Vicky Durand’s Adventure Blog #97

March 29, 2025

Welcome to Adventure Blog #97

It has been a grand week! The big news is we finally got our IRS designation letter for Koali Niu as a non profit. We were holding our breath that it could take a long long time with Trump’s IRS cutbacks. But, we lucked out and we are now a real 501 (c3). And, another bit of  exciting news is we have a promised donation of $20,000 with another possible donor in the wings. We have decided to name a coconut tree in honor of any donor giving $20,000. or more. We will be grateful, of coarse, for smaller and any and all donations.

I have a great new helper Sarah and we have been working on clearing the small debris, roots, branches and weeds off the hill-laying weed cloth, making small fires, and planting potatoes for ground cover. It is so steep I have to weed on my knees.  Challenging, but the hill is looking good and it will soon be ready for coconut planting.

Another move forward is Just today I was able to get KoaliNiu.org for our domain name in addition to KoaliNiuFarm.

The pool is now full, looking beautiful and the days have been hot so it is wonderful place to cool off and do some exercises. It has not rained much this week so we could use some water and are now in the “careful use” stage. I am planting a lot of seeds and badly in need of rain.

This is such an amazing community y! A couple of days ago I asked my friend James for some plumerias as I wanted to make a lei for my friend Mary Carol’s husband Steve. MC sadly passed away in December but today was her celebration of life. A day later James sent me a text picture of a lei his daughters made. Unfortunately the girls didn’t realize it was for a man so the lei was too small. After picking up the lei I went to various neighbors and picked flowers to make it longer and was very happy until today when I took it out of the bag and many flowers were brown and I couldn’t give it to him. BOO HOO The pinkish red petals are from our Pride of Burma tree planted twenty years ago and deemed the worlds most beautiful tree.

The celebration was at Hana Gardenlands and it was a beautiful party and celebration of Mary Carol with music, singing, and lots of great food.

I miss her presence and our get togethers.

It is now Sunday and after getting home yesterday I had to trap two cats to get neutered tomorrow morning. I delivered them this morning to my friend Sharon’s house who works for the Humane Society and will take them in and return back here tomorrow. I always have a hard time doing this, but otherwise there would be lots of black cats around here.

I am getting more and more comfortable with my Kawasaki Mule and am taking it carefully up and down the hill. It is really great for transporting things around the property and I LOVE it. I am going to have a knee replacement on April 10 and it will be my saving piece of equipment. I can drive it right up to the edge of the back patio.

The days are passing very fast and hard to believe it is almost April. Time is also passing fast and it is now time to get to work or get in the pool. The yellow boys are happy.

Thanks for tuning in….Wishing a great week coming up. The orchid log is coming together.

Also pictured is a picture of the bunk house platform when we first started. The picture was taken from down the road but shows how overgrown this place was. The coconut trees are behind the orchid log.

Aloha Nui,

Vicky