Another month has gone by and life continues to be as busy as ever. We started the construction of our house with the post holes being dug for the main part of the house. Arthur brought a power auger from Canada which really helped with the digging. The digging crew appreciated the assistance. Footings were poured in each of the holes in preparation for raising the poles. But before we could raise the poles the weather changed and we had two and a half weeks of steady rain. It’s not called a tropical rainforest for nothing. In one evening our 2000 litre water tank filled to overflowing. The weather has now improved and hopefully our posts will be up within the week.
Arthur and I have been here in Suva for a couple of days checking out solar systems, appliances, boats and generators and anxiously awaiting the arrival of our daughter Siana and her business partner Allan. They arrived in Nadi early this morning and will be here in Suva tomorrow. I’m very excited and can’t wait to see them.
Aside from the house the farming has progressed. We’ve started a kitchen and market garden with tomatoes, beans, cabbage, cucumbers, carrots, squash, zucchini, basil, and watermelon. The wet weather has been great for the seedlings and hopefully with the better weather everything will grow quickly.
Our chickens are doing really well. The meat birds are huge, more like small turkeys than chickens. We’ve slaughtered most of our roosters, but kept 2 roosters and 5 hens. We are lucky that our good friends and neighbours, Lizzy and Ronny Steiner, have allowed us to use the freezer to store our chickens. We’ll have some chicken to feed our construction crews over the next couple of months. We also have 29 more meat bird chicks to raise for the crowd that will be here for Christmas. In the meantime our laying birds are getting bigger and really enjoy hunting and scratching in our chicken run. I’ve imported solar powered chicken fencing which I’m looking forward to using to free range my chickens.
September 2, 2016
How deep ddi your post holes have to go? So curious as to what foundations you need in Fiji…do you use wood posts? How far apart?
September 8, 2016
I saw your bear stuffy rearranged in Elise’s collection this weekend and was thinking of you so wanted to let you know. I admire your (and Aurthur’s) commitment and perseverance Karen. Congratulations on growing enough food for a market – presuming a “market garden” means you are planning to sell some off to others. Enjoy the time with your daughter. I suspect that is a rare treasure you will hold quite closely after she has gone!
All the best, Kim