Cool Nights

Cool Nights was Originally Posted on May 3, 2012 by lavarock

Another cool night in my tropical home. We have been getting some rain of late and it is a welcome change to the draught we had. Of course, that also means that the weeds will get out of hand again. I just wish I could get ahead of them enough to spray weed killer and be done with them for a long time. The problem has been that I get them mostly cut but then it rains before I can kill the weeds and the cycle continues. I am about ready to cut and spray each row. The problem is that I use the tractor with the big mower and it is more efficient to cut all the rows at one time, then come back and weedwack some rows and then spray.

I could hire a crew to help, but it would cost many hundreds of dollars, which I just don’t have to spare at the moment. Still, I may have to bite the bullet.

I am also looking to purchase an ATV that I REALLY don’t have tohe money to spend on. I have to spray the coffee to eliminate a beetle that has been devastating our crops recently. Using a backpack sprayer woudl ensure that this never gets done, as we need to flood the crops with as much water as we can, along with a small about of the fungus we are approved to use.

I still have lemons and the rest of the citrus has eben fertilized and is greening up. I see some limes starting again, but am not sure those trees are fully mature enough for real fruit. The lemons surprised me as very prolific even with thin branches.

The return of the rains also brought back the coqui frogs and their incessant noise. A neighbor and I hit a tree with baking soda and got a few of the guys but will have to go back and try again in a few days. I am starting to hear more frogs across the neighborhood and am fearful that we will be knee deep in them and never get ahead. This problem of frogs can all be traced back t oa tree that was imported from South America that was not fumigated properly. Our ecosystem is that fragile out here.

We are so removed from the rest of the world, that bugs and spores and so on usually have to travel on something other than the wind to get here.

The island people were quite healthy until the foreign ship such as Captain Cook’s brought disease. The island people had no immunity to smallpox, whooping cough, measles and so on. Major illnesses killed a large perentage of the population in a very short time.

New residents to the islands are not allowed t ojust bring their pets with them, until they undergo a precise set of shots. We do not have rabies here and are careful to not get it. Australia and New Zealand are in similar mode and thus we have a fairly easy way to import animals from there, although they are a bit more careful than we are and do not as readily accept Hawaiian animals as we accept theirs. Still, between these countries it is a lot easier than from the US mainland or other countries.

Speaking of pets, I am waiting to see if O`Lena is pregnant. I hope she has a nice litter which will bring me some needed income. I named the kennel “Kona Labradors” but may not incorporate it as a part of the farm for taxes. There can be some concerns if you only have a couple of litters a year whether you are an agricultural breeder or not and I don’t want to make this a large business. I ahve too many other things going on here at the moment.