plant and woe

We've started some end of summer planting here. I love planting new stuff. Even though it's a lot of work, the potential for new food/ trees is awesome!

Today we planted this bamboo (blue bamboo?) that Stardove and River gave me for my last birthday.

Last week I planted these two figs here near the house. They're hard to see, but this gives me a record.
I also weeded the pineapples and mulched them heavily. I want to see how long the weeding/ mulching lasts
One of a few pineapples we got this year. I bet next year is a bonanza!
All was peachy keen. GB and I were working together, and we had the bamboo in the ground already. The backstory is that since we got the plants (these including some atroviolacea bamboo), we've been walking the property trying to figure out where to plant what. Since the atroviolcea and mango are large, it's important we make good decisions about where to put them!

So we chose a spot for the mango near the firepit. I thought that maybe the phone line went thru that spot, but GB assured me that the phone line was in with all of the other utilities and we'd be fine. Famous last words.

To make the digging "easier", GB got on the tractor. One swipe with the bucket and he was leaning over looking at something.... the severed phone/ DSL cable. shoots!

Luckily, Gerard, the electrician was a mere 5 minutes away and came and made a temporary fix. He's got to order the part to splice it permanently. No teenagers were home to scream about the lack of internet. Gerard saved the day.

And we got the fairchild mango planted--- Well above the shed and any utilities ;)

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.

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 :(

Beauty and the Beast

LeAna and I did a flower theme week for our 365 photo projects.

Same flower as above- just opened.

In other news, despite living on almost 15 acres, we've got major neighbor problems. An older man who lives behind us (thankfully well away from our home) is angry and icky. He's destroyed 2 of Barry's pig snares. One of them he cut up while we were on the mainland and then waited on the road every day for Barry to return so he could yell at him.
Old man neighbor yelled at me on father's day... and then I saw him again on July 6, with the 2nd cut snare in his hand. He refused to give it back to me, and I was so angry (for other reasons) that I called him an evil old man. Barry ended up calling the police on him. The DRAMA!
Now we're in the process of getting the line between our 2 properties surveyed. We're going to plant something large and thorny there.

How things grow

So Pippi's roost is made out of bamboo that GB harvested from our plants. He both primed and painted it... but a mere 3 weeks later and the bamboo has sprouted thru the paint. sigh...

Some birds are molting. They look pretty ugly w/o neck feathers

Garden Grows!

Corn!

Pippi shares her roost with wild chicken

Bananas, Avocados and loss of communications

We had another busy weekend, with the excitement of a tsunami, a birthday celebration and some farm work.

GB started it off by working on Friday and produced this lovely row of bananas (williams) that we had just picked up in Honoka'a the previous day.
Saturday was the tsunami day and once the all clear was sounded, we went ahead with plans for a birthday celebration for GB.

Sunday we set out to plant the 2 avocado trees GB got for his bday.

There were a bunch of trees (mostly waiwi) in the way of where the avos would go, so GB pulled out the chainsaw. No problemo, right?

He got the chainsaw stuck. No problemo, right?

After freeing the stuck chainsaw, more trees were downed. I went down to the house to get some water and the kids told me something was wrong with the phone. UH OH! The phone line that GB and I worked SO hard to lay was RIGHT where we were downing trees! A quick check confirmed my worst suspicions.

Wire (very thick- think pinkie width) is severed. Severed phone. Severed DSL.

Since there was no internet, Ra'am was available to dig.I sat and marveled at things close to the ground

And we managed to get 2 avo trees planted. One Kahalu'u and one Sharwil.
KAHALUU: Ripe in the Fall (August-October) but an alternate bearer (every other year). A large, oblong fruit with a tiny seed and green skin. The best-flavored Hawaiian variety.

SHARWIL: Most popular with commercial growers. Has a long and heavy bearing season throughout the winter months (November-February). Medium size, pear-shaped fruit with a small seed, high oil content, and a green rough skin. "Sharwil" is a regular bearer.

More and Better Pictures!

Saturday house day!

Well that last post was lame. All of these pictures are the correct way up : )

The tigerwood flooring is all in- the kitchen, living room, and master bedroom.

Luka is cleaning it with his clothing

Osiana and Luka think this is a fun way to play on the new floor with GB. This is our bedroom- you can see the potty at the end of that hall

Here's the fish tank wall and bookshelves in the living room

Granite

bedroom floor

closet.... looks TOO nice for a closet!

?!?!?!? this is right inside the front door. Looks like something we'd see in a Hajim house ;) we'll have to get out a label maker to figure out what these all control!

the outdoor shower rockwork is complete. The guys did an AWEsome job. This is really NICE rockwork.

No visit to the land is complete without a "getting-the-tractor-unstuck" incident. We had a load of cinder delivered to back fill the water tank. Tractor was sunk pretty far in it. But we're experienced (unfortunately!) and pulled it out pretty quickly!

sitting here where my bed is going to be : )

does this work?? a wee video of Luka