Monday 5th July

We’ve got a new compost heap started for potting mix. Emory took the truck across the road to Barava Tropical Homes and bought back 8 truck loads of sawdust, then took everyone to the chicken farm and cleaned out 30 bags of manure. All mixed together and slowly heating up. It will be a couple of weeks I think before it is ready, but it won’t need much processing, the sawdust is fine enough, all it needed was the manure to activate it. And it is a continual supply, as much as they produce at Barava, sawdust and chips, we can remove.

The little truck is completely unsafe, Emo borrowed it Friday afternoon to take some firewood home, it broke down Saturday morning at Naha, and we ended up tow starting it down the Naha hill, and as I found, the brake pedal has plenty of pressure, but the brake shoes and pads don’t connect with anything. It was an interesting experience being towed at 50kph, downhill, in the rain, and realising you can’t stop.

I spent the weekend cleaning up the house again, swept and washed the floors, no water from the taps as usual, but the rain water tank is full, and without mosquito larvae as well. The prices at Kukum market have gone up slightly in the past month I have been away, eggs are now $30 for 10, bananas $10 - $15 a hand, water melons are reasonably cheap though, $5 - $50 each.

Tiff went to Auki Friday morning to check on the Court House Garden, and ended up spending the weekend there due to the weather preventing the ferry sailing Saturday afternoon. They all arrived back last night at 7pm to Point Cruz wharf.

We’ve had a few small tremors over the weekend, short sharp jolts, rather than the normal shaking and rolling, possibly aftershocks still from the big one a week ago, although there are so many fault lines here and the major fault south of us, you can never be sure just what is going on. So long as Savo Island doesn’t decide to blow I can cope with the earthquakes, volcanoes are a bit different.