This has absolutely nothing to do with the land. But so cute. They played like this for a looooong time. Luka was thrilled to have so much attention from his big brother
Saturday, March 24, 2007
Toys!
I wrote "toys" above, but more accurately I should say "TOOLS". This is the first of the $$ things we've purchased for the property. We've paid tons for our fabulous road and all of the bulldozing we've had done. Also there are those rock walls.... and the plants....
But THIS.... our first "THING"
GB signed papers just yesterday on this pretty little baby:
Specs:
MF 1528
gross engine hp: 28.4
PTO hp gear:24.5
PTP hp Hydro: 22.3
Mean anything to you?? Me neither. But it SOUNDS cool. And that's what matters.
We don't have the actual machine yet. GB ordered a flail mower and so we'll get it at the end of April with the mower on. In the meanwhile it's at the store.
This is what it'll look like. Bright and shiny RED!
Even girls can drive one ; )
But THIS.... our first "THING"
GB signed papers just yesterday on this pretty little baby:
Specs:
MF 1528
gross engine hp: 28.4
PTO hp gear:24.5
PTP hp Hydro: 22.3
Mean anything to you?? Me neither. But it SOUNDS cool. And that's what matters.
We don't have the actual machine yet. GB ordered a flail mower and so we'll get it at the end of April with the mower on. In the meanwhile it's at the store.
This is what it'll look like. Bright and shiny RED!
Even girls can drive one ; )
Wednesday, March 21, 2007
At the river Part 2
Fun time at the river.
The boys brought stuff to catch prawns. GB and Ra'am set out right away to gather some up.
It was just so beautiful there - though the water was a bit cooold
Hunting Ra'am
And the sky so BLUE
We finally got out. GB and Ra'am stayed IN the water for almost an hour, trying to catch prawns. In the end they got out because they were so cold GB couldn't move his hands fast enough. I think they caught 7 prawns of various sizes
Dinner!
The boys brought stuff to catch prawns. GB and Ra'am set out right away to gather some up.
It was just so beautiful there - though the water was a bit cooold
Hunting Ra'am
The water was so clear
And the sky so BLUE
We finally got out. GB and Ra'am stayed IN the water for almost an hour, trying to catch prawns. In the end they got out because they were so cold GB couldn't move his hands fast enough. I think they caught 7 prawns of various sizes
Weeds
Dinner!
Planting Day!
Big Family planting day!
We were getting our delivery of Okinawan Spinach. So the family headed out to meet Anno and our plants.
While we waited, we planted some lilies in between the dwarf malay bamboo
Soon thereafter, the Biermans showed up! They hadn't seen the land yet. We had a nice lunch break with them under the cool shade of the mango tree.
They wanted to go to the river, as the kids had been talking it up. But we had only planted a few trays at that point. GB told everyone to just visit and he would plant. But the Biermans wanted to help out and finish the job so we could all go to the river together.
Somehow, Sue and I totally lucked out and had a really country club afternoon. The men and kids all worked while we sat under the tree chatting (and taking care of a very sleepy Luka). It was nice (if not a little guilt inducing).
Kids
Silly Harry
Okinawan spinach.... in the ground (my hand in there for scale)
After
Part 2.... at the river
We were getting our delivery of Okinawan Spinach. So the family headed out to meet Anno and our plants.
While we waited, we planted some lilies in between the dwarf malay bamboo
Anno came (no pics!) and delivered us 20 trays of plants. We definitely had our work cut out. Good thing it was one of the most gorgeous days ever. Here's Ra'am planting at the bottom of the hill- near the angel's trumpet (which is growing like gangbusters)
And GB
And GB
Soon thereafter, the Biermans showed up! They hadn't seen the land yet. We had a nice lunch break with them under the cool shade of the mango tree.They wanted to go to the river, as the kids had been talking it up. But we had only planted a few trays at that point. GB told everyone to just visit and he would plant. But the Biermans wanted to help out and finish the job so we could all go to the river together.
