It rained well yesterday and more over night so this morning I struck out and planted the rest of the Guadua's. It is going to be a monstrous hedge in a few years...
Then I potted up the Soursop's and Surinam Cherry and Dendro Membranaceous that Rob gave us, and the Monstera cuttings that I got from Hogback Rd, fed the chicks and went and rounded up Lorinda & Lichen for the weekly outing.
This time we headed down the Hana Hwy to the Keanae Arboretum. Unfortunately the Jaboticabas are already over. Will have to go back in September, or maybe even make it a once a month thing... Anyway, we did collect seeds of Flindersia brayleana (Queensland Maple), Eleocarpus grandis (Blue Quandong) and Artocarpus odoratissimus (Marang) which as near as I can figure it is something like a cross between a Jakfruit and a Breadfruit...
We stopped for a swim in the creek that enters Honomanu Bay. It was cloudy and windy and pretty cold. Lichen insisted on walking back up the hill by herself.
Spotted a couple of roadside avo's and picked a few on the way home. Also saw a bunch of seeds setting on some Eucalyptus delgupta (Rainbow Eucalyptus) which will be ready to pick for propagation any day now. I should really remember to go up there once a week and make sure I get some because Brad would be soked to have a few plots of them...
At home I sorted through the seeds and quickly sowed a few trays worth... Found a sprouting Cook pine, and a latecoming Pterocarpus indicus, and potted them along too. It has been quite a day for the trees. Yay!
Mulched the rest of the bamboo's and then started moving gravel into potholes, but then a K=Josh and a bunch of guys came to see the Jungalows, so I stopped and Lichen and I showed them around...

On tuesday Justin worked with us and we added sweet potato cuttings to the coconuts we'd mulched earlier. Moved mulch around to more coconuts, and to the holes for the Guadua's so that when the rains come back we can drop them in. Made coconut milk in the heat of the day, and did a little nursery work also. Showed a prospective tenant around the gulch...
Wednesday I helped out Rob cleaning out his house. In return he has for us a bunch of timber and various odds and ends, some nice handtools and kitchenwares... Also gave us some soursop seedlings and a couple of D. Membranaceous cuttings that he rooted. And gave his blessing for me to come and make more bamboo cuttings before the property changes hands.
Right now it is THursday morning and I'm about to go work for Joan. There are 3 ducks hanging out on the back porch.

another dump run, return library books, po box, bank, etc etc etc scored some 50 gallon drums from "linen supply"...
fixed the broken starter on the chainsaw.
worked with Justin on mulching coconuts and the new guadua planting. Justin planted some pidgeon peas in little pots and I potted up more pinto...
divided the rest of the cocoyams and had some for dinner! gonna try and propagate every last little eye with a bit of peel attached. it will take a long time to get them up, but at least we'll get to eat some!
had Jen complaining that we owe here money on the schoolhouse, when I thought we had an agreement to the contrary and nick complained that his place is too hot, got into a conflict with him about whether or not he should be allowed to use my tools to clear the grass and brush around the back of the structure... sigh. if I'd not been down already from hard dealings with JEn, and he had not come at me all bitter and complaining, and I had been much more cool about it, then it could have turned out very differently... but it didn't. Oh well.

