More grass!

The area behind the house, in between the house and garden bed has just been a total eyesore since we moved in. Because of the earthworks and rain and slope, there was just NO topsoil there, and all we had was a bunch of crappy clay. We've tried so many things to help grow some soil and grass there, but nothing worked..... until now!

The Biermans, once again, came thru as our trusty grass suppliers. Murphy and Harry spent the summer digging up their front yard, piling the grass for our taking.

Ra'am loaded severl truckloads full of grass and brought them over here for our extensive grass planting adventure!

GB took the tractor and scraped a good area for us to start.

Here's one of the many loads Ra'am brought

Despite the fact that the grass was already cut up, it was still a ton of hard work! Loading up, UNloading, and then planting was hard! Each clump of grass is a different thickness, so there was shoveling, raking, filling, and puzzle putting together skills used.

Here's a huge pile ready to be planted

Noam working hard! This picture shows the area almost done

We also planted in the cinders directly behind the house as well as down below the pool in a "problem" area. So far the grass is looking good (one month later) and I can't wait to see it all filled in!

PIGGIES!

The pigs came back this year with a vengeance. We started seeing a few here and there, and then it seemed like every time we drove down the driveway, we'd see bands of them, eating mango or just tearing up earth. We called Barry back, who set snares all over. In total, in a couple of months, he's caught maybe 10 pigs. I'd like to say I feel badly about it, but after learning that they are able to reproduce near 4ish months and then can bear 3 litters in a year, I am not worried at all for their population, plus they're all getting eaten.

On a particularly pug-full day, we caught two here on our property. Barry already had one in his truck from another area, and was on his way to get a different one.

Here he's hog tying the larger of the two caught here (after lassoing it)

Here are the two from our property

Duckies need a home

So we kept the ducks inside for all of 24 hours. We were totally unprepared for their copious amounts of smelly poop. We've had chickens for years, but ducks are very different and way smellier!

The lady we got them from said we could just put some hardware cloth in a circle and then stick a board on top, to protect the ducklings from predators. GB went up to the shed to grab those items, and came back with this fort.

As you can see, Pippi is very interested in the new fowl.

We set up a plastic drawer full of water for them. They jumped right in and went for a swim! (10 minutes later the water was brown)

Of course, this temporary shelter has to be moved every day or so. The ground underneath gets fowl very very quickly!

Duckies!

It's always been part of the plan to get ducks and put them up with the tilapia pond. This summer our chickens have been pretty poor layers. I don't know if they're getting too old, or what, but when you're feeding 9 birds and getting one or no eggs per day...

GB found some duckies on craigslist and they were delivered soon thereafter, at 2 weeks old. They are indian runner, campbell khaki and something else mix.

Welcome to our family, little duckies!

What's New

Since our last post about the goats going on a walkabout, we've had more goat issues.

They went missing from another pasture while GB was out of town. I was alone with Luka and was so worried because I had NO idea where they had gone. I started calling around to see who could help me with Luka and/or searching for the goats.

I had just dropped Luka off with Sue and was awaiting Jake to come searching thru the gulches, when my phone rang. Our neighbor, D had received a call that am from his neighbor asking if he knew of anyone missing goats. Our neighbor D had called GB's cell phone, but GB was out of the country. Fortunately his daughter was in a play with Noam and when he dropped her off for rehearsal, Noam gave him my number. The goats were safe and sound at a nursery on the scenic route!

They had followed a bicyclist for a mile before he worried they'd go to the highway, so he brought them to the nursery.

Luckily they had a place to corral them! They gave them some water and ti leaves. Jake and I came and got the naughty kids.

In the meanwhile, Noam and I set out to fix the upper pasture where they first escaped from. I figured we'd find a couple of places where they could get under the fence. What we found was 3 trees that had fallen and messed the fence up. It's a much larger job than Noam and I can fix.

This is the largest tree. You can see below that the fence post is piercing it

This is the 2nd tree. It's a MESS in there. There are all kinds of branches on top of the fence.

Needless to say, we can't put the wily goats in this pasture until the trees are chainsawed and the fence is fixed.

Naughty Kids and What's new?

I was only kind of shocked to look at the blog and see that I haven't updated it since November! It's not that there's not been land work/ progress, but more that we've been in a maintenance mood rather than a new project mode.

Naughty Kids:

We moved the goats to the upper pasture a few weeks ago. It was an easy move with good goat compliance. The goats happily munched away up there.

I went up a few days later to worm them. And they were nowhere to be found...

Now I haven't written yet here that in November we lost another goat. Tamarind was killed by a dog (neighbor's :( ). The killing took place in the upper pasture and after he died, we quickly moved the remaining goats away... and they hadn't been back in there since.

So when I called and no one came running I thought the worst. But it was hard for me to believe that ALL 4 goats would get killed or drop dead since I had seen them the day before. I walked the whole fenced in area (not easy there!) calling. Nada.

I did see one spot in the fence that they could possibly have gotten under. It was tight, but it was worth checking out.

I walked back down to the house feeling dejected and like we had lost all 4 of our precious goaties. The most accessible car to go driving and look for them was our little Honda Civic-- our other 2 cars are big. but this one was there.