Somehow, Sue and I totally lucked out and had a really country club afternoon. The men and kids all worked while we sat under the tree chatting (and taking care of a very sleepy Luka). It was nice (if not a little guilt inducing).
Fearless Jake
Kids
Silly Harry
Okinawan spinach.... in the ground (my hand in there for scale)
Before
After
After
Part 2.... at the river
Tuesday, March 20, 2007
Crossing my fingers and toes
We have some good things happening.
It's hard to go out there, and imagine ourselves living there- but then see all of the hurdles ahead of us. I feel like I'm so eager to have our house and pool and then get started on planting up the property. That sounds awesome to me.
Tomorrow we're supposed to get plants and do a family work day. I hope the weather holds.
- Peter, the water tank guy says he can start on our water tank this week. This is such excellent news. It's so hard to not have water. Please, weather.... stay dry enough for this.
- Andrew, the rock wall guy will start on a small retaining wall for where the hill slumped in the big rain. He'll probably start next week. This is a good thing.
- Louis, the bulldozer/ hauler guy is *hopefully* on the land right now with GB, discussing what needs to be done. We have some hauling for him to do and then we also need some bumps added to our roads to divert water.
- Valerie, the draftswoman has our house plans. Hopefully getting them drawn up is fairly painless.
It's hard to go out there, and imagine ourselves living there- but then see all of the hurdles ahead of us. I feel like I'm so eager to have our house and pool and then get started on planting up the property. That sounds awesome to me.
Tomorrow we're supposed to get plants and do a family work day. I hope the weather holds.
Wednesday, March 14, 2007
Just in the nick of time
We were able to procure some of the geotextile (i.e. erosion control blanket) yesterday at Garden Exchange. Thank goodness for people who KNOW what they're talking about and are good about helping (can you tell it took me awhile to find the darned stuff??). We had 2 rolls and more on order and set to work right away.
We asked Buck to come and join us- what a HUmongous help he was. Another focused adult makes the work go so much faster.
When we arrived this late am, the sun was shining and we set to work right away as Buck said a storm was abrewin. He was right.... soon after arriving, I saw a giant 'iwa flying over the coast. They are a portent of a storm.
Sure enough, within an hour of our arrival, it started thundering and the sky got darker and darker.
We first had to even out the terrain. The ground was filled with little rivulets from the big storm and some big scars. So we got out the shovels and rakes to move some earth.
You can see here that it's made up of straw, sort of embedded within a matrix of something plasticy. The thing is supposed to biodegrade in 12 months.
GB and Buck laid it out and then I went and tacked it down any place where it was sitting above the ground, rather than directly on it. It's only functional when it touches the ground.
Soon after taking the above picture, the rain started.
I set out in the truck with the little ones to pick up Silas from school and to get more of the staples that hold down the mat. Since the ground was so uneven, I was using many more than we thought.
While out the rain really picked up. I was secretly hoping to get a call from GB saying that they had abandoned the project for now. No such luck ;)
But amazingly, when I had returned, they had evened out more ground and laid out so much of the mat, that I set right to tacking. We covered a lot more area than we thought we would.
It looks so VAST in these pictures.
And more hope. The angel's trumpet tree has sent up another shoot. It's tenacious!
And no blog post would be complete without a picture of our littlest rugrat.... looking very muddy.
Next wednesday we get plants delivered! We'll make teeny holes in the geotextile and stick the plants in there. We're on our way to securing the hill!
We asked Buck to come and join us- what a HUmongous help he was. Another focused adult makes the work go so much faster.
When we arrived this late am, the sun was shining and we set to work right away as Buck said a storm was abrewin. He was right.... soon after arriving, I saw a giant 'iwa flying over the coast. They are a portent of a storm.
Sure enough, within an hour of our arrival, it started thundering and the sky got darker and darker.We first had to even out the terrain. The ground was filled with little rivulets from the big storm and some big scars. So we got out the shovels and rakes to move some earth.
wasn't too long before GB was looking all sweaty
Here we are, laying out the first swath of geotextile.
