I spent most of the day trying to organise the container. It was such a mess. It still is, but finding stuff shouldn't be as hard as it was.
At the end of the day Donald came by and helped me pop rivet a section of polycarbonate over the hole where we've been catching water! if we are satisfied with how it worked we talked about covering the rest of the containers which are badly in need as they are close to rusting through all the way around!
First calliandra flowers.

More rain. You gotta love the north shore.
Did a funny sort of switcharoo in the bamboo windbreak over there in the windward corner... Dug out a Dendrocalamus albociliata that hasn't thrown a single shoot and put it in a pot. I don't think the rhizome has any buds on it, so that may be why it hasn't done anything. I think I might tell Jericho about it if I see him and see if we can get another one in exchange, because three years with no shoots is ridiculous. I put it in a big pot with some good mix so we'll see if it does anything. I do think it is a neuter though.
Also dug out the Guadua Amplexifolia, and potted 4 divisions up. It wasn't looking so bad as the alb. but it isn't looking the picture of health, so maybe nursing it along for a while before putting it in some superholes will get us somewhere faster.
I replanted one Guadua angustifolia in one superhole. Also threw some Sesbania's in and amongst that windbreak, as they will do something faster than either the bamboo's or the casuarina's.
After lunch I had to help Eve move her boxes to the Haiku post office as she and her nonagenarian Dad are catching the Love Boat back to the mainland.
Found out that the Haiku True Value is closing since the rent has doubled. That sucks.
Back in rainy Huelo I went sick with the machete and kama, since we don't have a weedeater. I enjoyed it a lot more, but of course got less done. Finished up the day a little cold and wet, planting peanut after the chickens with Brooke.
Meanwhile, Lorinda Lichen and Susan and Brooke prepared masses of sweet potato cuttings (we are in an advanced phase of abundance with that plant now) and have been doing a lot in the garden, getting the pumpkin vines cut back and the dome beds in shape.

Oh, we discovered that one of the more advanced Coconut palms has died off due to some kind of grub infestation. Or I don't know, maybe the grub isn't responsible but the central stem has died off and their are grubs in there eating the heart out. Took some photo's, will try for a positive id. Maybe will call that Filipe guy about his injections. I assume he is organic.

Sesbania grandiflora flowering. Also ti plant.

Yesterday we moved on the sheet mulch around the backdoor. Planted a whole bunch of pennyroyal out. It will, we hope, form a beautiful aromatic, fly repellant groundcover around the herb spiral and up to the lanai so that we barely need to mow ever again! We also added more shadecloth to the nursery as the winter sun is peeking through from that lower angle.
I dug around in the venting system of the mercedes to try to work out why it is catching on fire on start up. Didn't really figure it out, unfortunately.
Today, I planted about a dozen casuarina's out, in an arc following ho'olawa rd in the trade wind direction. it will be a little support for the bamboo...
watered the three clumps that I am looking at transplanting from that hedge, and dug a moster hole for a new guadua there.
Then I went off and planted 5 Bambusa Burmanica's between the deriveway and Ho'olawa Rd. It would be nice to have the right species ready to drop in the lower stretch, but the ones I have aren't really ready to go out yet.
In the afternoon the girls did peanut and sweet potato cuttings, and I think Lorinda was in the vegetable patch. I spent some time working on the new shed/tractor barn.
Oh this morning, Donald and I went out and did an hour or so of road works on Ulalena, scraping the sides of the road and throwing it in the potholes and digging out some of the drains that aren't allowing the water to get away very well. We got a lot of thankyous and mahalos from the neighbours...

Well, the thieves hit us again, this time making off with my chainsaw and the projects weedeater. Very discouraging.
In more happy news, Brooke and Susan found the trail down to the ocean on their afternoon off.
I planted a few more pidgeon peas, decanted leftover biodiesel out of the dead rabbit, checked the fluids in the running cars, an d changed the gear oil in the 8N.
Sheesh. Of course, the locked gate didn't stop the thieves, but I guess we could have been more security concsious. Apparently the likeliest suspect is called Bobo, if you can believe that, and the rumour is that the cops are his friends.

Did some recognisance (sp?) of keys and padlocks this morning, and packed some gravel into the gate post of yesterday... Then set about cleaning up area in front of containers to erect tractor shed and workshop. Used the tractor to make the postholes and had eight in and levelled by days end. I will tamp them in a little better tomorrow... Donald was a great help in laying them out and getting them pretty square...
Meanwhile, Susan spread some liquid feed and Brooke rounded up some materials from the Takako Food Forest and planted pinto and pidgeon peas in the wake of the chickens in the noni field. Lorinda and Susan did quite a bit if vegie planting in the dome garden too...

