30th March

Our shredder works really well, in 2 hours it shredded as much as 2 weeks worth from the ladies using the mesh and hand rubbing. Jennifer is pleased, as is Suzie, Sepa and Imelda. Ok a few teething problems, putting too much down the chute at once, but once we got that organised it worked well. They filled a 55gal (200L) drum with shreds, and would have continued on if they had had anything to put it in.

I need to find the other grate for it, went back to Farmset and asked if they could look for it there, it’s more a bar type grate, and allows wet shreds through which the finer holed grate doesn’t. If they can’t find it I’ll contact Rover Manufacturing in Sydney about it.

We’re still arguing with Telekom SB about the phone and internet connection at the Gardens. The phone line is now dead, and internet is haphazard at best. I was in at 6am this morning to post the previous one, that took nearly an hour to resolve and upload, then it went down again. Shirleyta got hold of them again this morning, and they promised wondrous things over the mobile, we’re still waiting to see anyone.

I’m about 50 metres in a direct line away from the Church here at the Ba’hai Centre. There’s been entertainment for the kids and teenagers here every afternoon till about 8pm, music, mainly, the boys all get up and start practising dance moves, then the girls, they don’t dance together unless there are adults around, and even then it’s not a common thing. The boys tend to copy whatever video or dvd they’ve seen, and they move like they have ball bearing joints in their hips and knees, but the girls tend to do a mix of kastom and modern dance. It’s no wonder that so many of the early European sailors jumped ship when they came through here. The dances aren’t Polynesian style, more a mix, some Indonesian/Polynesian influences, even with the rubbish rap that they play occasionally. Reggae is big here, 3 radio stations in Honiara play nothing else, and some bouncy local bands that have a good following locally.

Unfortunately they’ve copied some of the other reggae influences here as well, marijuana is grown widely through a few of the Islands, some communities have banned people from the Islands for growing or selling it. The further away from Honiara you are the less you’ll see of it. The village elders still rule strongly which is good. There are good things to say about subsistence living, especially here, where everything grows, there are fish for the taking, fruit, garden vegetables grow quickly, rice is plentiful. I’ve been too long in civilisation, I still like some comforts, internet etc, but I can appreciate how possible it would be to just walk away from the towns here and live in the bush. Apart from the mosquitos.

I’m still working on plans to get to the distant provinces, Rennel/Bellona, and Makira especially. Rennel has 23 endemic orchids, 8 or more endemic mammals, and a large list of endemic plants that only grow there. Along with the largest stand of Agathis macrophylla in the Solomons. I think they are macrophylla, I haven’t seen them yet, but every report I read about them describes them as the native Solomon Island Kauri. Browsing on the net when it let me last week, I found a list of plant banks set up in the Provinces before the troubles, with a list of the species grown in each bank. No other information other than the plant lists. I’ll have to contact the people involved and find out if they still have the plants available, and get some planted in the Gardens. All of the written information has been lost over the past 10 years of fighting and arguing, so it’s a matter of rebuilding all the information back up, and then making sure it is spread as widely as possible. Thankfully, the internet is good for that.

I saw a native owl this morning at the gardens, huge bird, light orange brown. Wing span about 80 - 90 cm, I thought it was an eagle at first till I got a good look, big flat face, huge eyes. It was feeding on the lawn area, when I disturbed it, and flew up into the canopy over the river. So somethings are worth going into work at 6am for. I’m getting used to the day length here, sunrise never seems to alter, it’s always about 6am, sunset is always about 6pm, there’s little dusk, it goes light to dark in minutes. By 7pm it’s night.

The guys doing night watch are going to keep an eye out for any cuscus (native opossum) in the trees, and let me know. I’ll go in one night and have a look for them, there used to be several around the office, but the feeling is that they have been poached out and eaten by now. I’ll be coating myself in a lot of repellent, the mosquitos there fly in squadrons in the evening.

I’m getting a list of food trees drawn up, I’d like to plant a few of each in the Gardens, both for visitors to see, and as a supply for cuttings and propagation. The local guava, Psidium guajava, is the huge pink fruited one, it’s almost quince size here. Large baseball sized fruit, We have just one left in the Gardens, I’ve found another Canarium sp. along the river walk, again, they have been bred for so long in each province, they are all separate sub species now. It would be good to have a couple of each growing, but there’s a lot of education needed first to stop them being chopped or ruined.

I cracked a Canarium (ngali nut) open today, still green a few more months to go yet, but they are full of sweet oil even now. The nut is in an apricot type of shell, and resembles an almond. Egg shaped drupe, cling type flesh around the shell that is fairly easy to peel away. Cracking the shell is the hard part without damaging the nut inside. It is meant to be a good cure (?) for arthritis. Or a pallative anyway

My neighbours banana plant got washed down with the rain on Saturday night, huge bunch of bananas on it, about 30 on each hand, and several hands, still small and green, so there goes breakfast in a few weeks. There’re about 5 suckers growing around the base, so another season to wait now.

Our swimming hole retaining wall is finished, tyres right up to the soil surface. Next is the dam again. We’ve had a few good floods down the river since we started pinning the tyres, and they’ve stayed, so the crew are keen to see if the idea of a sloping dam works as well. Once I get another camera there’ll be pics till everyone is sick of them.

Bob Dylan again tonight, Blood On the Tracks, and Blonde on Blonde.