Drivel - Beauty on the Farm

It's far too easy to miss seeing what's right in front of me. I get in a rush and totally miss the beautiful stuff right here on my farm. So I decided to walk about and take a few pictures. I'm glad that I did because otherwise I would have missed seeing some of these gems. 

This coleus came up all by itself right in the middle of one of my taro patches. Being that it was so colorful I couldn't bring myself to pull it out. Now it's a jumbo plant. 

Don't ask me how it did it, but this wee impatiens sprouted out the side of the rockwall by the house. How cute! 

My mini rose bush started pushing new foliage and flower buds. The new leaves are lovely by themselves, being reddish and pale green. I usually fail to notice them, but today the bush is covered with the new leaves, making it look like its in bloom with weird flowers. Pretty neat. 

While gathering fresh greenery for the rabbits I came upon this moss coated log. It's amazing, IMHO. 

I should have posted this photo first because this is this morning's sunrise. Stepping out the front door, I saw that the sky was growing lighter. Looking up through the driveway trees, it looked quite nice so I ran to get the camera. A beautiful way to start the day, wouldn't you agree? 

There are lots of various flowers blooming right now. Gingers, orchids, anthuriums, and these fellas that I don't know the name of. 

Passing by a young avocado tree, I couldn't help but notice how nice the fresh new shoots look against the older leaves. Soft, colorful, and shiny. We don't get the colorful autumn leaves here, but the new foliage is frequently colorful. Guess that helps make up for our lack of fall colors. 

Came upon another fungus on a log. This one is really showy. 

Although not as strikingly colorful as the orange fungus, this fungus is quite unusual, layer after layer of ripplely brown with white fringe. With all the weeks of rain, the fungi are in ecstasy. Lots of mushrooms coming up too. 

Every once in a while I have to remind myself to look....and really see....what's going on around me. Some of this stuff is really amazing. 

Drivel - I'm Ok

All's well here. I'm just suffering from a major shortage of time. Working on the blog is rather low on the priority list. Not that I don't enjoy doing it, but other chores have to get done first. 

Drivel - Gentle Night

I realized something tonight....I seldom go outdoors when it's dark. I suppose that's a habit carried over from my childhood. I grew up in a city, so nighttime wasn't all that safe. As a result, I seldom felt comfortable outside when it was dark unless I was with other people. 

Since moving to "the country", I have been losing my fear of the night. But I seldom stray from the area around the house. So tonight I took a walk around the homestead. Well let me tell you, the animals weren't pleased by my odd behavior. The dogs barked at me. The sheep were spooked. The hens muttered on their roosts. Several rabbits thumped their feet in alarm. The piglets woofed and gave me that deer-in-the-headlight stare. The only ones curious were the cats. As I strolled about, in had a retinue of half a dozen cats following me. Guess they were trying to figure out what I was up to. 

(Above, Becca illuminated by the flashlight.)

(Above, the pond as I walked past. No fish in sight. Just pond plants serenely floating on the surface.)

There was no moon tonight so it was really, really dark. Even after my eyes got accustomed to the dark, I couldn't see much without the flashlight. But I discovered that the farm is really lovely at night. Quiet except for a few insects and a cane toad. And home to some nightlife -- a spied a bat, a barn owl, and several night geckos and moths. I checked the garden for slugs and was pleased to see there weren't scads of them. Slugs are one form of nightlife I could do without. I looked into the pond (photo above) but didn't see anything moving. And though I know that rats, mice, and feral pigs prefer the night, they were leery enough to stay hidden from this blundering human. 

After a 30 minute stroll, I still couldn't make out any land features without the flashlight. Checking the sky there wasn't a star to be seen. My personal night vision was zilch. If the flashlight failed, it would have been a challenging situation with me being a novice night navigator. Boy! I would have been in need of a seeing eye cat! The above photo is of the steps leading up my hill. Barely visible until they were in the full flashlight beam. 

By the time I started climbing up home, I realized that I had become relaxed with a lovely aire of peace about me.  I was really getting into the relaxing night thing. This night walking turned out to be quite nice. Carefully climbing the log steps up toward the house, I looked up to see the house lights. They seemed out of place in the darkness that surrounded me......

Almost to the top of the hill stairs I stopped to take a photo of the welcoming house door. Hubby had put the porch light on when he noticed that I was returning. 

Yes, a welcoming sight. "We'll leave a light on for you." 

