planting trees!

Today we filled the holes that GB made with the auger.

Ano from GaiaYoga nursery arrived in the afternoon with 17 trees- lychee, longon, abiu and rambutan-- all tropicals and favorites in our family.

We were fortunate to have Ra'am with us. He finished his last final of the semester, played soccer, and then came to help.
We also brought Noam and Luka, and then had the Pacheco kids, Kairos and Osiana with us too.

It was a wet day- in fact it poured on us for probably 45 minutes.... so while I had every intention of taking lots of pictures, it just wasn't the best idea.

Ra'am had to dig this hole by hand. Here he's measuring its depth.Lychee tree

Shlepping cinder in the wheelbarrow to top dress the trees is fun

Happy tree (that's calcium carbonate on top)- I think it's a longon

While we worked, Luka and Osiana vegged in the truck, with a swarm of mosquitos and a movie. Let the record show that this is typically not something we do, but Luka was exhausted and we figured it might rain.

The completed orchard


The wet farmer

The gargoyle

House Progress

Well the house is moving forward despite continual rain. It's not always completely dumping, but it's rained daily- hard at times for over a week or two (lost count already). When your house is just framed- no roof, no walls- each drop of rain is just so hard to take. The house is just dripping ALL over with water and the subfloor (t0tally exposed to the elements) is buckling in places (which Gene assures us they'll take care of).

The shed is now empty of sanding and finishing beams, and is the home of the new generator (see below)

Hole in roof

STAIRS!

More hole in roof

Too bad (or not) I didn't get shots of the massive water dripping EVERYWHERE. It's REALLY wet there. bummer

House Progress

GB and I had a little time (plus childcare) and went over to the land to check out the house and also prep for our upcoming tree planting

We were thrilled to see the beginnings of stairs! So far we (and mostly the construction guys have been climbing up on sometimes precarious ladders)

Corner beam configuration

buckled subfloor : (
There's been so much rain. We had a meeting with Gene right after seeing this. He said they've noticed it and will try to get a refund on these pieces of plywood (since it happened even before the big rains began). In any case, they'll cut out and replace any bad sections like this


Just a quick bamboo update. This is the malay dwarf bamboo that we planted back in Feb 2007.

Feb 2007

December 2007

Purple Beams

Purple beams are up!

The hole in the center of the house is a LOT smaller than I (Karen) imagined. Once the actual roof is on, it will be even smaller.

Tractor day

GB ordered an auger- so that we could "easily" and "quickly" dig tree holes using the tractor.

I picked it up in the am, and we had a plan to put it on the tractor and then dig holes for fruit trees. We had childcare and everything.... sigh.....
Things never go as planned.

The new toy

GB on the phone with Paul.... what do we do with this thing??

Well , we successfully got the thing partway on the tractor.... and then it got stuck. It got REALLY stuck.
It was so stuck that nothing would budge it- not even with GB banging on it with an o'o bar.

Bad news

So we took an arm off of the tractor and drove it into town for Paul to have a look see.

Turns out there was a paint drip that made the fit too tight. Geesh.


3 hours later....

it's finally coming togetherYay! auger on. Boo.... Karen has to leave.
So GB digs 17 holes in less than 40 minutes.
Frustration was HIGH for awhile there. But if we had dug the holes by hand- would have taken us the same amount of time (I mean including the snafu with the paint drip), PLUS we'd have a couple of visits to the chiropractor to make up for bad shoveling.

All together, not SO bad, eh?

Happy

We have the framing to the inside walls!!!! See the tower in the center!


That's MY house! : )

I'm going to grow up here!

Sad

Everything about having 10.5 acres of former rain forest trash dump is not "paradise". There are the mosquitoes, the uberweeds, strange trees that grow over 1 foot a week, and mud. Most of the time the mud is on the surface and easily visible to the eye. The tractor has no problem navigating surface mud with its 4WD engaged. This was not one of those experiences. This is like the D9 collapsing in the lava tube without the drama.

When we bulldozed the lower property we buried a lot of the trees we cut. I had the plan to put rock down in these areas...a plan that never was enacted....and lo! The foresight proved correct.

I was backing into one of the areas. The dirt was dry on the surface - shielded from the rain by one of the supertrees mentioned above. I backed to the base of the tree...if you have ever driven a tractor there is the ever present temptation to move to mow places it shouldn't because it can do such a fine and quick job which would take hours with a weed wacker. So, I'm backing up and the dry ground turns to mush and mud bubbles up as my almost 4 foot tall rear tire sinks in almost half way. Stuck, stuck in the muck by the super uber tree

The 4WD only ripped up the ground where it could get traction and dug the tractor down where it didn't get traction.

My flail mower weighs about 500lbs. So I thought if I dropped that I would have a better chance. So I hoofed it up the hill and got the truck with tools to disengage the mower. That done I tried again to get the tractor out. No luck. Stuck in the muck by the buzzing biting mosquitoes.

In the past, I would have sworn loudly, cut a few weed trees in anger with the ax (more satisfying), and still been pissed off, but I have been here before with our previous farm and learned that anger can only get something broken...

I had a tow rope in the truck. But there was no place for the kind of traction needed to get the tractor out. So I settled for pulling the tractor up just enough on two wheels to load rock under worst of the two stuck rear wheels. I called Karen on the cell...knowing it would take both the truck pulling and the tractor driving to get out.

So while Karen made her way to the land, I hauled a couple hundred pounds of rock and loaded it beneath the tire.

And when Karen arrived, within a few tries the tractor was freed.

The reason I wrote this story in long form is that it was a lot of work to get the tractor unstuck and the mower is still down there - waiting for drier weather for its liberation...and a lot more rock.

Framing Happens

And while we were on holiday..... playing with family, swimming with dolphins, and eating delicious food....

PreThanksgiving Goodness

We have much to be thankful for.
Before heading off to Lana'i to visit with the Hajims , we stopped by to see how things were going at the house.


We now have....

windows
A soon-to-be TV room
And so much subfloor

That we can have a photo op in our "bedroom"
Typical scene- GB and Jeff discussing particulars

Second Floor!

Here is a another view of the work Karen and I did last week

....but onward to...The glulam beams are in place. The joists are almost done.

The subfloor material is already on the 2nd story!

Underneath the joists. The first floor has a nice diffused light. Obviously it will be much darker, but also much cooler once the 2nd floor is in.

The "view" from the "kitchen".


This is probably the last photo of the naked pool before it gets its ferrocement skin!