Here we are, laying out the first swath of geotextile.
You can see here that it's made up of straw, sort of embedded within a matrix of something plasticy. The thing is supposed to biodegrade in 12 months.GB and Buck laid it out and then I went and tacked it down any place where it was sitting above the ground, rather than directly on it. It's only functional when it touches the ground.
Soon after taking the above picture, the rain started.I set out in the truck with the little ones to pick up Silas from school and to get more of the staples that hold down the mat. Since the ground was so uneven, I was using many more than we thought.
While out the rain really picked up. I was secretly hoping to get a call from GB saying that they had abandoned the project for now. No such luck ;)
But amazingly, when I had returned, they had evened out more ground and laid out so much of the mat, that I set right to tacking. We covered a lot more area than we thought we would.
It looks so VAST in these pictures.
Here we are.... 3 very WET and sweaty, but satisfied laborers.....
soon after this it really really dumped.
soon after this it really really dumped.
And more hope. The angel's trumpet tree has sent up another shoot. It's tenacious!
And no blog post would be complete without a picture of our littlest rugrat.... looking very muddy.
Next wednesday we get plants delivered! We'll make teeny holes in the geotextile and stick the plants in there. We're on our way to securing the hill!
Tuesday, March 13, 2007
Home Design Version 6:
The Flying Donut with the Koi Pond Center
Everyone that knows me thinks I'm either a little bit crazy or...well, off the deep end. As my father says, I do everything the hard way. But this time Karen is just as crazy as I.
Karen told me that she wanted a home with most everything on one floor- her childhood dream home. (That usually means single story on the ground)
All my previous designs were multiple levels. One had a different level for almost every room!
So I came up with the idea of having everything up and parking underneath. I kept the media room down with an outside shower and WC for ease of enjoying the pool.
With my OCD "attentiveness" I did a lot of drawings before coming up with this design. I liked it. You walk in the home on a four foot wide stairway that goes above one end of a large Koi pond. The roof only covers the rooms which encircle the Koi pond about 8-10ft in the air (hence the Flying Donut)
Light reflects off the Koi pond through windows into the living room, kitchen and upstairs lanai areas.
Nice. Except I had my reservations about the walking distances in the home, the long stairs, etc. Karen said "this is it". So, as my father says, in the case of your wife's happiness, whatever it costs, pay it. These designs go to the draftswoman this week. Plus when we told Ra'am about our concerns of the distances from his room to the pool, etc. his reply was "now I feel REALLY spoiled".
Everyone that knows me thinks I'm either a little bit crazy or...well, off the deep end. As my father says, I do everything the hard way. But this time Karen is just as crazy as I.
Karen told me that she wanted a home with most everything on one floor- her childhood dream home. (That usually means single story on the ground)
All my previous designs were multiple levels. One had a different level for almost every room!
So I came up with the idea of having everything up and parking underneath. I kept the media room down with an outside shower and WC for ease of enjoying the pool.
With my OCD "attentiveness" I did a lot of drawings before coming up with this design. I liked it. You walk in the home on a four foot wide stairway that goes above one end of a large Koi pond. The roof only covers the rooms which encircle the Koi pond about 8-10ft in the air (hence the Flying Donut)
Light reflects off the Koi pond through windows into the living room, kitchen and upstairs lanai areas.
Nice. Except I had my reservations about the walking distances in the home, the long stairs, etc. Karen said "this is it". So, as my father says, in the case of your wife's happiness, whatever it costs, pay it. These designs go to the draftswoman this week. Plus when we told Ra'am about our concerns of the distances from his room to the pool, etc. his reply was "now I feel REALLY spoiled".
Sunday, March 11, 2007
Solutions
So we met with the engineer on Friday. He suggested we cover the hillside in geotextile. It comes in many different forms, but is basically a fabric that would cover the hill and keep water from creating more rivulets, while the plants take root.
Soon after talking to him, I ran home to get on the phone and find us some geotextile. I'm still waiting on some info, but so far my estimation for getting some is 4-6 weeks. gulp.
