An Update

All's well on this end. Been checking on the stay-at-home people, dropping off groceries and prescriptions to them. Been helping out people in need of various assistance, like getting their trash to the dump, that sort of thing. (Driving a pickup truck makes me a valuable person!) I've mowed a few extra lawns this week. My main off-the-farm focus has been on getting the local farmers market reopened. Believe me, it's been an interesting challenge involving lots of phone calls. Somewhere in there I've managed to get a bit of farm work done too. 

This week I actually got stuff planted. Wow. I made some progress. 

.....104 green onion seedlings planted into corners here and there

.....50 taro keikis into pots for resale

.....12 sq ft of peas, variety: Oregon Trail

.....14 sq ft of yellow snap beans, variety: Carson

.....36 plugs of Genovese basil planted into a greenhouse

.....10 tomato plants into a greenhouse 

I also dug up a dozen banana keikis to give to a friend. Digging around here isn't easy! I got distracted and ended up digging up a pile of rocks to add to my driveway rock wall project. 

Now if only I can get to those cilantro and beet seedlings and get them into the garden. 

Diary Entry

I haven't made a daily diary entry in awhile. I like to post a diary occasionally just to let those interested in a homestead or small farm life know what day to day might be like. I composed this Monday evening. 

Early dawn wakes me up. The start of another day. After completing the usual morning routine, what does the day hold now? Rain. Yuk. Rain, which turned out to last all day. 

..... Move yesterday's laundry water down to the greenhouses. Charge it with compost tea, then water all three greenhouses, even the empty one. The empty one is ready to prepare for replanting. I don't want the soil in it to dry out between crops, so I water it along with the other greenhouses. 

..... While I'm in that area, I harvest two pallet boxes of potatoes -- Yukon Gem and Caribe. After removing the spuds, I cart fresh compost to the boxes and mix it in. It took 6 wheelbarrow loads to tup up the boxes. Lots of mixing, lots of effort. I should have waited for a dry day so that I could have used the rototiller, but I was eager to replant these boxes. Once ready to replant, I sow each with bean seeds. After all, how many more days will it be raining? One never knows, especially when there is a weather system spanning the entire island chain. I don't want to wait. 

..... Still in the area, I harvest lima beans, sweet peppers, and tomatoes. It's always rewarding to harvest something. 

..... I still have time to work on harvesting bamboo poles before lunch break. I don't know what name this bamboo has, but the poles are 1 inch in diameter, solid cored, and tough as heck. A lopers won't do it. So I bring out the battery operated sawsall. Yes, it's still raining, but it's slowed down to a misty drizzle. So I can use the sawsall as long as I protect it and don't lay it in the rain. Zip. Zip. Zip. Hack down about 40 poles. Putting the sawsall back into the truck, I grab the hand pruners. I don't have enough time to clean up all the poles, but I get about half done. 

... Lunch break. Heat up a pot of homemade soup that I made last night, and trek down to town to share lunch with hubby. After lunch, spend the next hour taking care of business in town, plus pick up slop buckets full of waste food from the local restaurants. With the addition of cooked rice, this will be the chickens' dinner tonight plus their breakfast tomorrow. 

..... Back at the farm, I put the slop & rice onto the outdoor cook stove. I'll come back in about a half hour to turn it off. Next, I finish up cleaning the bamboo poles. The thick poles get moved to the pole storage spot next to the greenhouses. The thinner poles, which get used for plant stakes and markers, get piled over by the garden beds. All the trimmings get cut up into 1 foot long lengths, then go into the hugelpit that I'm filling alongside the driveway. 

..... Interrupting my "fun" with the bamboo, I check on the chicken's dinner slop. All four pots off the stove and into hayboxes to complete their cooking. By dinner time they should be cool enough to feed, though still warm. The hen's have gotten use to eating warm meals. 

..... The hugelpit is due for a layer of manure. So, armed with old feed bags, I head back to the back pastures to gather up donkey manure. It takes an hour to gather what I need. After dragging the bags out of the pasture, I drive them down to the pit. It doesn't take long to fling the manure about. Job done. The 3 pits are ready for the next layer of weeds and trimmings. But that will be another day...actually days. 

..... With still a bit of time left, I head over to pond to harvest the excess pond plants. Loading them into buckets, I drive them over to compost bins, adding layers to the bins I'm working on filling. I'm totally soaked by now from the rain and pond water, and I'm running low on energy. Time to slow down and think about calling it a day. 