More Pallet Boxes -- or Utilizing Truckloads of Weeds

I'm helping to clean up a local garden area down the road and have been hauling truckloads of weeds away. Rather than dumping the debris at the local trash station, I've been using the windfall to expand my gardening efforts. While I already produce enough food for ourselves (hubby and I), I'm working with the community garden group to produce food for them and our community. So lots of extra grow boxes surely would come in handy. Especially for slug prone crops like various greens. 

The limiting factor for these boxes is the fill. I have access to plenty of pallets. Enough material for lining the boxes. Enough area to erect them. But each takes a cubic yard or more of fill. Believe me, that's a lot! 

A truckload of weeds and trimmings looks like a cubic yard, but don't be fooled. It's mostly air. Once the material is transferred to a pallet box and stomped down, it's a lot less than you'd guess. Then give the material a few weeks to start decomposing, and the volume goes way down again. 

The box pictured above is half filled. I stomped it down but the material is a bit springy, so the box looks fuller than it actually is. To fill the box halfway has taken 9 trashcanfuls so far, plus several buckets of dirt and manure. 

This is how I'm using these old weeds. The stuff is rather woody, which means that it will be slow to decompose, is low in nitrogen, and will need fungi to break it down. Plus it is loaded with weed seed. With all this in mind, I'm loading a foot deep layer of the material into a pallet box. Then I add a 5 gallon bucket of dirt that I spread around over the layer. Next I sprinkle a couple shovelfuls of compost that I had previously inoculated with mushroom spore (I collect mushrooms from the county parks around here), then a 5 gallon bucket of manure (rabbit, chicken, or horse), then wet it with about 5 gallons of water or more. Repeat. Repeat. Climb in and tromp it down real good, then start all over again. 

Using these old weeds means more work in filling the pallet box, but it will make a nice growing media. I've done it before so I know that it will work. This material will heat up. No surprise since its just a boxed compost pile. But that means that I can't plant into it immediately like I can the other "cold" pallet boxes. It will take 3-4 weeks for it to cool down then be topped with 3 inches of good garden soil. 

So how much old weeds is needed to fill one box? I'm going to guess 18 standard full trashcans. Maybe 20. And that's just the first filling. I don't know how much volume it will lose as it goes through it's initial decomposing. The stuff is rather woody, so I'm not sure. Surprised to hear 20? Well so was I the first time I tried filling my first pallet grow box. It surely takes a lot of weeds to make a cubic yard of packed organic compost. And what also surprised me was that within two months the soil level will drop a full foot, and after 6 months the pallet box will only be half full. But the beauty of the system is that I get to utilize weeds, purchase zero fertilizer, get a lush crop, and end up with a half cubic yard of gorgeous "soil" that I can use to make more boxes or apply to garden rows that are rather sparse on soil. 

I plan to grow chard, kale, and lettuce is these new boxes since I've had requests for those crops. 

One more thing.......

I've already related how I line the boxes with something to help keep  moisture in -- old tarp, cut open feed bags, old plastic sheeting. Up until now I use to use a staple gun to attach the liner to the pallets. But the plastic tends to pull through the staple during the filling/stomping process. So I'm trying something different. I'm taking old milk gallon jug tops, making a hole for a nail in the center of the top (with a drill or a soldering iron), then using a roofing nail to hammer the liner to the pallet. 

The bottle cap grabs the plastic liner quite nicely. This way the liner shouldn't pull through. We shall see how well this works. 

Donkeys!

What are donkeys good for? Pets, of course!!! If we'd like to share our farm with donkeys, do I need any other reason? Naw. Pets are totally fine. 

Today I stopped by to see two donkeys that need to be rehomed. Although I've never met these two before, I've often talked with their owner over the years, hoping I suppose that there might be some baby donkeys in the works. No luck. But I've always been fond of the idea of sharing my life with donkeys. I've had ponies in the past and thoroughly loved them. Kept them to the day they died of old age. But never donkeys. While I understand that donkeys are not ponies, I still would like having donkeys. So ...... meet Dink and Donk.........

I was so pleased to see how friendly these two are. One thing I know about donkeys is that they don't forget mistreatment. These two very obviously have never been mistreated. They are mild, friendly, docile for donkeys. They seemed comfortable around me, as I was with them. 

So if all goes well, Dink and Donk will be moving to my homestead. They can help eat the grass and make the place look "homesteady".... is there such a word? I won't ask any work from them, but if they happen to team up with the sheep, then they can be pasture guards. Donkeys intensely dislike dogs, so Dink and Donk can help protect the flock from stray dogs. Fine by me. 

