Wednesday 14th July

The brown dead grass line is the nursery boundary, a lot of area for us to fill on the left of it.





We’re finally seeing progress with the nursery. I had 3 of the guys helping mark out and dig post holes for the day, so far the composting area is all dug, and a couple of holes left on the shade house. We get the posts and timber tomorrow for the compost bins, and the posts for the shade house so hopefully by Friday we’ll have them concreted in and ready for the timber and shade cloth by next week.

We need a bit of fill for the hollows and holes where the weedmat is going for the lay out area, but no great worry over that. Still waiting for the irrigation to arrive, but everything else is looking good.

The new truck is still with Customs and Excise, no reason given, all the paperwork has been processed, but they are still holding it.

Tiffany is away again with Malaria I think it is her 3rd dose for this year, not that there is much of her to start with, she still loses weight with it. I’d love a few 44 gal drums of DDT to spray the White River area with, and get rid of the bloody mosquitos once and for all. It’s like a swamp there, river and streams and roadside waterways all full of rubbish, ideal breeding ground for mosquitos.

The Elections are set for the 4th August. From what I’ve been told most of the RAMSI civilian people have been told to go home for a holiday till the new Parliament is sworn in, after the riots that followed the 2006 election and Parliament decision. I’ve not had any word from Steve about what I’m meant to do, but I think I’ll just keep a low profile till things settle down, if necessary I’ll follow my emergency plan and hide out in King Solomon or Mendana hotel bar till everything settles. Or the airport bar. Could be expensive though.

Sunday 11th/Monday 12th July

Sunday 11th July

I’m still cleaning up after my pet rat. 2 of my really good towels have been chewed out to make nests, one of my shirts is more tatters than shirt, and one of my cardboard shipping boxes has had the bottom and inside used for more nest material. But the good part is that there hasn’t been any more evidence of more of the bloody things in the house. I’ve lent one of the traps to one of the other houses here, and kept one still loaded just in case.

We’re back to hot weather again, after being cold for the past week, I’m back to the light sheet at night and fans going. I was hoping for rain today, but all it did was build up some really impressive thunder heads, and then stay sultry and humid for the afternoon and evening.

The new compost heap is off to a good start, in the nursery area, 2 truckloads of sawdust on Friday, and we will be collecting the kitchen waste from Heritage Hotel daily from now on to go into it. I’m still hopeful of getting into SolBrew for the spent mash to go into the heap, and as usual, as much chicken manure as we can find. Fish scraps would be good, but from what I’ve seen here, there isn’t enough left of a fish to go anywhere. And seaweed is nonexistent around Honiara. I’ve increased the size of the area for composting, there is more than enough space to do it, in the hope that we can generate it quickly enough to sell, and still have enough for the nursery. I’ll have to try compressing some in one of BJS’s can crushing presses to see if it compresses into a stable 20/25kg block. Then we could sell it to the farmers out of Honiara, easier to transport than a loose bag.

We’re selling it at $20 a bag now, about 10kg, which isn’t actually covering the cost of having someone bag and turn it, but we’ll work it out once we get operating properly. I’m putting up the side walls for the area this week, so we can separate the mature from the working compost, and also the potting mix from the unprocessed. Then we can start building the propagating cover, get some crushed coral down for the layout beds, and it will start to look like a nursery almost. Still waiting on the irrigation to arrive, but we can get everything in place before then.

We need a Kubota B2500 with a bucket I’ve decided to help with everything, that will have to go onto the next wish list for when we get established finally again.

Monday 12th July

Spent a frustrating morning with Andrew at #9 trying to get the insurance form signed by his doctor there. It’s been 4 months and we still haven’t managed to get it filled out to take to the insurance company. The best we could do today was to get an appointment for Thursday and to bring $100 to pay for it. I’ll have to cover it, Andrew hasn’t any money after 4 months off work, but I know he’ll pay it back when he does get the insurance.

Other than that bit of mindless tedium, everything continues on as usual. We’re getting the timber for the compost bins, 4 x 10 metre walls about 1.8 metres high, in about a 10m x 20m rectangle so we can have different stages of compost happening. It may get larger in area, I keep finding new sources of material to go into the compost, all good as it cuts down on the waste going into the ocean and the rubbish tip. I’ve been thinking of seeing if there is room at the Ranadi Tip for a recycling and composting area, it would tie in with what EHID want to do as well. The first load of crushed coral arrived today as well to start levelling off the site, a few larger rocks in it, but we can deal with those, and get some smaller gravel for the depressions and hollows in the main area.

