Quite a weekend we had. Saturday featured Mafua up a tree. He is from Tonga and provides his church with breadfruit from our tree. One breadfruit lasts us about a week, so we could not possibly keep up without Mafua's help. It needs to be topped, because it's right in the view, as soon as it stops bearing fruit. We always take breadfruit as an appetizer to the Thanksgiving dinner at cousin Susan's house. It's nice with homemade mayonnaise or garlic infused olive oil.
And here I am channeling my inner kindergartener, working on a few clay things. It's fun and not serious for me.
We did have some excitement. Terry disappeared for about an hour and a half, and I assumed he was working in the lab. I was on the point of snapping at him when he showed up, but I'm very glad I didn't. He had been digging a compost pit in the back yard, narrow and about five feet deep. When he was finished, he couldn't get out of it. Took him a while. "Why didn't you call me for help?" I asked. "You wouldn't have heard me," he answered. It's true I'm hard of hearing, but not that hard of hearing!
What a huge and productive tree!
I love this photo of you at work. Have I ever told you that you have beautiful hands, Marianna? I'm particularly aware of hands these days because they are the subject of my current series. Wish I could use yours.
Posted by: marja-leena | November 19, 2012 at 12:29 PM
That story about Terry digging a hole he couldn't get out of is worthy of ringing down the annals of your family's anecdotes for a long time. It's actually hilarious. Isn't there a folk saying about digging a hole?
But of course he deserves credit for taking composting seriously. Will the composted material have to breathe though?
Posted by: Henry Hank Chapin | November 19, 2012 at 12:38 PM
I am hoping you would have gone looking for him eventually! Compost pits? Ours here are above ground in wired or treated timber boxes. Why a pit in the ground and how on earth do you get the compost out and isn't it dangerous if some walks around at night and falls in?
Posted by: Tabor | November 19, 2012 at 01:35 PM
Marja-Leena: Thanks. I never turn down a compliment!
Hank, Tabor:
We live on deep volcanic soil. I don't know how far down it goes, seemingly forever. We do get a lot of compost, including fallen fruit, and it's too much for the dinky kinds of composting sufficient in most places. Burying garbage is the best solution for us. It's only vegetable matter, of course, and it decays anaerobically. We put stuff in, shovel dirt over it, put more stuff in, more dirt, and so on. When a pit is full, we just plant stuff on top.We also have a chipper shedder for trimmings from trees, etc. Large or resistant matter, such as palm fronds, goes to the green waste. People do have to be careful about where they step in our backyard, anyway. Watch your step and don't fall in! And if you do, yell so we can hear you and come to the rescue!
This ain't the Mainland, as we are fond of saying around here! It's more different.
Posted by: Hattie | November 19, 2012 at 02:41 PM
Regarding porous volcanic soil: when I moved here from Ohio which had rich loamy, black dirt, I would water plants for a long time to soak the earth a la Ohio. My cousin, who is Hawaiian, said, "Hey, in Hawaii the porous, cindery volcanic soil doesn't hold the water like on the Mainland. Over here you should water more often and for a not very long period of time." The soil is probably even more volcanic on the Big Island.
Posted by: Henry Hank Chapin | November 19, 2012 at 03:34 PM
But thanks to the Hilo rainfall we never have to water!
Posted by: Hattie | November 19, 2012 at 03:46 PM
I'm so sorry to laugh at Terry's expense, but it is awfully funny. I had to tell Art. How wonderful to have a compost pit though!
Posted by: Musings | November 19, 2012 at 10:45 PM
Thought it was going to be that Terry had found clay for you. So how long would you have waited before you began to search for him? Not an idle question, Marianna, I have this kind of wonder on my mind often.
You speak of our mutual deafness. Thinking my sight has changed of late. My blog seemed too small, so changed it and previous post (chickens) to 13 pt. Are you using 12 pt. here--that seems small to me. Then put on reading glasses which doing more lately and that works better. Could we move into a new idea for elderblogging? I tried something called "ElderExercise" with Claude at Blogging in Paris back in the last decade.
Posted by: naomi dagen bloom | November 20, 2012 at 02:15 PM