carambola's, lilikoi's, banana's, malabar chestnuts, mangos, banana's

Oh my god there is so much fruit on right now... It is pretty good. I harvested 5 bunches of banana's in the last 3 days! Pretty nice bunches too. I think the mulching is paying off...
Made a smoothie tonight that was entirely composed of free fruit. young Coconut juice, lilikoi juice (scooped the pulp into a bowl lined with a thin cloth and squeezed the nectar out to avoid getting the seeds in), Lahaina mango's, banana's and a little pineapple from outside the barn garden. I think that's all. It was pretty sensational.
Did a bunch of random things today. POtted up more comfreys. Moved the G. Angus "less thornies" into a full sun position... Then I went down to the gulch and cleaned the flue on the gas fridge in the kitchen down there, which I have been putting off for a few weeks now. Also tightened up the roof over the kitchen as it was getting pretty slack...
Cut a few more bunches of bananas and after Lorinda, Lichen and Myra picked buckets and buckets of lilikoi I loaded them in the truck and took them up top...
Then Donald took me off to Haiku to pick up a chipper Shredder that he found for free at a garage sale. It doesn't have a motor but of course that's no problem!
He also wanted to get some bicycles that had been dumped at the recycle yard but they were gone by the time we got there. I grabbed some cardboard but it wasn't really accessible because the bins were jammed full.
We carried three different hitch hikers different parts of the way home in the truck along with the chipper and some flyscreens of Donalds and a sink from the Kahului Railway Station...
Back at the farm we looked at the possibility of hooking up the chipper to the engine in the mercedes... Donald proposed we mount it over the engine bay... I think he is still proposing this... I'm not sure this is a great idea. Anyway, we decided to try and get the mercedes engine to at least run before we went too far down that road. There is no battery so we had to hook it up to the VW and Donald managed to get the starter to spin a little bit, but I dunno - we don't have the key for the ignition switch and neither of us are sure how to hotwire a diesel...
So we decided to do some research and get back to the mercedes. We're going to have to pull the engine out of it and mount it on some kind of rack or trailer or somethin'...
We parted company there and I got the tiller out and dug some beds by the first couple of holes I made for the Guadua's, to plant some support species for the young bamboo...
When I had finished I decided to try and hook the tiller's (undersized) motor up to the chippper. Donald came by and saw what I was playing at and started playing with me again. We first tried it backwards and couldn't really work out why it wasn't doing anything... Then we put it round the right way and it did an okay job through the shredder bit on the top, but the chipper hole wouldn't work at all... Then we realised that the chipper hole is actually missing a blade or blades... so we have more research to do there.
But how exciting! A chipper!
Then Donald went off to do his laundry and I did some planting. pinto, pineapple, turmeric, banana's, crotalarias, that legume that smells like cannabis, that largeleaved oregano that smells like cannabis, pidgeon pea seedlings and seed, various beans from mana as a short term cover crop... Sprinkled some light mulch around and called it good. Oh I put in the first two of this round of Guadua's too!

avocadoes, banana's, coconuts...

Worked for Joan on thursday. Dug out her drainage ditch (again) and refilled it with rocks... Took lots of little breaks in which she gave me lots of tips for how to deal with everything from spider mites to home ownership dreams. Sent me home with a big pile of Papaya's, and I got the rest of the coconuts that I couldn't fit in the truck last week.
Stopped by the recycling yard on the way home to get some cardboard. Found a lot of plastic guttering in very reasonable condition. Couldn't resist...
Friday we made our pilgriimage to Lahaina for breadfruit and mango's and some time at baby beach. Also got the MB safety sticker, and stopped by the Wailuku library - classic old library up there on the hill - and consulted a topo map there that confirms Gary was way off in telling me that the property is 650 -750 feet above sea level. The hana highway is below 600 feet, so I don't know where in the blazes the misinformation I have been working with came from!
We also put some ads up at Mana and the Maui News so we'll soon be getting ready for another round of renting fun. Hell, we need the ready cash!
In a minute I'll head around to Rob Storey's and help him load some stuff into his truck, and check out some stuff he has for me... Timber and concrete I think... Then its back here to work for J & M I guess...