By the end of the week we should have made some progress finally.

Everyone keeps checking the seed trays for signs of life, there isn’t a lot of seed raising done here, it is more cut a stick off and push it in the ground propagating, so it is good to see things becoming more interesting. We have Tamarillos, Cordyline, Canterbury Bells, Sophora, and Lupins in trays, with all the trays showing signs of sprouting already after 4 days. The 30*C temp and humidity obviously help, I hope we have some potting mix ready in time for bagging them.

Still no word on the new truck, but it should be this week, all the paperwork has been cleared, it’s just a wait and see thing now.

Sunday 11th July

I’m still cleaning up after my pet rat. 2 of my really good towels have been chewed out to make nests, one of my shirts is more tatters than shirt, and one of my cardboard shipping boxes has had the bottom and inside used for more nest material. But the good part is that there hasn’t been any more evidence of more of the bloody things in the house. I’ve lent one of the traps to one of the other houses here, and kept one still loaded just in case.

We’re back to hot weather again, after being cold for the past week, I’m back to the light sheet at night and fans going. I was hoping for rain today, but all it did was build up some really impressive thunder heads, and then stay sultry and humid for the afternoon and evening.

The new compost heap is off to a good start, in the nursery area, 2 truckloads of sawdust on Friday, and we will be collecting the kitchen waste from Heritage Hotel daily from now on to go into it. I’m still hopeful of getting into SolBrew for the spent mash to go into the heap, and as usual, as much chicken manure as we can find. Fish scraps would be good, but from what I’ve seen here, there isn’t enough left of a fish to go anywhere. And seaweed is nonexistent around Honiara. I’ve increased the size of the area for composting, there is more than enough space to do it, in the hope that we can generate it quickly enough to sell, and still have enough for the nursery. I’ll have to try compressing some in one of BJS’s can crushing presses to see if it compresses into a stable 20/25kg block. Then we could sell it to the farmers out of Honiara, easier to transport than a loose bag.

We’re selling it at $20 a bag now, about 10kg, which isn’t actually covering the cost of having someone bag and turn it, but we’ll work it out once we get operating properly. I’m putting up the side walls for the area this week, so we can separate the mature from the working compost, and also the potting mix from the unprocessed. Then we can start building the propagating cover, get some crushed coral down for the layout beds, and it will start to look like a nursery almost. Still waiting on the irrigation to arrive, but we can get everything in place before then.

We need a Kubota B2500 with a bucket I’ve decided to help with everything, that will have to go onto the next wish list for when we get established finally again.

Thursday 8th July

Yesterday was Solomon Island Independence Day, I spent most of it asleep. I feel as though the last couple of months have really drained the energy out of me, and coming back here to the usual panic and frustration hasn’t helped me. I managed to get my washing done though, and cleaned the house out and washed the floors again, I’m still finding rat droppings whenever I shake the seat cushions, or move the curtains, but nothing fresh so I think I’ve finally got the little pest.
The weather has settled, and we are back to the normal sunny mornings with the thunderstorms arriving in the afternoon again. Yesterday they started early, about 3pm, with heavy rain for brief periods, followed by more thunder rumbling from the mountains behind Honiara. It has been decidedly cold lately, I’ve had to get a heavier top sheet to put on the bed, and I resorted to a t-shirt last night as well to stay warm. Still it is all relative, the temp was about 22*C, about an 8*C difference between daytime average of 30*C. Funny what you get used to.

There are still questions being asked about the Cattle Fund money from Taiwan, along the lines of, “where is the money, and what has it been spent on?” I’ve aired my views before, I think we should be looking at Water buffalo, not european cattle breeds, and raising them for beef, and not dairy. The total amount is apparently $18 million dollars, there was a previous $10 million grant earlier, which seems to have been mislaid somewhere. No fences, stockyards, land for farming, but 3 new 4X4 vehicles for the administrators to drive around in.

Jennifer and Naomi had a quick demonstration of seed raising on Tuesday, we’ve now got several trays of Cordyline, Sophora, Jacaranda, Tamarillo planted out, and now waiting to see if they sprout. I hope the Cordyline grow, we need them for some of the gardens, although where I’m going to put a thousand or so I haven’t a clue yet. Still they will look impressive in the nursery once it gets established. We put in some foxgloves and lupins as well, but I think they might suffer in the humidity here. If they do survive they will look good in some of the roundabouts through town. There isn’t a great range of annual or perennial flowering plants here. Everything is mainly shrubs like Hibiscus or trees like Allamanda and Delonix , Caeselpinia.

