31 August 2017

Thought I’d start with something happy this week:  puppy cuteness.   Six pups living.  Chubby and starting to open their eyes.

But man oh man, I never foresaw the changes in dog dynamics.  No wonder Winky dug herself a maternity ward under a tree.  The Old Bitches are trying to kill her! (That is a literal description,  not a cuss).  One afternoon on the hill Winky came aound and before I knew it there was a fierce fight around my legs.  Alarming!  Plus I have no idea what’s up.  This is a first for me.

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A couple of chicken stories from while Austin was gone:

Kevin the Peace Corps volunteer came back — and he and Aķka transported a foam incubator, 90 fertile eggs,  28 dozen chicks, and 9 rolls of chicken wire to Suva in the truck .  To make it fit, they left his wife Carissa at the farm with me.  YAY!  They also got 29 bags of feed in Suva and took it all to the boat for Moala.  Looooooong day for them.

AND

Life will win.  I’m spite of the incubator being left open one whole cold night (oops) and me not getting the data right and still rolling those eggs way too much (oops again) — this batch of chicks we thought we’re all goners All Hatched !  Shocker !!

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So now that I’m sketching, I’m looking more with an artist’s eye.  I started seeing THIS plant, and I dont know its name so I am calling it Angry Rose.

Fewer petals , more thorns.

Also, we let the yard ladies have vacation during the two week school break — so the cane knives also had a holiday.

Kind of artistic?

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Finally, just a very sweet happenstance.

A dear friend we had been out of touch with for several years came up to visit… and then returned a few days later with a son and daughter-in-law so that they could get ideas for developing their own property.

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Have a happy week,  everybody.

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24 August 2017

Some things happen that make this blog IRRELEVANT.

 

This Is Arisha, a neighbor child, at a small party for children I had when I got home from Hawaii last year with a lot of candy leis.   Last Friday  Arisha was struck by a speeding vehicle in front of her house and she died.   The funeral was yesterday.

I have never attended a more peaceful funeral in all my years in Fiji.  Was everybody holding it together for everybody else?  Or are we all still numb?

Flora and fauna will just have to wait until next week.

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May you all be happy, healthy, safe, and not taking your loved ones for granted.

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17 August 2017

This has been a week for LEARNING … and there is one gruesome photo, so just pass by this week’s post if you are weak of stomach.

It started off well enough … Austin hosted a workshop for people from Moala – an island in the Lau group, to the east of Viti Levu (main island).

Lots of learning.  Missing from the photo is the Peace Corps couple who will follow up and troubleshoot.  Following up and trouble-shooting will be necessary …. because one particular problem is that the monthly boat to Moala is not until 10 days after the workshop ends.  That means that the foam incubator, the 27 dozen chicks, the rolls of wire for mobile rearing pens … all of that stuff is STILL AT OUR PLACE.    And …..

Austin has skipped the country!

Yes!  Austin is gone!  (for 2 weeks – doing Happy Chicken training, and coral work, in Vanuatu.   Remember Iopil and Joel who were here last January, cooking up our myna birds?  He is seeing both of them this week and getting them set up with incubators).   Anyhow …

Four days before Austin returns we have to get the incubator, 27 dozen chicks, the chicken wire, and TWENTY-SEVEN BAGS OF FEED to the boat in Suva.  The thought gives me nightmares.   Thank God, Kevin and Carissa (the Peace Corps couple) are coming back to help that happen!

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Two days after the Moala gang left, and while Austin was in Hyper-Mode trying to get everything done before he was to leave …. he did not get the feed to one pen of juveniles quickly enough … and he arrived to see THIS:

Horrors!   Cannibal chicks !!   The hungry chicks had turned on each other and were going to peck each other to death !  Seven of the chicks had serious injuries.  This was new learning for Austin, which I documented with a few photos and which will now be one more piece of information to share in the workshops.

On the bright side – he brought them into the hatchery and put them in a box.  The light he had was red – and that turned out to be a great thing.  With the red light, they could not see the injuries and they stopped pecking at each other.

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Austin left while we were entertaining lots of Teitei guests – 3 different families.  Lucky us !  They were all so wonderful.  And on Tuesday, as Austin had predicted, it started raining.  Rain!  Should be great, right?