A town trip yesterday in which I discovered the backroad through Cane fields from the dump to Hawaiian cement and the Kiawe lands. Cut about 30 minutes driving time out of the mission and meant I didn't have to set rubber on the Mokolele at all. Yay! I stopped at HC&S and got one of their permits to cut Kiawe and actually pretended to support all their nefarious activity..., also picked up some parts to work on the chainsaw and the tractor, and got another load of cinders so that propagation in the nursery can continue.
Meanwhile, back at the farm, Lorinda, Brooke and Susan were doing some prep work behind the chickens in the new food forest area (between the barn and the nursery...
If this is an area that doesn't want trees we should decide soon, because they're itching to go in, the coffee and the noni and the citrus to be just outside the backdoor of the barn kitchen so you can run out and grab a few for making goats milk yoghurt or whathaveyou.
Spent most of the afternoon resetting posts and putting back the gate that we took down to use for the goats, because sadly, on wednesday night we had some people come into the property and break into Mark and Jerise's cars. They stole Jerise's jewelery making supplies and trashed Marks driver side door... Jerise's partner is a 6'6" Hawaiian dude with connections though, and has vowed to find the perpertrators and bring them to justice. Still, we are going to see how well we can function with a locked gate. Still undecided about whether to do a key or a combination. Either way we will probably be replacing them regularly and it could get to be another expense, another hassle...
Oh I enjoyed very hot water, gravity fed in the gulch solar shower last night at about midnight. It actually has one small plumbing leak that we'll need to take care of, that Tim didn't find or want to find before he left, but at least he did most of the work to get it operational.

I've been slack on the blog, but I've been kickin' out the jams on the land... Well, anyway, we got the little red mulch truck running today. Working for Joan I scored a dozen Williams bananas (dwarf variety with A1 bunches) and planted them in the future coffee/noni/banana/vanilla/pepper polyculture. Brooke and Susan have done marvellously sheet mulching the entire area of Takak0's food forest. They finished up today. They've also been making peanut cuttings and doing other garden stuff, and helping us out a lot with all the grinding domestic chores. Champion wwoofers they are.
Used the PhD with tractor to put in a bunch of gliricidia truncheons the other day, and it worked beautifully. We just need to figure out how to get the mower working to expectations and we'll be laughing.

Well, the shower has given us a few problems, after countless trips to just about every hardware on the island and several reattempted joins I think we finally have a shower hooked up by the ginger terrace. Tim did some landscaping work there today, moving rocks and planting pennyroyal.
Brooke and Susan have been doing lots of different things, sheetmulching in Takako's food forest, caring for chickens, mulching and weeding and planting and harvesting in the gardens.
I bought a 1950's 8N farm tractor with a mower and a post hole digger yesterday. Spent a lot of today looking it over with Donald, greasing up the fittings we could find. I had a a bit of a practise with the mower and dug a couple of holes. It will be great for planting trees.

Made two more trips to the hardware today for parts for the shower project, but that's okay, since the first trip was part of the Giggle Hill/Harp Circle excursion.
We almost got it all done by nightfall but we got a bit buggered up trying to roll out the pipe...
The moment of truth when we find out how well Tim's sweating worked will have to wait until the morning. I did random stuff before and after going out. Pulled weeds in the bamboo peanut, and planted a few more odds and ends down in Takako's food forest.
After we got back I unloaded the vanload of newspaper and cardboard brought one load of mulch back on the return trip. If we don't get too much rain tonight and it is sunny tomorrow hopefully we can get a bunch of mulch over to this side of the Gulch where we've been planting!

More of the same today, with Tim continuing to work on the shower setup, and me putting energy towards the food forest. Susan started her work trade and pulled nahiku out of the bamboo support plantings, with lorinda and fed them to the chickens, and planted some flowers in their places I think... In the afternoon, Susan came and helped me gather in some mulch, since it had been sunny enough to run the van over the breach... When it started to drizzle we decided to go to town for more newspaper and cardboard. GOt back in time to just do a little bit of sheet mulching. By then Brooke had come back from her town errand so the 3 of us worked for a bit on getting the mulching done. It is really hard to sheet mulch on that kind of slope. The logistics of it are a bit ridiculous. Still, S & B got the idea quickly and did a nice job.
I also did some experimenting with the cow cane in the gulch under that big mango. I ran it through Greg's chipper. If it kills it, we are onto a really good mulch source there. Of course, it could just sprout from every little piece! Will leave it sit in a pile for a month or so before we decide to do anything else with it.

