1 March 2018

No sooner had I put up last week’s post than Junia was yelling at me about a “bee ball.”

Behold the bee ball.  This is a wild swarm that attached itself to the flame tree at the foot of our driveway.

A few hours and an afternoon deluge later, that swarm was on the ground.  (no photo – sorry)

Austin was still at Plantation Island.  Junia is too big for the bee suit.  Akka has gotten stung too many times and is averse to bees.  I am a apiary know-nothing (in fact I’m not even sure about the word “apiary”).  BUT – we had a dear guest Dominique who several decades ago was a beekeeper.

So Dominique asked to be allowed to suit up and care for the swarm.

Here he is.  Junia took a dozen photos – all from a VERY safe distance.

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The Austin-was-away Gong Show.

First thing I had to do when I returned from Plantation Island  but Austin was still there was to remove the eggs labeled “24” from the incubator (that shifts the eggs every few hours) to the hatcher (that leaves the eggs flat and lets the embryos find their air pockets before hatching).   I took all five trays from the bottom row of the incubator.

Two days later, chicks are hatching…..    but I am also hearing peeps from the incubator

Oops!   Missed a tray.   Photos not so clear, but there were more than a dozen chicks on the floor of the incubator – fell off the tray two floors up….

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FIJIAN WORD of the Week

Coka  (tho-ka).   It means diarrhea.  I think of coka for two reasons – 1) I was proofreading a friend’s manuscript on local herbs yesterday, and 2) somebody here had coka last night.

Tauvimate means sick.    Look at the length of the two words, and I think we know which word they use more…..

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Happy and healthy week, everybody!

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22 February 2018

Where did the week go?

Well it started with Sandy Dune sitting in the sun.

He is now completely recovered from the accidental poisoning.

Then – I don’t know.  Suddenly, I was out on Plantation Island again.  This time Austin has taken out 6 “coral gardening” trainees who are university marine science students – 3 young men and 3 young women.  I was struck by the difference in their huts on the second morning – though my photos do not make the difference obvious:

Can you tell which is which?

The girls’ hut is on the left …. they had done laundry.   Already!   The boys’ is on the right with just some swim trunks hanging.

And Austin came back from his first time in the water with them with a present for me:

A starfish.  Yes, very very odd.   What to make of it?   Maybe it was regenerating a limb and decided to go for broke?   Maybe it is a baby becoming an adult size one limb at a time?  Beats me.   Austin was going to put it back in the water.

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FIJIAN WORD of the WEEK

This week I saw a fellow pick up a big rock to knock a bent metal step back into position.   I thought of two Fijian words I could use to describe it –  tuki  which means “hammer” and makawa  which means “old”  – tuki makawa – “old hammer.”    I thought that was pretty clever and I told Austin, who was unimpressed.

Do you remember I told you  vatu  a few weeks ago ?  It means “rock.”   Austin’s suggested term is  tuki ni vatu  which might mean “hammer of rock.”

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Happy week, everybody.

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15 February 2018

Saw this mushroom – maybe a “puffball” – on Valley Road near the farm.  Now that I noticed one mushroom, suddenly I notice them all over.  Probably because of all the rain.

Then I ended up having to come to Suva….

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The familiar fish market beside the canal.

A big ocean fish and a vendor who wanted to be in the photo.  I thought I didn’t know the fish, but when the vendor said, “It’s a barricuda,”  I replied, “Oh – it’s Ogo !!”  This is a fish we eat a lot at the farm, but we buy it already cut and frozen in Sigatoka.

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Our next-door neighbors in Suva gave us Tarsi – the mother/grandmother dog at the farm – many years ago.  Now that I’m back here I see their dogs and I feel as if I’m back at the farm.

This is Tarsi’s sister, “Blackie.”

And this is Winky’s son, “Boxer.”   Boxer is an angry sort, but I can’t be scared of him because he looks so much like his mom.

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Ruins in the city

Looks like a tiled bath.

The wider view – all that is left of the house.   With Suva growing so quickly, it it surprising to find this lot still undeveloped  (except for the taro patch in the corner).  I wish I had the insight of my fellow blogger Rabrius, who comes up with really witty titles for his photos.   Oh well.

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A hole-in-the-wall restaurant in Suva.  Yang’s Restaurant, around the corner from Caines Jannif Photography, for those who know Suva.

Akka and I had lunch there yesterday.  He has known this place for 15 years or more, since Uncle Jerry discovered it and showed it to him.  They have great red pork, if you like pork.   Akka got pork, I got beef – the “serviette” was a roll under a plastic cover – perhaps you can see it.  Amusing.  And delicious food for less than US$5 each.

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Two girls and their drinking coconuts.

That’s Ita, Monica’s cousin, and me in our kitchen in Suva.

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FIJIAN WORDS of the WEEK

(I’m not making any progress right now, so I’m giving you words I’ve known for years, but they are useful.)

Drinking coconut is BU.  It’s called this in many islands of the Pacific.

Fish is IKA.  This is also a pan-Pacific word.   If you know these two words, you can survive.

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Happy week, everybody.

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8 February 2018

Cue Wedding March – DUM DUM daDUM….

Monica saw this “wedding dress mushroom” growing in our compound in Suva and showed it to me.  I’d never seen a lacy mushroom before.

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I’ve shown this before, but it is getting so thick now:

Spanish moss.  Austin found it and loves it and has it in Suva and on two of our trees here.    It can’t reproduce – it won’t flower here – which is a blessing, otherwise people could think they suddenly landed in Louisiana.  (Does anybody besides me think of Beards when they see it?)

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Update on those beautiful avocados …. they didn’t ripen evenly!  Dang!  Fully ripe at the seed and not even starting to get soft at the neck.   There must be some way to get it to ripen all together at once, but I don’t know how yet.

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Speaking of food:

We made that guava jam.  Yummmmmm…..

And I might have mentioned that we had many wheelbarrows of guavas yet to pick.

Yep.   ( and Junia had already processed a big pot full out of here before I got this photo.)

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Needed some fauna this week – and alas, could not get a photo of the beautiful, tiny, green lace-wing insect I saw.   So instead I snapped these ….

chickens who rush to me and hope I’m coming with food.  Too bad.

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Oh, I don’t know if I mentioned that the drought broke and the pool is full – actually CLEAN and full – whoopee!   Before the rains came, Austin bought the materials for the kiddy pool, waterslide and living water cleaning system he wants to put in,… and stored the cement outside under a tarp so it wouldn’t trigger my asthma.  Much of the cement may be hard as a rock now.   So anyhow, this scene is a testament to love.

Cement under wraps.

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FIJIAN WORD of the WEEK

There is a surf shop “Waitui” (salt water) which I thought meant “ocean.”   Nope!  Waitui  just means “salt water.”    Ocean/sea is wasawasa.

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The giraffes of the flower world.

We have Sunflowers.    I forget how tall they are til they grow way over my head … again!

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Happy week, everybody.

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