Only it was during the rain that our young female dog, Winky, went missing.   I haven’t mentioned that she was pregnant, but she was.  Very much like Inu – our dear young pregnant dog who died in the bushes a few years ago.  Junia hunted that evening most of the next day (still raining) and could not find her.

Learning:  young pregnant female dogs avoid older female dogs.  (I don’t know why)

She was not in any structure – house, shed, chicken house, porch …. nowhere.  And it was cold and raining.  Dear God…..

FINALLY … in the late afternoon Ju was asking the dogs to find Winky – and Po finally pointed him in the right direction:   Winky had dug herself a hole under a breadfruit tree.  This must be what wild dogs do!

Ju had taken food and water to her by the time we went with a camera.

And she finally showed her face.

One of our sweet guests texted Ju to ask if we’d found the dog.  On hearing that we had, he wanted a photo.   So this close up is for you, Paul.

If you look closely, you can see one pup’s little head and teeny ear.

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Happy week, everybody.

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10 August 2017

The fields are alive with the plows a’ scratching….

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RAKHSA BANDHAN:  THE NEXT GENERATION

I told you about Raksha Bandhan – the brother/sister ceremony two years ago (in this post)

Now it is also the turn for Kiki.  Two of my three brothers have granddaughters.  Kiki was SO HAPPY and EXCITED that he was going to get two sisters !!!

We went to Rakesh’s house.  After I did my Rakhee ceremony with him, his daughter-in-law helped baby Myrah do her first-ever Rakhee with Kiki.

First they tied the bracelet.

Then gave Kiki sweets.  (He made himself suffer through that part.)

Then Kiki gave Myrah his present.  He’d picked it out himself and she really loved it.

So here they are.   (Unfortunately the knot just would not hold, and Kiki lost his beautiful Rakhee bracelet at school.  Luckily he had another new sister to tie with, the granddaughter of my late brother Dip.)

As we were walking up, he was saying “I’m going to see my Girlfriend!”  And I told him very strongly – she has to be your Girlfriend OR your Sister – she can NOT be both.  So you can give your present and just be girlfriend, or you can accept the bracelet and the sweets, and then she is your SISTER.   Sweets won out over Sweetheart.   And he got a big surprise as well.

The youngest granddaughter, Ria, tied a bracelet as we expected.

But so did the other two big daughters, Sneha and Komal.  So WOW –  Kiki ended up with FOUR sisters.    Luckily part of the present he brought was a pack of 3 pretty handkerchiefs, so there was something for every sister.

Here is Ria with the bangles Kiki brought her.

And here he is with all three sisters at Dip’s house.

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Finally, walking up my drive was a scary sight I’d not seen before.

A wonky ladder affair with a human at the top.   So I went into my house for a better shot of the human.  Our electrician!

Oh Lordy.

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Happy week, Everybody.

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3 August 2017

The old girl is in some kind of big hurry – has laid her egg on top of one incubator and in front of another one.   These are on my porch and I try chasing her away, but she won’t leave.

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It was a slow week for me, except on Monday Austin went to Suva and left me on hatchery detail.  I didn’t take photos – but gee whiz!  What a lot of work!   Every 2 hours I had to transfer newly hatched chicks,  give bigger chicks (maybe 150 of them) water and food.  Every 4 hours I had to roll all eggs in the 7 in-use, not-the-hatching-one, incubators. ….  It’s a wonder to me that Austin gets anything else done and doesn’t forget the babies.

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On Tuesday I repaired my favorite sock that now had holes on the bottom.  I did this by cutting up a very sturdy cleaning cloth, with the plan to sew it on the bottom like footy pajamas.  As you can see, I succeeded, but it wasn’t easy.  How to sew onto shrunken knit-ware?  I thought, “What would Grandma do?” and came up with DARNING EGG.  In my case it was a Wee fruit for part of it, and my actual foot for the rest.  It worked good enough!

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On Wednesday I sketched.

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And today I found THIS in my camera … a sight that you don’t see very often:  Cows in a Lorry.

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Wishing a big HAPPY BIRTHDAY to Austin …. and happy week to all the rest of you.

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