No rain overnight... Puttered around the nursery this morning, potting up peanut cuttings, rounding up a few more 2 gallon pots and potting on more Malabar chestnuts. Moved some more mulch from the mega stack... made a brew of Melia leaves. Set off f0r the quarry again to get some more cinders, having used up most of the supply on the guadua holes.
Filled up on biodiesel and was heading for the library to return "the Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou" when I realised that the temp gauge was dead. Popped the hood outside the library but couldn't see any loose connections. Took the video in and wandered around in quite a tizzy. Why wouldn't the fan come on? I borrowed a book about making craft with bamboo, even though it kind of looks pretty poor, and then walked over to do some banking and think on the car. Decided to get some wire and hook the fan up mainline to the battery so that it ran constantly. Having set that up I headed over to Aloha Otto and there the guy helped me discover that the sender had become disconnected. For some reason I thought the fan switch was the temp sender... So I wasted some time, but at least I didn't waste my truck...
Oh I found a good soaker hose also!
Restocked the nursery with cinders and compost and organised pots and trays ready to rock on with peanut production. Took more peanut cuttings. Made an organic fertiliser nmix for the guadua holes, divided it up into 9 pots and distributed them to their relative positions. Potted up some comfrey root cuttings that had struck. Harvested some bananas.
Saw Donalds trenching work to divert runoff from his "banana republic".
Lorinda solar cooked taro's and sweet potato's. Very yummy.

Guadua "less thorniensis"

Continued preparing holes for the 9 "less thornies" we have hardening off under the Sesbania sesban by the nursery. Potted on the three B. Burmanica's that are getting pretty big now, same with the new B. Multiplex A.K. Also put as many of the Malabar Chestnut's in 2 gallon pots as I had two gallon pots. After lunch made a quick dump run and scored a sink, and a bunch of 1/2 inch polypipe that will make good stakes for the bamboo's and other plantings that we put in the long grass. Then on to Hawaiian Cement for a load of cinders and made it back by about 4pm... So good to have the truck running again. For a while there I thought it was over and out for the little rabbit. Got the rest of the holes loaded up with a 30-30-30 mix of topsoil, cinders and maui earth compost. The last bucket full I'll mix in a combination of the organic fertilisers that Rob gave us with some richer compost. By the time I get all that together and enough mulch all in place to give them a good start, they will be nicely hardened off and ready to drop in.
Justin helped again today. He came a little late and left a little early, I think, but it was good to have some help. He finished liquid feeding the garden and moved mulch around and pulled weeds I guess. Helped me move Rob Storey's chicken house.
Oh yes, the egg factory chicken house has become infested with mites, sad to say. Thought a lot about burning it down. Now wondering about brewing up some Pride of India (Neem relative, you know) and sort of dousing it and the chickens with that for as long as it takes. We also burnt a bunch of pallets for ashes to give them for a dust bath and resolved to remove any broodies so they don't sit around a be easy targets and breeding grounds. We'll probably have to burn down the house eventually anyway...
Also, the lima bean trellis blew over today. The old t-post that I had used to anchor one of the pieces of bamboo broke off at ground level...
Ending on a positive note, Mikayla came over and bought $5 worth of eggs and greens.

It rained all morning again, so I spent a little while catching up on the bookwork. Confirmed my suspicions that we don't have much money to play with right now.
Lorinda and Lichen took Uzi to the vet since he had pulled off his splint when LL wasn't looking.
Justin, our new wwoofer turned up for his first day and after walking him around the property, or at least the third of it that we are trying to develop immediately, I set him to liquid fertilising the garden. It took him longer than I thought it would, but then the damn sprayer kept clogging and after we decided he should just use a watering can I think he was pretty thorough, and I told him to take his time and pick up fallen fruit, and pull weeds etc...
It freed me up to go ahead and prepare ground for bamboo plantings. We are going to have an awesome hedge of Guadua Angustifolia "less thorniensis", planted along the driveway, so it will protect a lot of the gulch from the trade winds, and the barn zone from bad konas. And of course we'll convert all the energy in those winds into awesome bamboo "timber".
Found a big old growth of pineapples under the glyricidia's that have been smothered by Nahiku grass for so long!
"

the day after

I'm still in a state of shock and disappointment. Damn bag. Wondering what the hell to do now. Options:

1) Try and glue seam back together and continue to use bag, being careful to put no more than say 1500 gallons in it. Pro - all we have to lose is the cost of the sealant and time and energy. Con - there is every chance that another seam will give out...
2) Donalds idea - dig a hole and use the bottom half of the bag as a liner. This would involve hiring a backhoe for an hour or two and there is still the potential for another seam to break.
3) abandon bag altogether and get a backhoe and dig a much bigger hole and put a liner in... do we have the money to get that much backhoe work done? would we use the liner that is waiting to go into the bottom of the gulch or save for a new one altogether.
4) forget the idea of having gravity fed irrigation water to the whole property and make do with rain and pumping from our catchment tank and a siphon from the existing duck pond to wherever it will reach...