I’m sorry I never went to Lawson Tama Stadium yesterday for the celebrations. I got the Solomon Star this morning, and reading it while waiting for the truck to come along, I found Tiffany has been awarded the second highest honour in the Solomon Islands, The Solomon Islands Medal (Silver) for Distinguished Service to the Nation in Community, Charity and Voluntary work. She had no idea about it till I said Congratulations when the truck finally arrived, and I showed her the newspaper.

Nicely done and about time for her to get some recognition for everything she does.

I spent the morning with the back pack sprayer, and 5 litres of glyphosate 450 marking out where everything goes or is going in the nursery area. It looks a big area till you start putting in buildings, fences, compost areas, then it starts to shrink rapidly. I’ve had to increase the size of the composting area, to allow for the increased amount of organic waste we are now picking up, sawdust, chicken manure, hotel kitchen waste, and our own wood chipping. At the rate we are getting everything finally, we’ll be needing a small tractor with a bucket to turn the heaps, and transport it around the site. I’m hopeful of getting enough compost being produced to have at least half going for sale, compressed into 20 kg or 25 kg bales, for the local farmers and gardens. I’ll have to try out the BJS can crushing equipment with some compost to see what it can compress down to as soon as I have some ready, then go from there with the idea.

Reports back from the Courthouse job at Auki have been good, we stand a really good chance of a lot more work coming from there now, a lot of roadside planting, and creating public gardens as well.

Our new truck is here, but held up with Customs and Excise at the moment while they go through the paperwork involved. We should get it within the next week or so hopefully, which will make a difference to the amount of work we can do. I’m keen to get all the car wrecks taken off the roadsides, Tiff agrees, and we’re going to try and get MID or the Council to pay us for doing it, but we’d be doing it anyway just to get the place starting to look tidier. I’ve counted 28 car bodies along the roads we travel each day, overgrown with weeds, or used by the local dogs as kennels, all on the roadside. Reminds me a bit of New Zealand when we used to have the cars on the front lawns with grass and weeds growing through them.

Having the 3 tonne hoist on the back is good, it will help with the big tubs along Mendana Ave when we have to replace them after some drunk driver collides with one, and also for getting bulk amounts of stuff delivered.

It is getting colder here, I saw the temperature as we left work tonight at 4pm, usually the warmest part of the day if we don’t have rain, and it was only 29*C, it’s now 9.48pm and decidedly cold. No ceiling fans on tonight, and it feels like rain is trying to fall. Even today when I was spraying it felt colder than usual, I didn’t manage to break into a sweat with the sprayer on, it was almost pleasant.

Hi to Pete and Katja in chilly Invercargill, hope everything is going well there for you both, I’m trying to organise a 3 week 2 Drunks in a Campervan do New Zealand Tour with Al from Illinois next February/March, after the success(?) of our 2 Drunks Do Runrig at Drumndrochit and the Isle of Islay in 2007. Also the 2 Drunks in Washington in 2007 tour. Hopefully we’ll catch up again soon.

Monday 5th July

I appear to have lost all the geckos in the house while I was away, I haven’t seen any since I’ve been back. Pity, I got used to having them around.

Our compost heap is heating up slowly, you have to dig down about 6 inches to feel any heat, but I have no doubt the centre will be hot already. I managed to get the mulcher working again, so tomorrow is going to be mulching and making potting mix for all the seeds we have. Cordyline, Sophora, Jacaranda, Tamarillo, hopefully we’ll get them growing in time to plant out for the South Pacific Arts Festival in 2012.

We’re getting the tender documents tomorrow for Parliament House and Gardens, big job, we’ll have to hire subcontractors for some of it, roading and paving, and the art work, but so long as we can line them up and get some sort of pricing done we stand a fair chance of getting it. It will probably turn out like most government jobs though, they start big, then when they see the cost, the job shrinks from a superliner to a row boat with oars. Still nothing ventured, nothing gained, and we should pick up something from it, even the landscaping alone would be worth it.

Finally caught up with Zoe online today, and heard about the illegal fireworks going off around her neighbourhood for 4th July celebrations there. Takes me back to when we used to do the annual firework display for Stanmore Bay School in the 1980’s. Good fun, well, until you have a star mine go off in your face. Thank whoever for all the safety gear we wore. Another interesting episode in the life and times etc. Nothing beats feeling a 6 or 8 inch mortar shell going off beside you, and watching it rise and explode. A huge thump in the ground and a brief flash as it clears the mortar tube. All good boys stuff.