..... Before heading back to the house, I pick up the fallen macnuts (a 5 gallon bucketful) and lilikoi (23). 

..... Back at the house, the first thing I do is dish out the chicken feed for the girls. Next are the kenneled dogs -- clean up the pen and add fresh litter; fresh water; fresh food. Give each dog a brushing and give them fresh blankets. No walks today due to the continuing rain. Yup, it's still raining. 

..... Time to clean up. Shower. Dry clothes. Next .....

..... Process the morning's harvest. Macnuts get washed and set on a tray under the house to dry. The lilikoi are washed, then juiced. The juice goes into the frig. The peppers are sliced and popped into the freezer. The tomatoes will be for tonight's dinner, with the extras going into the freezer for future soups. The limas will wait to be shelled later tonight. I go outside to harvest some green onions for dinner. 

.... Feed the cats. Check the solar batteries. Feed ourselves. Shell those limas. Look back on the day and give myself a pat on the back for jobs well done. Line up a few tasks I'd like to do tomorrow -- tasks that could be done despite the rain. Oh crap, I just remember that I have a truck appointment at Nissan tomorrow, over in Hilo. Well, that shoots the day for any farm work. But on an upside, I get to pick up the new riding mower. Yes, I'm breaking down and getting a riding mower again. I need more grass clippings than I can mow with the regular lawnmower. I'm not giving up the push mower. It's a great form of cheap exercise. No need for a membership at the gym! I need a goodly volume of grass clippings, which a riding mower will deliver in a hurry. I used one before, so I know that it doesn't take long to get a whole truckload of clippings quite fast. And now that I am getting older, I just might make the riding mower a permanent piece of farm equipment this time around. 

Too Wet Once Again

There's so much I want to get done, but it's been tough. Things have been too wet again. Lots of rain and little sunshine between the rain to dry up the wet. Oh well. Such is life. 

I've been getting a bit of work done. Got the 20 foot long section of rock wall completed. And in my efforts to clean up the goat pasture I discovered another pile of not-giant-sized rocks which I promptly moved up to the driveway for wall building. So another 10 foot section got created along the opposite side of the driveway. One of these days this long driveway will actually be lined with rock wall. I think it's beautiful. I hope that a future owner thinks is too and doesn't bulldoze it away. One never knows,

Got some planting done, some of it in the rain.......

400' square feet of cholesterol spinach 

11 pipinolas

12 pineapples

32 chaya cuttings planted

4 bananas trees

I hadn't planned on expanding my chaya production, but the last windstorm blew down one of the large plants, so I chopped it up into cuttings. So since it was available, I went ahead and planted them. I'm not a big eater of chaya, but I can always cook it up in the livestock slop-n-glop pot. Both the chickens and pigs gobble it down that way. 

My poor laundry hasn't gettin dry in days. One of the downsides of using a clothesline. This might prompt me into making that solar clothes dryer that I've been meaning to do for years now. Yeah, I'm a little behind on project completion! 

The weed/fern pulling project in the first pasture is almost done. Just one more day's work to go!!!! David took on the second pasture enclosure and weed whacked all the ferns down. I'm going to seed both pastures the same way and see what the difference is. I already know that most the ferns won't grow back in the handpulled pasture, and that ferns will slowly return in the weedwacked one. But can the growing oats and corn out compete the ferns? Will the sheep eat tender young ferns? Will the ferns die away if the keep topping them with a weedwacker? Or will the fern regrow in the weedwacked section overtake all the efforts? All questions yet to be answered. 

Another Day of Storm Cleanup

What is homestead farming like? At least for this day, it's cleaning up branches, taking out and chopping up damaged banana trees, and moving all that debris to compost bins and hugelpits. It's a lot of boring work. Yes, it isn't always fun and exciting.

After lunch I needed a mental break and hauled more rocks. The walls lining the driveway are gradually coming into existence, and I might add, looking pretty darn nice. Here's another 30' long section completed......

Clean Up Day

Yesterday was a cold one, but more worrisome was that it was windy. By far it wasn't a fierce windstorm like we've had in the past, but it still had a kick to it.

Today I surveyed the farm. Several small trees had been knocked over, including my main mamaki tree. But I have others, so it's no big deal. Lost a medium lime tree. Again, not a big deal. Two other medium sized trees came down, both eucalyptus. No great loss there either. Half the chaya hedge broke off at their bases, so it looks like I'll be making lots of cuttings and planting them tomorrow. No sense in wasting the cuttings. I can always use more chaya for feeding the livestock. Lots and lots of twigs strewn all over. And a few small branches hit the ground. All in all, not much tree damage. 

