Meanwhile back in Fiji

As some of you may know I’m currently visiting family in Canada. I flew to Vancouver in mid June and spent a couple of weeks with my father and then flew to the Yukon to spend time with my kids. I’ll be back down to Vancouver mid July to spend another month with my Dad before heading back to Fiji. I’ve been trying to post pictures on my instagram account @fijihomesteader to share the highlights of my trip. You can click on the instagram feed on the right hand column of my blog page to see my current instagram photos. If you are on instagram please follow me.

Before I left for Canada we were very busy planting the hillside beside our house site with Moringa cuttings, lemon grass and pidgeon peas and starting to plant larger trees including coconut, avocado and mulberry. We’re working on restoring the soil on this hillside after the damage caused by TC Winston and the burning we did to get rid of all the downed trees in the aftermath of the cyclone. With all that I’m now learning about permaculture I’m realising that the burning did more damage than the cyclone did. So after I left for Canada the first project for Arthur was planting eggplant, chilli and tomato seedlings between the rows of moringa, lemongrass and pidgeon pea.

Next project involved clearing some land to plant taro. A few months ago we applied to be apart of a planting scheme through the dept of Agriculture. The Agriculture dept is providing funding for 30 hours of clearing, digging and trenching and more importantly providing the digger to do the work. Over the past year we have tried to contract a digger to come in and do some road work for us through at least 4 companies with no success. Well the digger finally arrived and not only did we get some land cleared but we also able to get our road work done and redo the damm for our pond.

We dug out the pond when we put the road into our house site in 2015 but we made a few mistakes with how we built the damm wall – we included a large tree stump, didn’t include a key at the base of the damm, and did not get the slopes the correct grade – so of course the damm leaked. It filled up nicely in the wet season but just didn’t hold water. So we took advantage of having the digger in, paid a little extra and redid the pond and damm. Its a lot bigger than originally planned but if it holds water it will be a very good water resource during drier weather. Its located at a high point in a small valley so it will be great for irrigating if needed. Arthur also had the digger dig out a smaller pond at the bottom of the valley for ducks and fish. Its been so difficult to get a digger in he wanted to make full use of it while it was there.

No sooner than the digger finished, Arthur got the call that the bee hives we’ve been waiting for were ready for pick up. Two trips to Labasa over the last two weeks to bring them home – 10 the first trip, 7 the next trip and 3 still to come.

And now the taro planting starts. Eight hundred in the ground this month and he’s aiming to plant another one thousand next month. I’m not going to recognise the farm when I get back.