28 May 2020

Goose at rest – such a cute look with beak tucked under the wing.  Such a crappy photo – sorry!

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And then there is the Tale of the Egg-Sucker.

Austin found these eggs sucked dry.  Big question – whodunnit?  He never did catch the culprits in the act, but he is pretty sure it was Myna Birds that did it.

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And finally — short post this week — tragedy visited the farm.

Buttercup Kitty had terrible diarrhea.  The boys found her and gave her water.  She seemed to be getting better, then disappeared.

A few hours later Shadow Kitty ended up in the jaws of Po Dog – and escaped after Akka whacked Po.  Both of them ran off in different directions.

Later that evening Shadow returned, and seemed content, drinking his mama’s milk.

In the morning, however, Shadow’s corpse was found in the pantry.

Very, very sad – especially for Kiki.  It’s the first animal death he has been really present for.

Buttercup has recovered, thank goodness.

But we have to reflect on our very poor record of keeping young cats alive here at the farm in recent years.  Po and Winky Dogs have been cat terrors.  If we are blessed with another litter of kittens, we HAVE to do better.

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Happy week, everybody.  I promise to have better news next week.

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21 May 2020

I type to the sound of a digger clunking – Austin is getting the drains dug out–again.  And some new trash holes dug–for the third time now.  Ahh, the glamor of rural living in Fiji.

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First up from the camera this week –

A twin coconut tree seedling.    Kind of sweet.

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A box full of ducklings.

Super sweet.

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And … the Deck is Done !!!

Well, almost done.

Austin envisioned this – and I could not begin to imagine it.

All we need now is to get that pool filtering system set up and functioning.  The deck should give me some hope.

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Happy week, Everybody.

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14 May 2020

Sooooo…. Akka decided to help and sent me a file of his photos.

FROM THE CAMERA OF AKKA

A pretty pink Hibiscus.

A weird “layered” rock … I think it is sedimentary.  Mud.  with some thin organic sheet in the middle.

A magnificent new moth.

And a playmate for Kiki.

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FROM THE KITCHEN

Austin thinks he is a genius putting turmeric with his coconut oil to cook his toast and eggs.  Pretty red.

And one of the bigger happenings of the week – our butter-churning neighbor Lallee was just giving away or throwing away her buttermilk.   It is real, honest-to-God, just-like-when-I-was-a-kid buttermilk.   We are now buying it from her.

If you notice the pinkish color to the milk – that is because they boil the fresh milk until it turns pink, to kill out every last germ.

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FROM THE TALENTED CRAFT-LADY

Monica took the old materials I bought many years ago, and made three darling marionettes.  I love them.

They are so much fun to walk around and to make dance.  Someday maybe we will make a you-tube.

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Happy week, everybody.

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7 May 2020

Strange weather.  Rain and overcast most days, when normally we are going into dry season.  At least it brings us rainbows.

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There was a cute little wet-weather drama outside my window on the road down to my brother’s house earlier in the week.  My nephew’s white pick up got stuck – wheels a spinning.   Within just a few minutes another white pick up went to help.  No luck.

I was just watching out my window, expecting Akka to go down with our 4 WD  truck soon, but apparently he was not called.

Just a few minutes later a TRACTOR showed up.

Hum diggedy dog!  Here we go!

I was wondering if the tractor was needed to pull out BOTH pick ups?  But no.

Soon the tractor backed out, and the second pick up drove out and parked on the side.  Then the tractor went back down and towed my nephew’s pick up the hill until its tires got some traction.

The weirdest thing was how quick and efficiently it all went.  From freshly stuck to driving free was not more than 15 minutes.  A testament to cell phones, available vehicles and perhaps a level of lockdown inactivity.

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Up a tree, out over thin air.

Austin mentioned that the avocado tree was getting big enough to block our view.  Akka decided to deal with it.

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Monica is resurrecting the nursery/orchid house – so Austin decided to try to resurrect the mushrooms.   This is the first step:

Making mushroom-friendly compost.   This plant is Chinese cane that we were given after the mushroom workshop (I never knew anything about it).  Austin found the masi “spreader” – the tool used for making tapa cloth – and was using it to macerate the cane.   He wants you to know it has a lot of sugar, though not as much as sugar cane – and it is excellent compost for mushrooms.

Next step – drying the pounded cane.

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So much for “Flora” – we need “Fauna”

Grandson Keith has the “Fauna” –  on his head.

Shadow the Kitty learning how to be a Cat-skin Cap.

Here.  He’s got the knack now.

Shadow will sit on Kiki’s head for 10 minute stretches.  He really does not seem to mind.  It is cute how his tail really hugs the back of Kiki’s neck.

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And with that, I wish you all a very happy week.

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