The bananas took the brunt of it. 17 trees toppled, and several bent in half. 

I spent much of the day cleaning up. I didn't get the bananas nor the chaya taken care of. That will be for tomorrow. 

Wednesday Diary

I guess my favorite day of the week is Wednesday, simply because it's my town's market day...and everything goes from there. Here's how my day typically goes, not exactly heart stopping excitement, but it doesn't take much for this country girl to enjoy market day. 

Up early as usual. Morning chores are abbreviated on market day. I check on all the critters and distribute feed. The rest can wait until I get back. Even the breakfast dishes. Hum, especially those dirty dishes. 

Back at the house, I like to do some finishing touches on whatever produce I'm taking to market. Today it's freshly dug turmeric. Most the prep was done last night, but this morning I still need to weigh it out into individual baggies. Feeling totally optimistic (heck, the sun is shining so beautifully this morning), I pack up an extra dozen baggies. 

I invite Noodles to come along. He's ecstatic. Tail thumping, big grin, jumping with joy. Boy, you would think I never let him ride in the truck. Maybe the sun has him in a good mood too. So he hops into the passenger seat and off we go.  

There's a full contingent of vendors today. Even a couple overflow folks on the roadside, hoping the cops will be in a good mood and pass them by. First stop is the veggie vendor at on the Shaka Restaurant grounds. He likes my turmeric and has been selling out every week so far. I return to the truck with more than enough red cabbage, broccoli, and lettuce. Both sides are happy with the trade. Back at the truck Noodles is disappointed. I guess he was hoping there'd be dog cookies in that trade. 

Next stop, the main market. This time when I return to the truck there are goodies for Noodles, plus homemade sourdough bread, a big bag of oranges, several tomatoes, a dozen eggs, 3 banana lumpia, an entire bunch of green bananas, fresh young ginger, and a gigantic frozen tilapia fish. No Noodles, you can't have the fish. Looks like I made a good decision packing the extra turmeric. It's a hot item this morning. Some days are better than others, and today all the turmeric was successfully traded. 

Back home I still had a full day ahead. The rest of the morning was spent wielding a sawsall, cutting up wood pallets. I aim to add a couple new chicken enclosures. They're almost completed but I need more planks to finish the task. I also got the electric sheep fencing moved, opening up some new pasture space for the girls. (Only took less than 15 minutes. Gee, I love this fencing!)  And moved 3 loads of rock up to the driveway rock wall construction area. David was around today and caught up on most of the weedwacking around the place. 

After lunch I went back and finished up the daily routine chores, even threw a load of laundry into the washer. This still left me with time to haul piles of pulled up ferns from the back pastures up to the driveway hugelpits that I'm working on. Clearing out the ferns is the pasture improvement project. Using the ferns as fill is part of the hugelpits project. One hand washes the other........or zero waste, whichever way you want to look at it. Worked till 5, then called it a day and took a nice hot shower. I still really appreciate hot showers. The memory of cold ones hasn't totally faded away yet. Then managed to hang out the wash before collapsing into the easy chair. Those dang dirty breakfast dishes will have to wait until after dinner. 

Hubby came home early (government shutdown is interfering with his work. In fact, he might not even get paid this month, but we'll see how that goes.) Dinner tonight.....how do sandwiches sound? ........ Fresh homemade sourdough bread, tomatoes, lettuce, egg salad, and pipinola pickles. Sounds just fine to me. 

After dinner (yes, I washed the dishes), catch up on the internet then watch the kittens play.....better than tv!! 

Diary - After the Holidays

Ok, it's back to work. Vacation days are over. Boy, do I have a lot of catching up to do! There's no way I'm going to get everything fine in just a couple of days. 

This morning started out with harvesting more turmeric and cleaning it up for market. I pack it into ziplock bags, 6-8 ounces to the bag. A bag sells for $3. I could get more if I wanted to get stuck with unsold bags, but at this price, I can sell the whole batch. I only sell the best looking roots....fat, unblemished. The rejects I keep for myself or for gifting. Since I'm just going to grind mine up and dry it, it doesn't matter if the roots are small, misshapened, lighter in color. Anyway, I got my bags down to market just about 8 o'clock. I've really got to try to get down there a bit earlier in order to catch the early shoppers. Did some trading this morning, bringing home broccoli, oranges, and fresh fish. 

