Catching the tail of the Tasmanian Devil

Its already been two weeks since I’ve been back to Fiji after my 6 weeks in Canada. I thought that my visit to Canada went quickly but the past two weeks has been a whirl wind. Arthur has so much on the go right now so it’s been challenging for me to get caught up on everything that happened in the 6 weeks I’ve been gone. It’s a bit like grabbing hold of the Tasmanian Devil’s tail and trying to keep up.

But let’s back up. My visit to Canada was great. I spent a total of three weeks in Vancouver visiting my parents. The weather was beautiful and their garden was in full bloom. We enjoyed many an afternoon on their back deck appreciating the flowers. My Dad helped me out with a trip to Point Roberts to pick up some electric chicken fencing and another trip to Surrey to drop 7 boxes of tools, fencing and a water pump off at Canada Fiji Freight. I should be receiving the boxes by the end of August.

I also spent 3 weeks in Whitehorse visiting with my kids. It was really wonderful to see how well they are all doing a year after Arthur and I started on this adventure. Between visiting my kids I did manage to attend a quilt retreat at Bears Paw Quilts, visit a few of my friends, and do a bit of shopping. Three weeks was really not long enough spend as much time as I’d have wanted to with each of my kids and to see all my friends or do everything that I had wanted to.

Arthur was very busy while I’ve been in Canada. Shortly after I left 30 layer chicks arrived, as well as 5 bee hives and another 450 Yasi seedlings. On top of looking after all the chickens and planting 450 seedlings, he has been hard at work preparing for the construction of our house. Just before my trip we received the final drawings for our house. He’s been dealing with getting price quotes, arranging for the delivery of posts, sand, gravel, and cement, and making arrangements for our wood to be cut. Like I said he’s whirling around like the Tasmanian Devil.

This week we started receiving everything that will be needed to complete our foundation which will be constructed with posts. Yesterday our local carpenters Epeli and Zachariah laid out our house foundation. It’s was really interesting to see how they squared the layout using just 8′ x 4′ corrugated roofing tins, measuring tapes and fishing line. Monday we have a crew of young guys coming to start digging the post holes.

My garden has been growing like crazy since I’ve been gone. The book choy cabbage is huge and delicious. Tomato plants are also big, unfortunately most of the tomatoes have fruit worm. I’ve picked all the wormy tomatoes and sprayed the flowers with organic insecticide so hopefully we’ll have some fruit ripen up soon. I have a few watermelons growing but my new pumpkin and cucumber plants did not do well. This week I’ve planted more seedlings and 120 citrus trees which will be planted among my Yasi trees.

Its going to be very busy over the coming weeks and months as our house construction is underway. I’m hoping to post more regularly so you can see the progress as it happens.