12-30-2005, 08:22 PM
Vacation is over and it is back to the regular grind... well almost. Hubby caught a plane back to the mainland this morning and my 31 year old son drove over to Kona for a few days. He will return Sunday and be on a plane by Sunday afternoon back to Manhattan. The caretaker Billy is off with friends for the holiday weekend so I am on the ranch alone. It's rather nice.
With no rain for two weeks we are hurting for water. I drive up a 70 gallon continer that can't really hold 70 gallons, move the container into the bucket of the tractor, lift it up above the catchment tank and then drain it into the catchment tank. Then I drive back to town and do it again... and again.... With just me and the pigs and the chickens and the dogs it was only a two container day and there is even water left over. Yayyyyy...
I liook around me and see so much to be done. With the family here we didn't do many of the things I had hoped for. We did, however, stay busy. There is just a lot to running a ranch.
A friend brought me about 10 starts of ti plants and I have about 10 more I gathered so it looks like some gardening for me this weekend. That will be good. I can do that on my own.
I have found some marvelous plants on the side of a back road next to a rock quarry.... pretty out in the "nowhere' so I feel fairly safe in "gathering" them for the landscaping in the yard. They are huge with leaves shaped like big feathers standing up rather than handing from their stems. Very dramatic. Hope we don't get in trouble for transplanting them...
Hilarious day with the pigs today. We woke to take hubby to the airport and the pigs were missing from their pen. The pen gate was closed so I couldn't quite figure out how they got out but we didn't have time to deal with it. When the carpenters arrived they said they found them on the road (they have found an unfenced section of forest to sneak thru off the property) and shooed them back onto the ranch but let them run free. By the time I got hubby on the plane, son off to Kona, two trips for water, two trips to the transfer station to get rid of drywall and one to the quarry for sand for the base of the water tank everyone was leaving for the day. Pigs were still out. I did my best to find them and did so but the darned old boy dog Gumbo decided to become a herding dog suddenly, heading them off into the back 20 instead of where I wanted to go. Ah, well, "Old Guys Rule" so what could I do? I put fresh water in the pen and food in hopes they would wander down there on their own later. I went to the cabin to tend the last water transfer and take a break.
Bark, Bark, Cluck, Cluck...Snort, Snort.. suddenly the little cabin was surrounded by pigs dogs, roosters and chickens all in a flurry. Haviing my wits about me for the first time in a while i grabbed a plastic bowl and filled it with the corn version of chicken food called scratch and shook it. Everyone stopped to listen... FOOD!
Tossing a couple handfulls to the chickens, to send them in one directuin, I hand fed a pig with some (they love it) and began rattling the bowl. Pointing a finger at Gumbo to behave, he backed off and the pigs began to follow me. Little handfulls on the ground every 15 yards or so with shaking and rattling the bowl and the three little piggies followed me down to the pen. They knew what I wanted and being GIRL pigs, actually went into the pen unassisted. Okay, I am teasing about the man bashing stuff but I am really so good at it, it just slips out...
Anyway, the pigs were given plenty of pigchow, fresh water, some corn and rice and sweetstuff as a treat (mixture of corn, molases, oats and a few other things that all the animals seem to like). More fresh water and they are tucked away for the night.
Back to the cabin, no husband , no son, no caretaker... yayyy. JUST ME AND 100 GALLONS OF WATER. I took a good hot shower and curled up here to listen to the crickets make their sounds and the chickens settling in for the evening. Even the dogs have settled onto their sleeping bag on the porch. It's all of 7:15 Pm but dark is dark in the primitive world and we are all happy t be tucked into bed for the night.
Simple adventures are the best and this one is just great. Thanks to my neighbor Neil for the Ti starts...
Aloha, Pam.
Just another day in P A R A D I S E !!
With no rain for two weeks we are hurting for water. I drive up a 70 gallon continer that can't really hold 70 gallons, move the container into the bucket of the tractor, lift it up above the catchment tank and then drain it into the catchment tank. Then I drive back to town and do it again... and again.... With just me and the pigs and the chickens and the dogs it was only a two container day and there is even water left over. Yayyyyy...
I liook around me and see so much to be done. With the family here we didn't do many of the things I had hoped for. We did, however, stay busy. There is just a lot to running a ranch.
A friend brought me about 10 starts of ti plants and I have about 10 more I gathered so it looks like some gardening for me this weekend. That will be good. I can do that on my own.
I have found some marvelous plants on the side of a back road next to a rock quarry.... pretty out in the "nowhere' so I feel fairly safe in "gathering" them for the landscaping in the yard. They are huge with leaves shaped like big feathers standing up rather than handing from their stems. Very dramatic. Hope we don't get in trouble for transplanting them...
Hilarious day with the pigs today. We woke to take hubby to the airport and the pigs were missing from their pen. The pen gate was closed so I couldn't quite figure out how they got out but we didn't have time to deal with it. When the carpenters arrived they said they found them on the road (they have found an unfenced section of forest to sneak thru off the property) and shooed them back onto the ranch but let them run free. By the time I got hubby on the plane, son off to Kona, two trips for water, two trips to the transfer station to get rid of drywall and one to the quarry for sand for the base of the water tank everyone was leaving for the day. Pigs were still out. I did my best to find them and did so but the darned old boy dog Gumbo decided to become a herding dog suddenly, heading them off into the back 20 instead of where I wanted to go. Ah, well, "Old Guys Rule" so what could I do? I put fresh water in the pen and food in hopes they would wander down there on their own later. I went to the cabin to tend the last water transfer and take a break.
Bark, Bark, Cluck, Cluck...Snort, Snort.. suddenly the little cabin was surrounded by pigs dogs, roosters and chickens all in a flurry. Haviing my wits about me for the first time in a while i grabbed a plastic bowl and filled it with the corn version of chicken food called scratch and shook it. Everyone stopped to listen... FOOD!
Tossing a couple handfulls to the chickens, to send them in one directuin, I hand fed a pig with some (they love it) and began rattling the bowl. Pointing a finger at Gumbo to behave, he backed off and the pigs began to follow me. Little handfulls on the ground every 15 yards or so with shaking and rattling the bowl and the three little piggies followed me down to the pen. They knew what I wanted and being GIRL pigs, actually went into the pen unassisted. Okay, I am teasing about the man bashing stuff but I am really so good at it, it just slips out...
Anyway, the pigs were given plenty of pigchow, fresh water, some corn and rice and sweetstuff as a treat (mixture of corn, molases, oats and a few other things that all the animals seem to like). More fresh water and they are tucked away for the night.
Back to the cabin, no husband , no son, no caretaker... yayyy. JUST ME AND 100 GALLONS OF WATER. I took a good hot shower and curled up here to listen to the crickets make their sounds and the chickens settling in for the evening. Even the dogs have settled onto their sleeping bag on the porch. It's all of 7:15 Pm but dark is dark in the primitive world and we are all happy t be tucked into bed for the night.
Simple adventures are the best and this one is just great. Thanks to my neighbor Neil for the Ti starts...
Aloha, Pam.
Just another day in P A R A D I S E !!
I want to be the kind of woman that, when my feet
hit the floor each morning, the devil says
"Oh Crap, She's up!"
hit the floor each morning, the devil says
"Oh Crap, She's up!"