After getting the standard farm chores out of the way, I jumped into the unenviable task of doing laundry. 12 days of doing zero wash = piles of dirty clothes. Good thing we have lots of clothing, or we'd be running around naked by now! Got 5 loads washed and hung out. Ran out of wash line space for today. 

Next, between other small jobs, transferred the laundry water to the hugelpit beds. I try to utilize the wash water to hydrate the hugelpits that are being built. A lot of material goes into creating one hugelpit. All that material needs to be moistened so that it begins to decompose and the hugelpit can function as it should. Even though I get plenty of rain, more water is needed during the filling process than rain alone can provide. Thus it's a perfect place to use that laundry greywater. Today I pumped and transferred 6 large trashcanfuls of water, to which I added manure tea and fermented urine as nutrient sources. 

Lunch break. Time to peruse the farmers market for myself, have lunch with hubby, then off to pick up cardboard from the local businesses. As I load the cardboard into the truck, I sort out the part that I can use in the hugelpits from the pieces that will go into the recycle bins at the dump. I avoid using cardboard with plastic on it or colored inks. 

Back on the farm, it's time to replenish the livestock feed fermenting buckets. With trusty sawsall in hand, 5 banana trees give up their lives to feed the pigs for the coming couple weeks. Hack, hack, hack. 5 trees into small pieces, into the buckets, fill with water, seal the tops shut, set aside to ferment some. 

While in town today, an acquaintance gave me a bunch of ti cuttings. Retrieving them from the truck, I trim the up for planting. I'm glad to add more ti plants for sheep feed. 

Dragging out the lawnmower, I have time to clean up the area around my driveway gate and up along part of the driveway. Two trashcanfuls of clippings go to the sheep. One goes to the chickens. The fourth goes as mulch around the new banana trees. 

Wish I had had more hours in the day. So much to do, so little time. 

Making Hay While The Sun Shines

It's been another one of those stretches where things have been quiet on the blog. Again, I'm not sick or dead. I've been working getting things done while it's sunny....well at least not raining. It's been so wet the past couple years that I get into a work frenzy when it's not raining. 

Chores accomplished.....

...create spots for more crops, particularly margins along the driveway

...plant 6 banana trees

...plant 60 sq ft of sweet potatoes

...plant 20 pineapples

...pull or weedwack down ferns in the pastures. Over 2 acres cleared!!!!!

...empty and refill 2 compost bins

...mulch all the taro beds

...refurbish the small utility wagon - sand, os-pho, and paint

...fix the main driveway gate -- shore up the deteriorating corner, os-pho & paint it

...move the sheep to new pasture (believe me, it wasn't easy this time!)

...start harvesting the turmeric

...work on the new deck

...clean out my truck. If you saw the truck you'd understand it's like cleaning out your overstuffed toolshed. It was time to go through all the stuff crammed behind the seats and sort it out. 

Wish I had gotten more tasks done, but I always seem to put too much on my plate. Lofty goals, I suppose. 

Next Garden Site Rescued From The Grass

The morning was a non-farm event. Had to run to the pharmacy to pick up hubby's meds, then to the local business office to drop off a UPS package. Hit the Ace Hardware for a few supplies for the farm. Well, I suppose you could call that a farm related event. Then decided to go help my next door neighbor by cleaning up the inside of his "house' and mowing around it. He's been away for a few months and will be returning this weekend. So it's nice to get things ready for his return. You see, we help each other out and this is one thing I can do to return the favors. It's called, being neighborly! 

So.....every day isn't 100% farming. I just wish that it was. If I could spend every waking minute working about the farm, that would be paradise. But life is what it is, and it's not just farming. 

Lunch. Run get the car inspected. Back to the farm. 

The afternoon was more my style. I tackled a 22' by 18' area of the old garden. Using the lawnmower, I harvested all the grass for mulching material. The grass was really thick and tall, so it took three passes to get the job done. Once with the mower on the highest setting, once on a mid setting, and lastly at the lowest setting. The last pass scalped the area quite close. All the clippings got used on the current gardens. I've seen people try to do a task like this with one pass with the mower. Gee, that's too much work. And it's tough on the mower. I'd rather take the extra time making multiple easier passes. To each there own, I guess. 