Lilokoi Harvest Time Again

I haven't gathered lilokoi yet this season, so I figured it was about time I go foraging. I don't need too much since I still have several pints still in the freezer, but lilokoi is a seasonal crop so I had better make sure that I have enough to last until next year. 

I have a favorite spot for collecting lilokoi. Lots of other people also collect from there but there is usually plenty to go around. Sadly some other locations that harbored lilokoi plants have been bulldozed or weedwacked, so there is a lot less opportunities for foraging. But with the rains and warmth this year, what vines still exist are producing loads of fruits. 

Snuffling around my favorite hunting grounds I noticed two things right off. Very few people are collecting lilokoi this year. There were plenty of fruits laying around. And none of the usual annual debris had been cleared away. Second, the fruits were very large. I suppose the weather is the reason for that. These are the biggest lilokoi I've ever gathered. 

I also came upon lots of beautiful fungus. I don't know what it is called but I think it is a type of shelf fungus. Quite colorful. 

I was surprised to find another type of lilokoi growing in this spot. For years I've been collecting the large bright yellow ones. But there is at least one vine producing the reddish type. Bingo! I like these reddish-purplish colored ones. Glad to get some. I'll have to go back again next week to see if there are more of these. These lilokoi have a very slightly different flavor. Perhaps a tad sweeter, or perhaps a bit less of a tart bite. 

Basically they look the same as the yellow ones, except for color that is. And I use them in recipes the same as the yellows. 

A couple of weeks ago at the last canine spay/neuter clinic I worked at I was given a recipe for lilokoi mousse. The stuff was delicious. But alas, I lost the recipe. Well not exactly lost lost. It's now a pulpy wad of ink tinged paper that I found in my shorts pocket after I did the laundry. Oops. Forgot to empty the pockets! I need to get that recipe again. It was so good that I'll post in on the blog for you. 

Drivel - Active Lava Update

To everyone who has been concerned about the lava over running my farm ..... Thank you for your concern but it's no where near us. It's on the other side of the mountain. Some day lava will erupt on our side, but not this time around.  

Kilauea volcano has been erupting since 1983. Most of the time the lava flows have been in undeveloped areas but from time to time a flow hits some important targets. In the past, Royal Gardens housing subdivision and the Kalapana areas have been wiped out. Now a finger of lava is heading for the historic town of Pahoa. This is the upcoming disaster that will be happening in slow motion. Not exciting enough to stay in the mainland news, not yet. But once it hits the town I'm sure you will be reading sensationalized news about it. 

First, the photo credits. They came from the Honolulu news website- hawaiinewsnow.com. I recognize some as coming from the USGS website. I don't know the photographers names. 

Above is the Kilauea crater, the ultimate source of the lava. No lava is coming out of this crater on its surface.... which by the way is huge and miles across because it is a crater within a crater within a crater. But underground there is a major lava channel leading to a surface eruption site a few miles away, which in its own right looks like a small volcano. It's call Pu'u O'o. Good old Pu'u O'o is spilling lava out its side and being quite sloppy about it. Looks a lot like a baby trying to feed itself a bowl of gloppy rice cereal -- blops and rivers of the stuff every which way. 

Since the end of June, some of the lava has been organized into a nice flow, somewhat river-like. It's been slowly making its way over areas of old lava eventually entering a forest preserve. 

It's been slowly creeping through the forest, burning trees along the way. No one took much notice until it started heading for some houses (in the foreground). Luckily for those homeowners, the lava flow made a turn, heading down hill around the subdivision. But that turn now has the flow heading directly to a small town. 

Suddenly people are taking notice! As best as can be guessed, the lava will flow right through town, across the Pahoa town road, then right over the only feeder highway leading in and out of all Puna district! Yikes! Bad news. 

Daily meetings with county officials plus numerous websites are keeping residents informed. The county is taking steps to create two temporary roadways so that there will be access to Puna. 

Regardless of preparation, it will be disaster for sure. But it occurs agonizingly in slow motion. Every day you can watch it creeping closer. Everyday it's the main topic on everyone's mind. 

In the next week the area will be packed with outsiders coming to see the town get eaten and people's homes get destroyed. Tourists mainly, but also worldwide newspeople. I'm sure the residents are not looking forward to it. 

My heart goes out to those who will lose their homes. People are already moving valuables and livestock. But it's hard to move a home, the landscaping, the memories. But the lava is no surprise. We live on an active volcano.