Invasive Species Eradication, aka pulling weeds

I searched the blog to see if we had written much about miconia... and found that we haven't.
Miconia is an invasive species that's ALL around our land. It's a plant that has supposedly taken over a lot of Tahiti. Our area is really overrun with it.

We hired some helpers back a couple of years ago to pull and poison this plant. This weekend, while GB, Tom and John were fencing, the kids and I set out to pull some miconia.

I wish pulling weeds was a more glamorous job. But it's not. We traipsed thru the jungle, hung from low cliffs and got scratched and stung by various plants and animals. I discovered that we have a caterpillar here in Hawai'i called the stinging nettle caterpillar- because it feels just like that when it touches you with its venomous spines. In my recollection, stinging nettles (which we don't have here) stings don't last all that long. This sting lasted at least 1.5 hours and I still have a red mark 2 days later on my arm. Bummer.

Mike Pacheco commented that weeding miconia is likely to be a lifetime pursuit. Unfortunately I think he's right. Unless the Invasive Species Council steps in and starts again with trying to control it, we will always be surrounded by stands of it that are making thousands of seeds. One thing about living in such a warm and wet environment is that EVERYthing grows.... not to mention the fact that the native plants that evolved here don't know how to fight against invasive species very well- it just wasn't an issue for them as they evolved here because of our relative isolation.

All that is just too depressing to think about sometimes. A lifetime of weeding. ugh.

On a WAY happier note, we were SOOOO thrilled to get this AWESOME gift from Tom and Eve:

Tom put it together and Eve dedicated it. Right now it's sitting in our garage (not a permanent locale) while the work is going on at the house. I forsee MANY awesome meals and good comraderie at this table. MANY MAHALOS Tom and Eve. We LOVE it!

And at the house....A new sliding glass door out of the kitchen!

Prep for upstairs lanai tile! Slanting for drainage

Walkway in front of the boys room- waiting for more concretemaster shower