Now that the grass top is gone, I will be able to run the tiller over the surface to chop up most of the grass plants & roots. Happily, this area is free of the dreaded Bermuda grass. So the tiller will effectively kill what is there. Next, I'll let the sun dry out the uprooted grass plants, signing their death certificates. In the meantime I'll start hauling some compost over to this garden with the intent of rototilling it in a few days from now. But all this will have to wait for another day. You see, it started to rain. Farming is on hold. What to do next? Retreat to the house and some cleaning up until dinner time. Yuk. I'd rather be farming. 

More of the Garden Reclaimed

My weekends are usually non-productive farm days. Since hubby is still working a job, I let him dictate how we spend the weekends, and you can bet it won't be working in the farm. He's no country boy! So along came Monday, and I had a chance to tackle another farm project. I opted to reclaim another garden growing area in order to plant more taro that is waiting on the side lines for space. 

Doing the standard routine, 190 square feet was ready for planting before lunch. The taro had already been prepared, so it was just a matter of popping them into place and giving them a good drink. Out came the mower and within an hour I had plenty of grass clippings to mulch the entire area. Done. Time for lunch and a break to recuperate from the mornings activity.

Post-lunch I opted for some farm maintenance and house chores. A bit boring, but necessary. Filled the gas tanks on the ATVs, mower, generators. Did a couple loads of laundry and distributed  the water to the gardens around the house. Cleaned out the raingutters on the house and barn. Fixed the screen door. Spied a bunch of ready bananas and cut it down, plus cut up the pau tree. Hung the bunch up by the house for further ripening.......

Swept the leaves off the concrete walkways. Weedwacked the grass down around the house. Harvested mamaki leaves and got them into the dehydrator. And did a dozen more little jobs that just help keep things running around here. 

Day done. 

Tuesday on the Farm

With homestead farming, each day will be a little different. It's not like a commercial farm where I need to adhere to a preset schedule in order to get certain crops in on particular days so that their harvest date is fairly established, or keep to a spraying or fertilizing schedule. Homestead farming is a bit more flexible, but knowing that I need the crops in order to support the farm, the drive to get things done is surely there. 

Every day starts with tending the livestock. That's a daily given. No deviation from that routine. Then it's off to do other things. 

First thing, I had some trading to do. Tuesday is a good day for that because I can take anything left over to the town farmers market on Wednesdays. I really don't have the refrigeration to store a large amount of veggies for several days. That's one thing I have to take into consideration as I'm growing more and more veggies for trading and selling. Packing the frig for overnight is one thing, storing for several days is another far different thing. So after first chores, I was off to meet a few "traders", plus pick up some young chickens needing to be relocated. Trading went well and I was back in time for lunch. 

I still had some pineapple plants that needed homes, so today I tucked them into several micro sized beds, giving a total square footage of 12. 

Next, I need to plant the taro starts that I prepared yesterday. As much as I hoped to get them planted today, I'm not sure I'll have time. So I put them all into buckets of water to hold them for another day it two. 

Now there was an urgent need to mulch all the new plantings. Out with the lawnmower and start mowing. 8 trashcanfuls later, I was ready to apply mulch. All the newly planted things got mulched, then watered in. The rest of the grass clippings went to tup up the previously mulched beds. 

The late afternoon I spent harvesting guava poles. It's slow work because I have to cut up the slash afterward and lay it down in one of the working hugelbeds. I don't like leaving the slash just laying there because it eventually makes it impossible to walk in the guava forest. So collecting poles goes slowly. It's not difficult work, just slow. On the next post, I'll show you what I'm using the poles for. 

Monday on the Farm

After a weekend, Monday is always catch-up day. Today was no different. After the routine daily chores, I spent the morning preparing another garden bed for replanting. This one is 216 sq ft. 

The last crop was sweet potatoes, a crop I use to help condition new soil. It's a stepping stone. So after harvesting all the sweets (most went to livestock food), I added several wheelbarrowfuls of compost, plus a dusting of coral sand and lava sand. Then tilled everything in to the depth of 3 to 4 inches. In the process, the tiller kicked out a lot more rocks. Now to plant....

Pineapples. Yup. This garden bed is on Matt's property and he prefers crops that don't need a lot of attention. And since I had a lot of young pineapple plants that needed a home, it was a good match. So in went 40 white pineapples. 

Spent the rest of the morning cooking slop & glop, preparing taro starts for planting tomorrow, and cutting some guava poles for another project I'll tell you about later. 