All efforts to sure up the driveway with gravel enough that we might push through in the van with loads of mulch were dashed by another 30mm of rainfall. So, we decided to reprioritise and look at the gulch shower II. I showed Tim where it was at, and helped him move down the new tank and the gas heater, and he set to work building a platform for the tank and sizing up all the pieces needed to do it right. The biggest decision to make is whether or not to spend the extra bucks on pipe to get the water from the top tank or from the barn tank. I think we are going to spend the bucks and get the longterm relief of gravity feed! Also, the fewer systems connected to the barn tank the less chance we have of running the pump dry again! Lovely to be able to show him what we need done and then just leave him to it...
Anyway, with Tim busy on that project, (and setting up a more useul rainwater catching barrel for the top A-Frame - alternatively known as the Litchie Hut or the Bambusa Lodge or...) I got on with the planting and mulching of Takako's food forest. At first I tried wheelbarrowing loads of mulch over from the other side, just to get the wet newspaper covered, but after about 5 loads I realised that this was going to kill me before I killed the grass on the slope. And it was raining so often that I figured that I should just go ahead and plant, plant, plant and just make sure that I get around to mulching it all properly later.
In what was really like a very delayed climax, I finally planted some fruit trees here! I mean, I have planted a few things here nad there before, but this was finally putting the "climax" species into their intentionally prepared (albeit only partially) microclimate. Anyway, I felt quite high about it. The abiu that Brad and Jason brought back from La'akea, the Rollinia that Josh from Laulima gave us, and an Eggfruit planted from seed... This just about filled in the spots already sheltered by the Pidgeon Peas from a couple of years ago, although of course there is room for more stuff to be packed in there. Cacao, maybe some coffee etc. I put in the understory stuff like the coco-yams and the monstera and some red gingers as well as the peanut. We need heaps more peanut and other ground covers still, to compliment the rest and shade out the grass. I suppose I'll work some more on that today.
Harvested some big old cassava roots when planting Sesbanias in the patch between the Ginger Terrace and Takako's food forest. I'm thinking that this little area will be the future home of a Black Sapote amongst others. Hopefully by the time the sesbania's are up, the Black Sapote's will have filled out the tubs they're in right now...
Lorinda and Lichen moved the dome chooks all by themselves, and have collected about 4 wheelbarrow loads of guavas for poultry fodder in the few days.

I've been working off the farm, bringing home the breadfruit and doing town errands, school shit for the last couple of days.
Today, I finished cutting back the grasses under Takako's pidgeon peas, by hand with the kama, and got fully soaked in the process. Started planting out a grid of pidgeon peas, peanut, monstera, cocoyams and a few other things like the torch ginger and some red ti, and gardenia. Had a great plan to leave strips in between and sheet mulch them with cardboard, but ran into problems with the slope being so steep that the mulch slid off the cardboard, that is what mulch I could get over to that side of the gulch, as it has been so wet that it took a barrow full of gravel to get the van out of stuck... Had to spend an hour or so getting the siphon back on like so that I could fill buckets for sheet mulching, and a fitting cracked as I was messing around so I spent some time improvising a replacement.
Planted a seedling Rollinia that Josh at Laulima gave us about a year ago, down under the pidgeon peas...
Also dug out a couple more steps in that funny stairway that didn't have a top or a bottom, now it has a top but no bottom. Also weedwhacked around the "ginger terrace" shower. Might see if Tim wants to go ahead and install the hot water heater and plumb up the new tank...
And, I added water to the batteries in the gulch solar system.

since our last post, we have had all sorts of activity here on the farm. the school people have been busy cleaning and fitting out the front end of the barn. Tim has been helping keep up with the lawn mowing, with the weed eater, since the lawn mower has a broken solenoid. he has also doen a bit more on the chicken fence and spread some gravel. lorinda has been harvesting and cooking a lot. richard built a new goat fence and put the goats in there for a while, and then decided the time was right and took the goats over to Ray and Loki's where their big la mancha/boer cross buck will do the business... we've been putting in the sesbania's, gliricidia's and jacaranda's around the new swale and goat paddock...
this afternoon I went over my daily limit of two tankfuls on the weedeater in an effort to claim the ground in takako's orchard that didn't get converted to pidgeon pea cover. we have maybe just enough mulch, peanut, sweet potato and more legume trees to get that whole patch sometime soon... maybe this week before Tim leaves us???
Brooke has been here tonight getting the loft ready ads a temporary place for her and Susan to stay. So, we're actually getting pretty busy around here.