Honestly I don't think we could afford another bad rainstorm. And who knows whether we'll get one or not in the next month.
So.... GB came up with a temporary solution based on some of the stuff the engineer told us. We need to slow down the flow of water. We have this amazing bamboo growing, so his idea was to cut bamboo and then lay it horizontally across the hillside- so that water will divert and flow down the bamboo instead of right through the mud.
Sounds good and simple, right???
He had to literally drag me out of the house for this work project. City girl was happily sewing and being domestic at home, and really had no desire to get muddy and sweaty.
But this was a 2 person job, for sure. And.... it was a vastly underestimated 2 hour job.
Here's GB looking at the bamboo. That one on the right?? Anno, the nursery guy cut that a few weeks ago but couldn't get it out.
Here's GB looking up, thinking.... shit. These bamboo are sort of stuck up there. Because if you look at the next picture, you can see that the whole side of this bamboo plant- where the poles are the straightest- grow right up into a giant mango tree.
GB busts out the chansaw. This is the easy part, for sure.
HA HA HA! you think you can actually MOVE an 80-100ft bamboo shoot out of the clutches of a mango tree?? ha ha ha!
After this point I pretty much stopped taking pictures. We decided to go home and get tow straps and use the truck to pull the bamboo. Brilliant idea. We would have gotten nowhere without the truck.
Even so, the bamboo was very very heavy. We dragged each piece down to the site, and cut them up, but it was hard work. Karen was not happy.
We ended up placing a bunch of bamboo like we wanted.... but only about 1/3 of what we really wanted to do. But it was getting late, I had to get Luka, and we had guests coming for dinner.
The ray of hope:
We had noticed that the angel's trumpet tree I bought GB for Valentine's Day had been buried in the landslide.
While placing the bamboo, GB noticed that the tree had sent up a shoot. Yay!
And for the record.... today?? Very sore is Karen.
It doesn't seem to be working YET. But check out the video below of us pulling the bamboo. You can really get a sense of how looooong each shoot is!
Soon after talking to him, I ran home to get on the phone and find us some geotextile. I'm still waiting on some info, but so far my estimation for getting some is 4-6 weeks. gulp.
Honestly I don't think we could afford another bad rainstorm. And who knows whether we'll get one or not in the next month.
So.... GB came up with a temporary solution based on some of the stuff the engineer told us. We need to slow down the flow of water. We have this amazing bamboo growing, so his idea was to cut bamboo and then lay it horizontally across the hillside- so that water will divert and flow down the bamboo instead of right through the mud.
Sounds good and simple, right???
He had to literally drag me out of the house for this work project. City girl was happily sewing and being domestic at home, and really had no desire to get muddy and sweaty.
But this was a 2 person job, for sure. And.... it was a vastly underestimated 2 hour job.
Here's GB looking at the bamboo. That one on the right?? Anno, the nursery guy cut that a few weeks ago but couldn't get it out.
Here's GB looking up, thinking.... shit. These bamboo are sort of stuck up there. Because if you look at the next picture, you can see that the whole side of this bamboo plant- where the poles are the straightest- grow right up into a giant mango tree.
GB busts out the chansaw. This is the easy part, for sure.
HA HA HA! you think you can actually MOVE an 80-100ft bamboo shoot out of the clutches of a mango tree?? ha ha ha!
After this point I pretty much stopped taking pictures. We decided to go home and get tow straps and use the truck to pull the bamboo. Brilliant idea. We would have gotten nowhere without the truck.Even so, the bamboo was very very heavy. We dragged each piece down to the site, and cut them up, but it was hard work. Karen was not happy.
We ended up placing a bunch of bamboo like we wanted.... but only about 1/3 of what we really wanted to do. But it was getting late, I had to get Luka, and we had guests coming for dinner.
The ray of hope:
We had noticed that the angel's trumpet tree I bought GB for Valentine's Day had been buried in the landslide.
While placing the bamboo, GB noticed that the tree had sent up a shoot. Yay!
And for the record.... today?? Very sore is Karen.