Afternoon job priority was watering what I already have growing. The beans, peas, taro, mint, turmeric, sweet potatoes, pineapples, etc. Irrigation used 300 gallons of water to give each plant a suitable drink, some requiring more water than others. It took me an hour. 

The rest of the afternoon included working on the back pastures clearing brush and sowing grass seed. Finished up the afternoon by feeding the livestock, taking a much deserved shower, and thinking about what to have for dinner. A full day. 

Make Hay While The Sun Shines

Dear Diary, 

The past few days have been marvelous. I'm ever so thankful for the better weather. It's not perfect, but beggars can't be choosers, they say. At least it's not raining during the day...much. And the tradewinds are blowing, making the sunshine and the warmth bearable to work in. I know that it's going to dry out everything and that I'll need to be watering by the weekend if we don't get rain, but right about now I'm happy to be a bit on the dry side. 

I've been taking advantage of every daylight minute to catch up on farm chores. Mowing and weedwacking. Rototillering. Gathering grass clippings and mulching the taro, pineapples, beans, and turmeric. Gathering up the wind blown tree branches and piling them up for future firewood. Harvesting weeds for the compost bins, and cleaning up the beds around the house. 

Of course, I wasn't thrilled with the distractions, but farm living doesn't always go smoothly. Adam's water supply sprung a leak which needed immediate attention. The wind tore a long rip in the Costco shed cover, meaning an emergency repair and a trip to buy a cover tarp. Some rats chewed a number of holes in the window screens, but heck, repairs will have to wait for another day. I'll simply close the windows at night to keep the hairy buggahs out of the house. The ATV had a flat tire yesterday morning. Luckily I still had one more tire plug, so the repair went quickly. 

After waiting weeks, no months, I happily announce that the tool shed got painted. Now I'm tackling the barn. I'll take some photos tomorrow. I promise. 

Livestock was feeling frisky in the neighborhood. The next door neighbor's goats were in my gardens the past three mornings. I finally tied the two marauders up on ropes, whereupon they disappeared overnight, not to be seen today at all. Guess the neighbor got the message. It wasn't too difficult to find the places along the fence that the goats tore it up, but it's a pain to have to stop everything the do fence repairs, especially when it isn't even one's own animals. 

My own livestock haven't been angels either. The tiniest piglet has found a spot in the fence where it could squeeze through. It had a blast racing about the front acreage, having grand fun. As soon as Adam tried to catch it, it made a beeline right to its breakout spot. Ah-ha. Gave its secret away! 

Today Calico, the goat, decided to have her babies. Two cute kids. I'll show you photos tomorrow. But of course, there went the early morning work. I just HAD to sit down and do some cute baby watching. 

So my dear Diary, I've been keeping real busy. I'm totally bushed by the end of the day. But I'm afraid the stop......because things very well could return to wet days. 

A Nice Day To Look Forward To

Roosters crowing in the distance brought me gradually awake this fine morning. Another morning of bright sunlight, no rain. Wonderful. Day #5 of mostly no rain. Surfaces are actually drying out. My laundry got dry yesterday. I even mowed lots of grass this week for a change. Five days of nice sun has lifted that lurking feeling of depression that's been hanging around, threatening to take me over. 

This past week I've kept busy whipping the farm back into shape. I've made a dent in the task, but there's still a lot to be done. It's been lots of weeks of weeds a'growing, grasses a'creeping, and no a'planting in the garden beds. 

Tasks accomplished thus far.....

...clean up the banana trees

...refill the compost boxes (2 jobs accomplished at the same time, I weeded all the garden beds around the house, driveway, and secret garden)

...haul compost to the beds I just weeded, then till it in

...mow grass daily to feed the livestock (they are excited to see green grass instead of haycubes)

...mow more grass to use for mulching and compost making

...mine soil to use for topping new grow boxes so that they are ready for planting

...move the rocks I dug up while mining soil to the rock wall being built along the driveway

...plant the four banana keiki I got from a friend

...plant about 3 dozen tomato cuttings that I got from another friend

Ya know, I'm tired just looking over that list. One thing I discovered working this week is that I'm out of shape!!! Weeks of not routinely working has turned me into a soft blob. I even gained weight! Sheesh, those extra pounds hafta go. Those flabby muscles are due for some boot camp. 

Getting back into the farming groove has improved my mood. I'm ready for action! Bring on those seed packets! I want to see things growing in the gardens, seedlings filling the greenhouses. 

