With no weedeater yet (the old HUsqvarna that was in 10 pieces when we arrived is now in one piece, but it still doesn't do anything - but Pat McGrath is looking at it for us now) I have been going "old school" with the machete and rice knife, to try to keep the grass at bay in the future cacao polyculture. Spent a an hour and a half cutting the tops off that big old clumping grass and clearing around the indpendent sesbanias and williams banana's we have already planted around... Later Brooke planted some extra cabbage seedlings into the areas already sheet mulched and planted with peanut...
I went to town and paid the rent midday, picked up more peanut cuttings from kamehameha blvd, and more cardboard from the recycling depot. I wonder how many trees would go into the amount of carboard it would take to sheet mulch the entire property? (we have learnt what is obvious really, that the peanut groundcover establishes much more succesfully and weed free where you sheet mulch! It will be interesting to learn what happens to the two different methods in time - will the sheet mulched beds end up harbouring just as many grasses once the cardboard/newspaper is eaten by the worms etc?) Also got oil and filter for the biodiesel car as it is due... will see if I can gtet under there today to drain the oil.
Lorinda, Lichen and Mikayla moved the chicken dome all by themselves, and Mikayla also helped gather goat fodder. Susan looked for coriander seeds but to no avail...
I had changed gates around in the stationary chicken tractor, and modified a fence, so that the system looks more like a chicken rotation than a general dogs breakfast, and in the evening I ran the tiller over the little patch that the chooks have been manuring and weeding for a few months. It was perhaps a little too wet down by the swale, but it general it was about the best moisture content one could hope for in the middle of the wet season, in terms of tilling... I think the plan is to tryt he 3 Sisters guild there to begin with, and we are right in the new moon now...
We have another batch of pidgeon peas coming out of the nursery, from seed I collected striaght off the bush, shelled and planted immediately. The remnants of last years saved seed has become weevil infested, and we got only about 20% germination from them. With the fresh seed we were back to about 80% with around 50 plants... Today I am going to aim at putting in about 250 or 300 seeds, with a view to using them in the cabinet timber forest over on the other side of the gulch, where we have already dropped in the Jacarandas and INges's.
Oh, I brought home heaps more hibiscus cuttings for rough mulch from Joans - made about 6 big piles that will make good weed suppressants themselves until we get around to chopping them down smaller with the chainsaw... Oh to have a giant mulcher!

Oh, and in the phenomenalogical calendar division - the california grass is flowering and the countryside is covered in a tapestry of yellow straw and soft red/purple... Very pretty. Sort of like a tropical savannah version of the Fall colours I suppose. Also, I saw the female pheasant for the first time, coming down ho'olawa road. Thought it was a chukar at first...