Today I have just been making pinto cuttings and listening to radio national on the internet... I looked up some info about some fruit trees I am thinking to put in Takako's pidgeon pea plot. Black sapote's, mountain apples, abiu's...

You win some, you lose some...

A beautiful day in Huelo. Uttertly gorgeous. Blue sky. Hot sun... I worked like a dog at J&M's today. Cleared up the brush I cut the other day and dug some big holes for some Avo's they are going to get. Chipped out some more pathway leading down to their Jungalow, and spread some gravel on a path that needed it after so much rain. Planted another little hedge of glyricidia sepium too.
After lying down for an hour or so I wandered up to the nursery, glad that Lorinda nd Lichen are so reliable with the feeding of the animals and potted up some more Arachis cuttings. I checked for good root mass on some of the older pots and was gettting some compost ready to plant out a tray around the "barn garden" when I heard the phone ring. Lorinda got it.
A little later Lorinda called out to me. Jen had just come home and seen water running down the road near the bag...
"Oh fuck!".
As quick as I could I got into the truck and roared up the road. By the time I got there the bag was empty. I dragged off the sodden carpet with a heavy heart wondering where the hole was. Basically a hole seam had burst open. I don't know if I can glue it together again or not. I am pretty downhearted right now, I can tell you.
But, I went and planted the tray of Arachis anyway. Got 25 seedlings in before the light failed me. And of course now it is raining again, so I don't need the bag water tonight anyway.

"It rains for days so you stay inside and shut your door". Except we decided to get the hell out of Huelo and even inspite of the fact that the biodiesel mercedes is taking water on in the trunk (or boot) we headed over to Lahaina for some respite.
Picked up some breadfruit that had fallen next to a cemetary, and later some mangoes. We stopped at "baby beach" where some locals where having a party, but it started drizzling and there were no fresh water showers so we took off in the direction of the park with the grass on the southside of town. Picked up a few bags of mangoes on the way. Found one tree in an abandoned lot, but some guy was already up in the tree knocking them down while his girlfriend sat in the car smoking cigarettes. They had almost a bed full of mangoes and a few buckets full of avo's so I guess they were doing it semi-professionally. He sort of reluctantly told me I could have "a couple"...
Lichen got stuck into the mango's while we cruised the streets of Lahaina looking for more fruit. Lorinda was too happy about the mess all over the back of the car but at least she was screaming. We spotted a few specimens of a different variety of Breadfruit, without serrations on the leaves, and misshapen fruit, but they weren't ready yet.
The second beach was pretty nice, but the showers were out of order...
At the weekly "community dinner" we had sweet potato from the garden and salad, fried breadfruit, stewed monstera fruit and pineapple cake. Myra brought some quinoa but other than that every dish had somethin' from the 'aina.

Bloggety Blog.
It is summer here on the island of Maui and everything is growing like mad.
Today I worked at Joan's, trimming her hibiscus hedges. Her neighbour had come and dug up her three best coconut trees, but she saved for me the coconuts. I loaded 2/3's of them at the end of the day and that was all my little truck could carry. I also brought home a Monstera Deliciosa fruit, and spied a few more that will ripen in the next few months. Joan said I can take as many mulberry cuttings as I want...
Donald came around with a present for me. He had found a torque wrench for $6 at Savers. Malte called to see if we had a 3 inch coupler because his dunny was backed up... I didn't have one, but told him to pour bicarb and vinegar down there and it seemed to help.
Lichen gave us a performance on her miniature violin and then started clubbing me with her little golden book.
Sigh...