Today (Saturday) is a partial day of rest. The sunshine has me chomping at the bit to go get dirty on the farm, but we traditionally spend time with friends on the weekends. The morning is booked. But sometime after noon don't be surprised to find me down in the fields, sneaking a bit of playing in the dirt. 

Busy Around The Farm

You'd think that winter would be a time to rest, but that's not the case around this place. This person has been really busy being a farmer lately. Mowing grass for mulch. Chopping up brush for compost. The never ending manure clean up. Sowing seeds. No complaints.....I love working the farm. 

These past two weeks have been dreary and wet, but that hasn't stopped me from starting plenty of seeds in the greenhouses, and planting cuttings. And although I get wet, I've been clearing brush and weeds, shredding it up for mulch and compost. I'm gathering 6 to 8 trashcanfuls of debris a day and running it over with the mower to chop it. After a week and a half, I've had to take a break. My right hand is getting sore from over work. Guess I need to practice more using the left hand, eh? 

I just finished putting together 4 more pallet grow boxes......this is after harvesting the last of the yacon that was in 3 boxes that were rotting apart. I dismantled those 3 old pallet boxes and discovered they were too far gone to even be used as firewood. So into the bio trash pit (hugelpit) they went. Judging by the amount of yacon starts I have, I'll need to make 3-4 more additional grow boxes to accommodate all the yacon for next season. Luckily I have 12 full boxes of "half-baked" compost I can use to fill the new grow boxes.  Hope to have them done, filled, and planted within the next 2 weeks. Then it's back to making more fresh compost! 

In my quest to gather brush and weeds for composting, I've opened up some areas that I will put starter gardens in. I'll plant my extra turmeric and sweet potato starts, giving that soil its first garden task. Yes, the soil won't be very fertile and it will have plenty of rocks, but just the fact that something is planted and growing will help kickstart soil improvement. To help the young plants, I'll use a mulch that incorporates livestock manures. I won't be eating these starter crops, so I won't have to worry about any possible pathogens due to the manure. Any turmeric harvested will be used as seed stock for replanting. And sweet potatoes harvested (if there are any) will go into the chicken slop & glop. 

I've spent some evenings browsing the seed catalogs, creating fantasy gardens in my mind. Now this has been fun! Hubby likes to create fantasy sports teams and fantasy house floor plans......I'm into veggies. My fantasy gardens are full of all sorts of exotic things, but when I comes time to fill out the order form, practicality will rule and my real garden won't be so dreamy. But the daydreams are great! 

This past week I turned up enough rocks to finish the rock wall that's been being worked on for months now. Ah-ha, another project completed. It feels soooooooo good! But I've ended up with a pile of left over rocks, so I'm already eyeing up where the next rock wall will be. Most likely the other side of the driveway. 

Just the past few days I ripped out a small (4' by 8') taro bed, divided the plants, and replanted them elsewhere. Why? Hubby wants the spot to put a temporary solar panel rack. Yes, I have to admit it is the ideal location for them, but that taro wasn't ready to be harvested. By alas, out it came and got moved to another location. No edible crop, but at least it doesn't die, and in fact, it had plenty of young keikis to plant. So I've increased the population for that variety but I'll have to wait another year to sample it for the dinner table. 

This week I also worked on getting ready for lambing.......any day now the first ewes should be having their lambs. Built a nursery pen for a tiny feral piglet, about three weeks old. And drew up plans for building another chicken pen. Yup, I never seem to run out of projects. Isn't that great?

A Busy Week on a Farm

"I want to farm", she said. 

"I want to build my own house", she said. 

"I want to create a homestead", she said. 

"I want to be my own boss", she said. 

"I want to be self reliant", she said. 

Oh, sister!  Be careful what you ask for! 

I have little regrets. Yes, there's a few. But it has been worth it. Would I do it again, knowing what I've learned so far? Of course, yes. But let me tell ya, it's work! And time! Not for the lazy. 

This past week has been fairly typical of life around here....

...A stretch of the fencing rotted through, so I had to immediately drop everything and make repairs. Ha, so much for adhering to a work schedule. 

...Then the lawnmower started acting up....spend a morning getting parts and repairing the buggah. Around here that mower gets worked to death, so working on it is common place. But don't ask me how a spring for the speed governor disappeared in the grass somewhere. 

...Opening my email, I find a notice that my onion seedlings have been mailed. Yikes. Rush to prepare the garden beds for them. Yup, another glitch in my work schedule. 