It doesn't seem to be working YET. But check out the video below of us pulling the bamboo. You can really get a sense of how looooong each shoot is!
Landslide... snafu #2
I am perfectly aware that in this process of creating this wee bit of paradise that there will be a gazillion snafus. So calling this one #2 is just funny. In any case....
After that really successful removal of the umbrella grass, GB and I headed off to the land to do a few things. Mostly I just wanted to pace things out for the house.
Imagine my surprise and shock when I looked at our newly planted hillside and found a $150 bamboo plant on its side- with the roots all exposed:
Of course I ran right down there to save the plant. This is an expensive plant, after all. And lo and behold.... the ground was just SATURATED with water, and my poor leg sunk right down to the knee.
I tried in vain to pull myself out. GB, of course was too far away to holler at.
My phone rang, and it was my dad, who was so upset to hear that his daughter was stuck in a landslide. I'm sure he was picturing Malibu type landslides (ha ha!).
I knew GB would eventually get close enough. So I took a picture of where the mud I was in came from. see the SCAR.
GB eventually did help pull me out. The ground was so soft everywhere it was really hard to get traction.
The upshot is, we had an engineer come out to assess what we could do. Since this hillside edges our already smallish house pad, it's important that we control the erosion. Our rainfall here is so intense, and we can't have more dirt leaving us every time it rains (or before the plants we're planning on planting take root).
After that really successful removal of the umbrella grass, GB and I headed off to the land to do a few things. Mostly I just wanted to pace things out for the house.
Imagine my surprise and shock when I looked at our newly planted hillside and found a $150 bamboo plant on its side- with the roots all exposed:
Of course I ran right down there to save the plant. This is an expensive plant, after all. And lo and behold.... the ground was just SATURATED with water, and my poor leg sunk right down to the knee.
I tried in vain to pull myself out. GB, of course was too far away to holler at. My phone rang, and it was my dad, who was so upset to hear that his daughter was stuck in a landslide. I'm sure he was picturing Malibu type landslides (ha ha!).
I knew GB would eventually get close enough. So I took a picture of where the mud I was in came from. see the SCAR.
GB eventually did help pull me out. The ground was so soft everywhere it was really hard to get traction.
The upshot is, we had an engineer come out to assess what we could do. Since this hillside edges our already smallish house pad, it's important that we control the erosion. Our rainfall here is so intense, and we can't have more dirt leaving us every time it rains (or before the plants we're planning on planting take root).
Hole in the road... snafu #1
That hole??? In the road- our scenic route driveway, to be exact. The bulldozer guys were working there- scraping and doing whatever they do.... and the culvert collapsed. Hard to tell, but there's water moving down there- about 4-5 ft down.
A concrete guy will fix it by fixing the WHOLE thing- he'd like to excavate out the culvert and then repour some thick concrete over the whole thing. cha ching.
Luckily this is NOT the driveway we use to get to our housesite. But still......
working at home
After a fabulous weekend at the Mauna Lani (thanks Grandma and Grandpa), we came home to a gorgeous day at home (after torrential rains the week before).
GB set right to work in the yard and decided to tackle some umbrella grass that was taking over our koi pond. He started by trimming it, but soon abandoned that project to just take the whole gigantic root ball OUT of the pond.
GB set right to work in the yard and decided to tackle some umbrella grass that was taking over our koi pond. He started by trimming it, but soon abandoned that project to just take the whole gigantic root ball OUT of the pond.
Here he is.... he's got the ball half way out of the pond. it's big and HEAVY.
We called for reinforcements- and with some serious group effort - all 4 of us pushing and pulling.... we got the thing out of the pond. It's BIG!
This toad skeleton was at the bottom of this root ball. pretty cool!
This is the dense, but very cool and pretty root system.
We called for reinforcements- and with some serious group effort - all 4 of us pushing and pulling.... we got the thing out of the pond. It's BIG!
This toad skeleton was at the bottom of this root ball. pretty cool!
This is the dense, but very cool and pretty root system.
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