April 15, 2023
Welcome to Blog #10
WOW, hard to believe this is the 10th version of my weekly blog. Thank you for tuning in for another week of news.
I just found out that April is native plant month and it has been a very exciting and productive week for gardening as well as building. My friend Indrajit who is a coconut sscholar/practioner came out for a couple of days with a friend Malu. Sunday started with a new enlarged taro garden. He brought a very special and revered variety of taro called Mana Olu. Jit enlarged the taro garden with the new variety up front. I have it fenced off now so the dogs don’t get in the garden and disturb the new plants.
I have been working this week cleaning out garden places that have become overgrown with Hono hono grass, wedelia and cane grass. Often these are coving beautiful rock formations or rock walls. I also planted a lemon tree and harvested my first tomatoes and green beans.
Derek came and we attacked the hau cutting more branches and working upward. I am working on investigating various solutions to get the branches chipped and used as a ground cover for planting the coconut grove.
My solar panels and shed flooring arrived on Wednesday and it won’t be long until those are installed. Plastic shelving also arrived for getting things more organized. I am still living out of plastic boxes and suitcases with little storage space.
The cut coral path is now made to the shower. Next trip to town I will get river rock to place in between the pavers. Yesterday I was lucky to get some help hauling sand and the pavers to the general area. I have been loading them in my Gorilla cart and hauling across the yard so help from the guys was really wonderful. Chris made a wooden stand to hold the sink yesterday so doing dishes is much more comfortable.
This week the middle room of the shed got framed. They will do the window and door framing this next week. The windows and doors are a month late, but now they can just be pooped in on arrival mid May.
Bradley arrived yesterday with his huge truck to trim the branches on the monkey pod tree root. The tree fell down about ten years ago and the root produced a new tree. Besides the new tree shading the solar panels I have a jade plant to put at the base that hopefully the jade will use the branches to climb up and hang down with the jade flowers. My new friend Grant is pictured here at the airport with a beautiful lei he made from their jade plant. Last trip to town I bought a lei needle and thread so I am ready.
After “winter” the plumerias I planted twenty years ago are starting to have leaves and flowers come out. The last weeks have actually been hot in between cloudy days and sprinkles of rain. Feels like summer so Mana and I will be going to the beach more. Something happens everyday here that I must be present to answer questions so we haven’t done much beaching.
I gave a copy of Wave Woman to the owner of the popular local grocery and a little bit of everything store and he is going to carry my book. Lots of tourists go there and it will be on the shelf next to my friend Stuart Colman’s Eddie Would Go.
Coming home from town this last week this guy was on the road. He was drinking water and not looking very happy.
And, speaking of Wave Woman-The Life and Struggles of a Surfing Pioneer a free lance journalist that wrote about the book when it came out in 2020 got in touch a couple of weeks ago wanting to know what I am doing. I told her all the nitty gritty reasons about leaving Oahu and my new Niu Now coconut farming mission. She is pitching the story to a national magazine so that will be interesting. Keeping fingers crossed.
The cats are getting more and more comfortable exploring their new environment. Besides finding great places here in the trees I spotted some sitting up on the large rocks in the neighbors pasture watching the cows graze. And more and more are moving into my camp house.
I think I said how this place is anything but isolated as I meet at least one new person everyday. On the way home from getting drinking water and going to the dump Mana and I stopped at a beautiful beach and went for a swim. I met two delightful and interesting new friends Angie and David. While in the water we had a lot of fun talking and getting to know one another and we are all looking forward to staying in touch via the internet.
Well, this kind of sums up another great week. I leave with one thought– always remember when one door closes we all have the power to open a new one and often a better one. This was my mother’s philosophy and it is working for me in the best of all ways. I feel like the luckiest person alive to be doing what I love in one of the world’s most beautiful places. It is a free life with no one shutting off my water or my power or dictating how life should be lived.
Thanks for tuning in and thank you to those who are leaving comments. Please share this blog with any friends you might think would be interested. This next week will see some big progress in moving forward.
Looking forward to streaming Merrie Monarch tonight.
Aloha Nui
Vicky
Wave Woman: The Life and Struggles of a Surfing Pioneer by Vicky Durand 