Thursday 12th August

I’ve had a lot of people, well a few people, ok, just one then, asking how to open a coconut. It isn’t a silly question and they aren’t stupid, if you’ve never tried to open one, well, other than in a tin called coconut cream or dessicated coconut, they can be an awkward thing.

I’ll do some different pictures over the weekend, of a ripe coconut, the brown round ones you see in the shops, but until then, here is Jacinta at work opening a green coconut for the juice inside. There isn’t a lot of meat in these yet, but the juice is really nice and refreshing. I used the crane on the truck to knock a bunch off the tree beside the office, Misi was going to climb up, but I wanted to see just how high the crane extended, and it was quicker and safer.











The spell of dry weather is helping us, well, it isn’t that good for the plants, but it has slowed the weeds and grass down, so we are usually caught up with everything by Thursday now, which is good. Having the young guys working as well is a benefit, all of them have settled into the routine, and like it, as well as getting paid.

I’ve got 8 weeks to have the nursery finished and operating, the last couple are going to be a bit of a rush, installing irrigation and electricity, and shade cloth, but we can do it. Typical, I’ve been 18 months now planning it all, and we’ve had endless problems with various Council and Govt Depts, but it is finally, nearly, almost at an end.

We’re trying to find some 30cm round poles for the shadecloth cover over the layout beds, I have doubts about sawn timber being able to take the strain of 50 metres of tensioned wire, but it may come to us using 250 x 250 sawn square poles. And a big anchor peg behind them.

La breithe shona duit for Màire for the 14th.