As the work-day ends, our progress on the treatment center today leaves us with the two storage tanks filled with water, and all the wiring and plumbing set for the first pressure test. All we are waiting for is the power supply to run the equipment and then we can run a test before the borate is loaded for bamboo treatment.
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I appologize for making you wait over a week for a new post. Today, the crew worked up near the top of the property planting a new plot. We planted 137 new plants, not including all the nitrogen fixing plants. 4 jack fruit 10 sandal wood 12 peach palm 8 nene leau 68 koa 12 kukui 23 a’ali’i . after we finished the planting the crew worked in the nursery weeding and maintaining the plants.
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The construction crew working has now finished the footer for the quonset hut. The stem wall pour comes next, and then after that, the concrete floor. All of our achievements always excite us and make us feel grateful for the blessings of this life.
The other workers went back up into our most recent planting and finished weeding the young plants and replacing the ones that the California grass swallowed. We replaced the empty spots with 10 Kokui, 13 Koa, and 5 Sandlewood trees!
P.S. If my posts seem a little boring, please forgive me, I’m still figuring out life (haha Ryan Funny edit) the details of this website. Any comments on my postings would be appreciated.
We have two new workers from Hana on the construction crew: Bryer and Lyman. We are right at this moment pouring the foundation for the quonset hut! Here are some pictures I took about 30 minutes ago. I’ll add the video when I figure out how to upload it from my phone in the right format.
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In the nursery,The Malay Dwarf propagation is going well. We have more than 500 cuttings started so far with a total of 1000 being our goal.
Check in again often to see more on the construction and other farm activities!
Thanks to Obama’s new program for putting youth in full time jobs, the first month’s salary comes courtesy of the federal government. Two new workers are here on the farm to help us build the building for the bamboo treatment center. Uila (We-La) and James have been doing a professional job and both are great workers with experience in construction. The purpose of this program is to put young people in full time jobs hoping that they will end up finding themselves invaluable to the employer and staying on.
In other news, the crew worked in the upper plantation weeding our young plants and doing some guava clearing. In the areas where the trees didn’t survive, the crew planted Koa and Sandalwood trees.
Today we cleaned the Atter bamboo. The team used sawzall’s to cut shoots that were too small or to crowded. This afternoon’s work is going to be propagating Malay Dwarf keikis. We have been making these starts for a while now, and are about halfway to our (don’t quote me on this. I’m probably wrong) 1,000 keiki goal. For more information on bamboo propagation, I found this website. Bamboo Propagation
Quote of the week:
When I was walking down the hill, I felt like Godzilla. Walking all slow going “rawr rawr rawr”
Yesterday everyone went up the hill and planted more trees. There is always more. Native and polynesian introduced species, with a glyricidia and narra NFT nurse crop were installed in good weather and good spirits. There were fun games played as everyone kept busy. It is such rewarding work to do, and at the end of the day makes me feel good to see the accomplishment that many hands make.
At around 4 pm we stirred the 500. Some cleaned the windows on the barn while we took turns stirring the biodynamic prep for the farm. For an hour, we stir it to create a vortex in the water, and then once it gets going create chaos in the barrel by switching directions. About 3 times a minute the direction of the stir changes direction. Then the prep is loaded in the pto driven pump mounted on the back of “Zeus,” our John Deere 5420 tractor. One load covers about 12-14 acres.
Today, two people stayed down in the nursery and cleaned plants that are going to another nursery in Hana. The rest of the crew went up to the planting to finish mulching and interplanting with NFTs. Ryan had a good week putting the Mule back together, replacing a hydraulic hose on the Kubota L5450, changing the blades on the chipper, replacing a high pressure power steering hose on the Dodge 3500, and fixing Jade’s car. What a tremendous week to be alive and to be doing good work on our blessed Earth.
Aloha. We had a good bit of rain over night and a gorgeous day so far. We had a great morning in the bamboo. First, we started with guava patrol. Clipping guavas down at ground level, underneath the mat of grass. We worked our way through an area that had been left for quite a while. For the second half of the morning we went into one of the guadua beds and continued doing maintenance on the clumps. Those thorns are gnarly. We all did real well, coming out in the end with minimal damage.
Happy May 19th and timber maintenance! Today the crew went up into our forest and pruned some older Narra (pterocarpus indicus) trees with a pole saw. The coppice material was chipped back onto the forest floor. Teak, Kamani, and Narra were also fertilized with organic seabird guano. The Schizolobium parahyba trees are beginning to flower again. Sometimes called a yellow jacaranda, they are fast growing ornamental trees. Also, the monkey puzzle tree (Araucaria araucana) is putting on a lot of new growth. (Correction on 6/4/10. Sorry, the tree is not a monkeypuzzle, it is a bunya bunya tree (Araucaria bidwillii) from Australia, sometimes called a false monkeypuzzle. The pine cones are edible too!)
On another front, our new cook, Michael, is starting tomorrow. Jade, our devoted, generous, loving and kind friend who has graced us with breakfast and lunch for 4 1/2 months will be joining the crew in the field work until she returns to the mainland in July. We are up to 8 “apprentices” right now, which is all we have housing for. Our most recent addition started on Monday. Aloha.
Photos by Ryan Zucco
One hundred sixty trees ranging from koa’ia, lignum vitae, breadnut, avocado, citrus, a’ali’i, ohi’a, coconut, peach palm, and macadamia nut. Eight people on the crew and we got all the holes cleaned, fertilized, and planted. More than half were watered and mulched only because we ran out of water. We’ll get back to it later this week and finish the job. We started down the hill a little early and rescued some lychees and koas from the california grass. It rained on us in the morning nicely and the sun came out later in the morning. Here are some pictures from this morning.