So I set out on the next driveway over to look for them . And lo and behold, there they were, standing on the road like nothing was amiss.

I called the house to get Ra'am to drive over with the truck. But I tried to capture them anyways. And I got all 4 goats into the car (by picking each one up-- thank goodness we have dwarfs!).

You can see in the above picture that Floyd had a little poop incident in the car (floor on paper).
Loki and Neo "enjoy" the ride. That's Gandhi's tail there and the way top of Floyd's head.

Needless to say, they have NOT been back in the upper pasture and the fence line needs some work!

Garden:

Ra'am and I cleared out the garden in the last couple of weeks. Today I planted eggplant starts (that sat too long here- we'll see how they do), okra starts from Heather, started bush and long beans, and planted some lettuce mixes in the pots.

Palms:

Planted 4 lanceolatas along the side of the driveway near the water tank this weekend. They are about 4-5' tall now.

Hopefully the next post will be full of garden veggie goodness!

No phone. No DSL

Life is never boring.

Saturday morning. GB leaves for work at 9am. I am on the phone with my mom. At 9:30 I check email. All good.

9:40 I leave the house, and lo and behold, a tree has fallen. On the rock wall. Parts of it are blocking the gate. And worst of all.... it fell right on the phone line. No phone. No DSL.

After Ra'am took the SAT, he and I set out to clean up the mess. The phone company said they'd be out by the end of Monday.

Ra'am looked psyched to go at the tree with the axe. Neither he nor I know how to use the chainsaw, and I was hoping not to have to call GB, who is very very busy getting ready to go back to LA for more voice recording.

We climbed up the hill and saw how large the tree really was! It's a junk tree (gunpowder)-- and not well rooted, obviously.
Inside the trunk was some hollow areas and an abandoned bee hive

The sad phone/ DSL line

Ra'am and I worked and worked. The amount of work was overwhelming, and I knew that GB could finish it off quickly with the proper tools

Luka hung out with us

GB drove home from work and quickly grabbed his chansaw and the tractor

20 seconds of chainsaw = 5 minute of axe

GB also used the tractor to push all of the rubbish into the bushes. It would have easily taken us another hour to clean up the mess w/o the tractor

Done!

Unfortunately this was NOT the only issue/ tragedy that week. Our oven flipped out again (thank goodness for extended warranties!).

The worst was that a neighborhood dog got into one of the goat pastures and killed Tamarind :( We are incredibly upset about it and have no idea who the dog belongs to :(

New Kid on the Block

Meet Loki

He's a young (not sure his exact age) Nigerian Dwarf goat who looks like he fits right in with the rest of the gang. He's got horns and a sweet high pitched baa.

We got him 3 days ago and so far he's at the low end of the totem pole of goats here. But I suspect that the horns will give him an advantage in the future. in fact, Noam told me he saw Loki butt back one of the other goats yesterday.

Here's Gandhi, Neo and Floyd checking out the new guy

This maneuver was happening over and over from all goats. Maybe it means "hi, howzit?"

He fits right in with the gang

Cutie

And for my own record keeping.... started some seeds (straight in ground). Salad mix (in pots). Kales (in with chard), tomatoes, peppers, corn (why not?), sunflowers, and some papayas

Got Grass?

Continuing with our grass grabbing that we started at the Biermans, we decided to work on the same project today. We headed over to their house in the am (sans Ra'am), and were delighted to discover that Carly wanted to help!

It was hard work, for sure.

We stayed there for awhile, gathering grass, then headed back home, Carly in tow.

We set Ra'am to work on weed wacking the area to prep it.

Hokulani watched

Luka watched too

All 3 kids (Ra'am, Noam and Carly) moved a bunch of concrete hollow tile

Ra'am and Noam brought the heavy heavy grass from the truck

"small" sod= still very heavy

GB prepped the areas-- but here he's moving a big hairy clump of a different kind of grass that's softer-- to edge the Bierman grass

Finished area behind the concrete containers

Grass around the lime tree

Our lemon tree in the chicken run is LADEN with flowers. They smell sooooo good-- and this is just a small portion of them!
Ra'am has been working on giving these Malay Dwarf bamboo a big and much needed haircut. Looks great!
And those bad chickens!!! They've been giving very few eggs recently.... found out why. Down in their run, where I can't see, I found this large clutch of 14 eggs!!! I need to see if they're fresh. but 14?!?

all in all, a great family work day!

planting again!

Banana Delivery. I was in the house feeling sick and GB drove down in the tractor with 2 large bunches in the bucket. Yumm

Bromeliad flower

GB started working on planting the new bamboo we bought, guadua angustifolia

This is the bamboo we're planting between us and evil neighbor. I wasn't feeling well, so GB was on his own-- he went out there with the tractor and cleared some area/ knocked down a bunch of junk trees and then yesterday planted 3 of the 7 we bought!

Here's some of the cleared area (hard to tell!)

GB working hard!

Transforming the jungle (and for the record, there is not one native species in this photo- lest someone think we're doing the land a disservice)

cleared pathway to new planting area

Today, Sunday, he and Ra'am will finish the job! Go bamboo!