thursdays spent volunteering for the Wildlife Rehabilitation Center feeding baby ducks, and now gorgeous photos from Terry Scheller, a coffee customer who spent time in Honduras birding and recently sent us her pictures (including the Keel-billed motmot pictured above), we are surrounded by the magic and wonder of birds. Lots more about that below.
First, a quick reminder that we'll doing our August coffee deliveries on Friday, August 12. If you live (or work) in Minneapolis or St. Paul and some suburbs, we can add you to our free delivery route. If you don't live in these areas, we're happy to mail coffee to you. Just get your coffee order to us before noon Wednesday, August 10 by contacting us at coffee@vfamilycoffee.com or ordering through our website. Our next delivery date will be Friday, September 9th.
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 Birds of Honduras
Therese Scheller is a long time coffee customer of ours and a superb birder and photographer. She and her husband traveled to Honduras in January and February of this year. Recently, she was generous enough to share with us photos and the following story about their trip.
"For my husband's 60th birthday I decided to take him on a birding trip to Honduras. We have been to Peru and Ecuador for similar trips and love birding in Latin America. Honduras did not disappoint. The birds there were fantastic as were the accommodations and all the care from the local people. I was able to get the trip at a very decent price through Eagle Optics and except for airfare and tips (and those extras like laundry and alcoholic drinks) everything was included.
 The bulk of the trip was a guided group tour so we were with 11 other birders for 9 days. The ages ranged from folks in their 70s to their 30s with a broad range in birding abilities. Two days prior to meeting our group, we hired a private guide to take us to Copan for archaeology and the local birds found there. Even though Honduras is not very big there can be quite a bit of difference between the birds found even as much as 25 miles apart. Copan was amazing and we had a great tour with a local guide about the Mayan culture and our birding guide as  well. After that we spent some time at Macaw Mountain, a rescue and rehabilitation site for parrots and macaws in the illegal pet trade and in the town of Copan Ruinas. Our awesome guide, Alex Alvarado (http://honduranbirds.com) then drove us to meet up with our group at the airport and went on to Panacam lodge for two days and then to Pico Bonito for 6. We had a driver (with his own bus), an additional guide assigned to us and each day was packed with a trip to a different habitat to grab new birds - one even included a cemetery. If you wanted to take a break from the action and stay at the lodge you could but we tried to do as much as possible. Next time I go back (and I will) I hope to take in some of the extensive trails that Pico Bonito had to offer. We lucked out on the trip for weather; some rain, some sun, some clouds, hot, cool, humid, dry - never a dull moment.
I feel that it is important to bird in countries like Honduras. The money I spend goes right back into the local economy; it reinforces the need to take care of our planet, that healthy farming practices mean birds, which mean more tourists, which means more earnings. Local guides are looked on as heroes and at Pico Bonito we saw local kids coming to the lodge for a birding club. Kids who barely had on shoes or clothes that fit but were interested to learn more. These kids then take back  to their community and families the importance of not killing a Lovely Cotinga for sport, to leave Macaws in the wild, to picking up trash, to treating nature with respect. This trickle down effect may be slow but if more of us could go visit these places and send positive messages I have much hope for the world."
If this sounds like something you'd like to experience yourself, check out the Eagle Optics blog about Honduran trips they will be leading this November and next April.
Terry sent us several hundred amazing pictures and it was incredibly hard to narrow that down to a shareable amount, Click on the photo below to see a small sampling of the amazing beauty of Honduras that she captured. (Make sure to click on the Info Button -- in the top right corner after clicking on the first photo -- to see her descriptions of each photo.)
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A Few VFC Updates
Here is a "head's up" on a few changes coming your way.
- New Website Shopping Cart - We've been intending to upgrade our website for awhile now and are finally starting that process. This month we start with a soft launch of our new Shopify Shopping cart through our Facebook page for mailed orders only. (At the moment, it doesn't have the capacity to include free home delivery.) More website upgrades are coming soon, but feel free to check it out and give us feedback.
- New Accounting program - Working on the website upgrade has convinced us of the need to upgrade our financial systems to products that are better integrated with online tools. Based on our initial research we hope these changes will make payment, ordering and making changes to regular orders easier. Hopefully we won't run into too many logistical challenges as we make the transition over the next few months.
- New Decaf! - We tested out a new Costa Rican Decaf that our roaster offers and we love it! If you order decaf from us, you'll start to notice the Costa Rican Decaf show up as our previous inventory of Peruvian Decaf is used up.
Changes can create problems - so we want to assure you that while we can't promise to be perfect, we do promise that if you let us know about a problem or mistake with your coffee order, we will do everything in our power to fix it! So stay in touch.
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Climate Action: Fall in love with the Earth and her Creatures
 Joanna Macy, in her book, Coming Back to Life, writes that our love for the world, and our corresponding grief and anger at its destruction have the power to free us from paralysis we might experience in the face of the harsh realities of our time, moving us toward creative action. Here are two ways we've been doing that important work of experiencing and fostering love for the world this summer.
All in the Circle Creative Arts and Nature Camp is finishing the first of two weeks at PPUMC. 46 campers, 13 youth counselors and numerous adult staff and volunteers are having the opportunity to fall in love with the earth and to be co-creators of a culture of kindness. This year's theme is Council of the Sky, and campers are learning about and from birds and exploring the presence and gift of the sky. Erin Pratt, one of the creators and directors of the camp, and the program director at Minnesota Interfaith Power and Light wrote a beautiful blog post entitled "Building a Culture of Kindness" inspired by the second day of camp.
 Talking of birds, every Thursday evening this summer, our family has had the rare opportunity to be in the presence of wood ducks, woodpeckers, crows, blue jays, starlings, baby mallards and more through a volunteer assignment with the Wildlife Rehabilitation Center. The WRC treats, rehabilitates and releases injured, ill and orphaned wildlife and is one of the largest and busiest wildlife medical centers in the nation. With the help of many volunteers, and a small medical staff of 8, the WRC treats more than 9,000 wild animals every year, representing more than 185 different species. Volunteers are essential to the mission of the fine organization. If you are in the Twin Cities and are interested in getting involved or have found an abandoned or injured animal, check out their Website and Facebook Page.
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Velasquez Family Coffee
Shade Grown | Hand Picked | Sun Dried | Fair Trade
Directly from our Family to You
www.vfamilycoffee.com
coffee@vfamilycoffee.com
651-587-5356
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