The weather has cleared again, it was decidedly cold the weekend, probably down to 22*C, I know I ended up pulling the sheet over me a few times in the night, and turning the fan off for a while. Meanwhile, it was floods, rain and storms in NZ with a high of 12*C. Funny how you adjust quickly.

We may have more work over in Auki, if so I’m going to go along for the rise this time, and have a break from Honiara and see a bit more of the country instead of being stuck here.



Pics of Jennifer and Naiomi bagging plants and the work crew at 4.30pm packing up.

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.

Wednesday 30th June/2nd July

Back in sunny Honiara finally. I was meant to be here last week, but the plane developed a technical problem, and I would have missed my connection flight from Brisbane. I had a choice of going to Brisbane and overnighting and hopefully getting a flight to Honiara, or coming back on Tuesday and flying straight through.

I took the Tuesday option, and had 5 days holiday. Plus Pacific Blue have given me a credit for another equivalent flight to be used within 12 months, so I’m happy with that. I can get back to NZ for free.

The house still looks the same, the girls from work came through last week and cleaned it up for me, but as I found, I still have the bloody rats inside, I bought 2 rat traps in NZ, neither of them have been touched overnight, but the onions I bought at Barak Ba’hai last night have been nibbled through the plastic bag already. And I think they have chewed the wiring for the lights as well, I don’t have lights in the kitchen or the other half of the main room or bathroom.

It’s been busy at work, half the crew are at Auki, planting out the new Courthouse, it’s a good job, and we are being paid well for it. We need a few more of those and things will look good financially.

Planning Dept have held up our application again, they now have 3 Architects that they use for Planning Approvals, and if you don’t use them to check over and give approval, you don’t get anywhere. I’ll try and sort out the problem this week hopefully, it’s on our side, with the decision being made we aren’t to go along with it, and not pay the Planning Dept Architect for their approval.

The little truck is back again, but totally unsafe still. It was in the garage the time I was away, getting the brake drums spun out and having the cylinders honed. It now grabs on the front and almost nosedives into the road. Another thing to sort out. I’m taking it to Mazda here to get sorted properly, after 15 months we still haven’t got it working properly, all from having 2 suspension bolts replaced. I’ve left it at the nursery for the time being till I settle back into life here.

The Nursery area is marked out, all we need is the use of a grader or bulldozer to scrape off the top layer and level the area and we can start on laying out the beds, and perhaps get the propagation hut and seedling shelter built. We still haven’t heard from SIWA about a water supply, without that things won’t get anywhere for a while yet.

2nd July

It’s been a hectic few days, but I’m catching up slowly.

Firstly

In the dark of night a sound was heard
A lych gate banging shut
A prison door should sound so drear
Wee sleekit tim’rous beastie
Foul pestilence upon my door
No more upon my food you’ll eat
No more your droppings from my floor I’ll sweep
Oh how I laughed at 5am
When I threw your body out the door

After 6 months I finally ended the life of the bloody rat that has been a plague upon me. I bought 2 rat traps back with me, they took a little adjusting to get a hair trigger on the mechanism, but oh the joy of hearing it go off this morning. I’ll keep the traps set for a while yet, just in case it had friends, but I think it was just the one.

I’ve got a continual source of sawdust and woodchip finally from Barava Tropical homes across the road from us. Which helps with the continual need for potting mix, and we have a chicken farm asking for us to clear their houses out weekly now. So it is looking good in some aspects.

We’ve moved all the plants down to the nursery area, so Hasting Deering can have their front area back, until we get planning permission for the building the containers will be where they are though. I’ll have to get started on building the propagation house and shade area for cuttings next, get the weed mat laid out and once the irrigation system arrives get that installed.

Our new truck is meant to be here this week, more likely next though by the time Customs and Quarantine check it out.

The little truck, the bane of my life, is still unsafe to drive, despite a $4,000 invoice arriving for the work done. I’ll give them the truck in exchange I think, I’ve got so used to walking everywhere now that it doesn’t matter anymore.

I went to an Environment Seminar on Wednesday, which despite my misgivings was actually about the environment, not AGW. The main thing that came out of the meeting was for the Environment Health Development to ban plastic bags, similar to what Samoa have done due to the damage they do to the fish and reef, as well as the visual pollution created everywhere. All in all, it was a good seminar, a lot of ideas thrown into the basket, for the EHID to consider and start working to get implemented.