...Sadly surveying the gardens, I rue to lack of sunshine. But the past 3 days there's been some sort of blinding, surely nuclear process going on in the sky. Geez, is that really the sun? I rejoice and have this crazy urge to dance in the garden with joy......perhaps sans clothes to appease and thank the garden gods.  

...Recovered one greenhouse with the proper plastic, so I give in to my urge to seed it immediately. Yup, it wasn't on the work schedule. But it's now seeded with cucumbers, squash, and tomatoes. 

...Last Friday night the generator for topping up the solar batteries crapped out. I have no nice words to say about that aging generator, nor the lack of sunshine lately. It was a good generator, and I said nice things about it up until 5 minutes after it died. Because of zero sun, we've been relying on that generator. What to do? Drop everything, of course, and run up to Kona and purchase a replacement. Oh my, the gods are now laughing, because we've just had several days of strong sun. I could have had that old generator repaired. But such is life. Looks like we will now have a back up spare. Perhaps someone else is in more need of it than ourselves? I'll ask around. 

...It's been cold at night, down in the low 50s. With the house not insulated and windows that don't really shut all the way, that means we wake up to a chill. Thankfully I'm prepared with lots of stockpiled firewood.....past effort well spent. I'll just need to gather more wood to replace what we're burning now. Add it to the job list. 

...Trying to keep to the planting schedule, we successfully sowed peas, beans, kale, radishes, lettuce, bok choy, leeks, broccoli, beets, chard, cabbage, and various herbs. Plus marigolds -- gotta have color in the garden! 

...With a couple days of sun, I got the chance to get in some painting jobs done. They've been put off for weeks now. And don't forget the laundry. Sun = dry clothes. 

...A plus..... for me that is. I actually got my Christmas packages packed and ready for mailing. I almost fainted with pride. This has got to be the first time in years and years that I got them ready to mail before the actual holiday! Of course this means that I didn't get the donkey's hooves trimmed today. Gotta get to that tomorrow first thing. 

A Day on the Homestead

I'm going to occasionally try a new format....diary/prose style. Just for the change. Just for the fun, I'll describe a day on the farm. 

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After a week of daily rain, this morning promised a drier day. But sunrise has fooled me before, so I didn't hold my breath. Good thing, because of course, it rained. 0.15 inches of rain. Sigh...another wet day in the tropics. 

Morning chores were the usual....feed cats, feed dogs, feed chickens, feed donkey, feed sheep,feed goats, feed hubby. With the immediate complaining voices silenced, water bowls, buckets, and troughs got replenished, ....so too hubby's coffee cup. Next round through -- clean up feeding buckets, bowls, and our own dishes. This is a typical morning around here, come rain or shine. Somehow in the midst of all this I find time to have my own breakfast and check the news headlines. I have this compulsive need to check the daily news each morning, though I've trained myself to seldom go beyond the headlines. World news nowadays drives me insane, so I limit my exposure. 

(Two of the farm dogs doing their morning greeting -- Sweetie Pie and Willie.) 

Primary morning chores accomplished, what next? Every day is different, thank heaven. If it ever became drudgery, I'd give it up. 

Because of the ongoing rains, I'm way behind schedule. But today was Sunday, yes a day of "rest". So not much gets accomplished on the farm. If it wasn't for the rain, I'd have mown fresh grass for the sheep and chickens, and harvested the manure from the pastures and chicken pen. But since it was, I handed out hay cubes to the sheep and donkey, and promised to gather manure tomorrow. 

Sunday's means a mid-morning trip to KaLae Coffee to discuss that past week's news with friends. As a group, we always dive headfirst into the political news, dissecting every headline politician's foibles in minute detail. Why anyone would want to get into national politics is beyond me. But before long we move on to local gossip and events, family updates, the beauty of last week's sunsets, the upcoming visits of family, the current garden status. Mean while, the dogs (Loki, Noodles, Shy, and Sissronimo) catch up with their own news, gently play, and solicite petting and treats from passing strangers. It's the same format every Subday. Today was a bit better than the past few Sundays...today the shop had tuna fish sandwiches for sale. Time for an early lunch? You bet! 

The rest of the day until dinner lacked any meaningful accomplishments, unless reading could be considered that. Gosh, this turned out to be one of our laziest days ever. Not your typical day on a farm. But days like these help sore muscles and achy knees to heal a bit.....so I like to tell myself. By mid afternoon hubby grew restless and opted to dine out with friends. Thus the end of a rather non-productive farm day.