Mango Tree Flowering, Again!

Looked up at my mango tree in the backyard. She's flowering again! WoooHooo! Gonna have more mangoes in a couple of weeks. And the whole island will be out of fresh mangoes. Will post pics tomorrow. Awesome!!!

Clearing Primo's Ranch Property.

I know I have my own ranch to take care of. However, I made a commitment to help out my prim as he expands his ranch. Although, he is doing traditional practices at his ranch. I'll still help out when he needs my help, even if I'm focusing on Organic Ranching. For two days, I was operating a 225 Excavator at the ranch. It's a really old machine with no preventive maintenance visibly seen on it. Since we are on an agriculture operation and not a construction site, I went ahead and operated the machine.

I call the machine,"Ole Beast". You can tell the hydraulic lines were not bled when they added new hydraulic fluid after they repaired the leak. That thing, violently vibrates, squeals, groans a lot when you operate the mast, boom, or bucket. It only likes to turn right unless you play with the pedals to get the tracks turning the right way. We opted for using the excavator to clear than burn. Burning actually kills the nutrients in the ground, and the micro organisms close to the surface of the soil. We don't want to do that. Also, most of the boyz are in hurting from their youthful injuries. So getting around is a lot harder now than 5 or even 10 years ago. Since I was one of the most experienced HE operator, I decided to jump on the excavator and have some fun. It's been years since I operated an excavator. I had fun, especially with the big Ole Beast. He's temperamental when he first gets started. But give him 15 minutes to warm up. His joints move a lot smoother than mine. Because of the air in the lines, I have to move the boom and mast slowly. Going fast causes violent jerking. So slow, I go.

Using Ole Beast is an advantage. It would have taken the 6 of us experienced boys months to clear that area of the ranch. With Ole Beast. Two weekends, maybe three. If I had more free time, I could knock it all out in 4 days, tops. If you look at the pictures, I'm not digging the ground, except to pull out the big rocks that have punched through the surface. I'm mostly scraping the sakati (sword grass) using the tines/teeth of the bucket. This weekend, I'm hoping to hit the first level of the cliff on the backside. The whole cleared area will be seeded with a special grass for the deer and goat herds.

Ranch: Eastside Clean up progressing.

Been busy today with the on going clean up on the Eastside of my house. We did a lot in two days. Still a lot more to go. But it is one step at a time.

Arissa and I resumed our burning of yard debris. Yeah, I know we should compost but we have too much to compost. Yet, I still have to burn to smoke my mango trees to keep the insects away. We used the chainsaw to cut more unwanted brush and trees. It's looking a lot better.

That one planter that we were prepping yesterday. We added dried mango leaves to the rabbit manure layer, today. Then we wet it down again. I want the worms in the manure to stay healthy. Next, will be to add potting mix. I'll have to double check on the approve potting mix for organic production. We plan to grow red onions and garlic in that planter.

I had a source of compost to put into that planter. But it has been contaminated with other junk. That's what happens when family members think that compost pile is a trash can. They have no concept of composting. So I'll have to incinerate that compost pile soon.

We moved most of the pots away from the planter today. Not much growing in those pots, only weeds. We have a really old aluminum extension ladder that we acquired years ago in the '70's. I moved that away from the area and into the main ranch area and propped it up against a mango tree. I'm gonna use that for any vegetable vines that I'll grow.

Arissa and I collected some young coconut saplings, transferred and planted them along the street on the property line/border. I plan to plant more coconut saplings on another line inside the property line but staggered from the line closest to the road. These will be future live fence posts for livestock.

New Goal: Prep and plant one garden plot each week.


Keep Smiling

Ranch: Cleaning Eastside of the House.

Catching up on my cleaning. I worked on the Eastside of the house today. Did a lot of burning. Have a big coconut stump to get rid of. I could compost it. But, I do have to smoke my mango tree daily to get rid of those pesky insects.

I cut down all the violet brushes on that side, pulling out some ornamental taro, and cleaned out one of the planters. My niece/god-daughter, Arissa helped me out. Lot of ranch training needed for that girl. Reminded me of when her brother, AJ, started working the ranch. We did okay. Still progressing forward.

New goal is to put up a new row of vegetables each weekend. That should get us ready year round. We do have Local Mangoes ready, harvested a couple and enjoyed eating each one. Waiting for my big Vietnamese Mango tree. Fruits are slowly getting big. That's going to be my daily breakfast.

I'll post pics of our on-going project later this week.



Keep Smiling

Egg Layers

Toron Binadu (Deer Buck)

Ranch Update: Banana Grove Clean-up.

I cleaned around the banana trees on the North side, this afternoon. Pulling down the dead leaves from the trees and then laying them down on the grown forming a mulch. That'll help keep the weeds under control and help with moisture retention.

I harvested two bunches of bananas. They're huge approximately 50 pounds each bunch. We'll be having banana donuts for awhile. Maybe banana pancakes for breakfast in the mornings.

I checked the South side after I cleaned around the banana grove. The wild pigs got to my young coconuts. I propped most of them up today. I'll plant more coconut saplings tomorrow. Looks like I'm gonna attach the circular blade to my bush cutter tomorrow morning to cut the small brush. Will try to get most of the brush cut back tomorrow.

Plan to move my ranch dog, Stormie from the South side, back up the North side. That will expand my ranch security. Duchess will move back to where she used to be, until she broke that old lead. I'll still have one more dog to move to the ranch side.

While all this was going on, I started up the old burner and had the mango tree smoked. There is another pile on the outside of my bedroom that will burn tomorrow. Lots of things to do here.

I have to make a trip to the Department of Agriculture's farm to get some seedlings and other plants for my ranch. I'll do that next week. I know the perfect place to grow some sun flower plants.