“Passion rules reason, for better or for worse.“ – Terry Goodkind 🕊️

GOALS THIS WEEK: I want to start exercising, spend more time outside, draw more, do music, get the house cleaned, finish the paperwork, be a good person, and stay organized.

Last Week: Made it through being ill and the kids being ill.

This Week: Want to think about when to do what.

HEALTH OVERVIEW:

Mental Health: Settling into the fall/winter transition and invigorated to be alive again.

Physical Health: Medium.

Social Health: Glad to have friends, but also want to reflect a lot more, I feel like I’m digesting a lot of thoughts right now and I need time to think.

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LIFE JOURNAL:

“Without forgiveness life is governed by an endless cycle of resentment and retaliation.”

– Roberto Assagioli

“There is no small act of kindness. Every compassionate act makes large the world.”

–Mary Anne Radmacher

Saturday: Last week passed in a blur, did a study montage with a friend’s son, enjoyed it, it was kind of a weird study marathon, but I hope it helped somehow. Today is the first day with just my family in a week and we all miss our exchange student. But I was able to pot up the onions into some “soil treys” and start expanding the top pond, cut weeds to walk to the top of the little hill, did the basic shape of the waterfall dams, dragged the pond liner out, unfolded it, then the day was over already, so. Got to do some touch ups on the sides and surrounding stones, but it’s good to have the liner there I think so I know how big it really is and avoid redoing work because the liner is too small or big.

I really enjoy the different views the different parts of the garden have. I hope to make this top pond deeper than it was and prettier, the middle pond needs some repair still, I hope to get to that tomorrow. I also want to separate the fish pond and this pond so any leak won’t kill the fish, and maybe move the blue pond up to the hill someday too…

Sunday: Last week fall weather hit hard, which feels like a monsoon in our area. This week I’m used to the new weather and mostly better from being sick for about a week. I feel good now, weeded to put in a new veggie bed, but realized I might want yet another pond there. Worked on the top of the middle pond more using cut grass for underlayment which was cool, but wasn’t an option last time because I didn’t have grass then. Moving the logs around felt fun. It’s been awhile since I watched Carl the Landscape Guy’s pond video, I started watching it again to refresh my memory. He has a lawn and soil, that’s different than me, I have to cut back weeds, then I have to build up over lava rock instead of digging down, but I do have a natural slope so I don’t have to work as hard making a hill. I don’t have any bricks, I may have used some if I had some, but I blew my budget for the month already so I’ll try to use either what I have or scrap wood from the storm. So if I can tomorrow I’ll work on leveling out the dams a little bit better, perhaps with logs under the liner. Right now the bottom section is doubled over the old top, I can cut that and reuse it for the broken middle section. I wanted to make sure the liner fit and I did that, but I could definety do a little more shape work on the dams before testing the liner with water.

So A. Cut the old liner.

B. Shape the bottom dams.

C. Cut the weeds around the top to walk.

D. Start shaping the top dam.

E. Rock my bottoms near the shelves, then level the top stones, foam the stones near the shelf, rock the bottom of the shelves after the dam.

F. Lay the pipes along the sides tuck the liner and rock both sides of the edge shelf.

G. Remove excess foam.

H. Fill with hose to check water flow.

I. Build the top waterfall.

J. Foam the top waterfall securely.

K. Rock the top section.

L. Set up the plumbing.

M. Set up the electrical plugs for the pump.

N. Set up any lighting (I don’t have a lot yet).

O. Set up box (waiting to buy it).

P. Rock and neaten the sides hiding the liner.

Q. Fill with small stones supporting the larger stones. .

R. Boarder of path.

S. Large stones for raised bed.

T. Plants.

U. Level paths and plant areas.

V. Weed cloth on rasied bed and path.

W. Mulch on plant area.

X. 16-32 mm gravel on pathway.

Looking at this I think I will expand the veggie tunnel to in front of the koa tree instead of where it is… the koa tree is six feet tall now.

Monday: Last week, I did the first activity of the Digital Illustration Class, an eye, which was fun. I was also overwhelmed with my garden and I am still right now. I didn’t water the Comfrey yesterday because the little can was missing from the green house. Today I did water the comfrey with pond water, I found some borers in the pumpkin, I cut the tomato which was doing bad from Early Blight, I trashed it instead of compost, which was a little sad. I put more soil in the garden and more mulch because it was a really shallow bed.

This front area isn’t perfect, but I’m happy to see the morning glories climbing the trees and the pumpkin has made almost a full circle around the tree. I like the front rockwall that I built, I like the sunflowers growing there, I’m sure it will be more beautiful when the sunflowers add their color, but it’s on the way. I was grateful to get composted mulch from East Hawaii Organics, next time I can get more I just have to remember to bring a bucket for transferring and a pitchfork to load (instead of a trowel…). I hope my watermelons will do well, not sure at this point. Loosing the tomatoes was okay, I noticed from the beginning flies were coming inside where they were and that they looked like they had early blight, I’ll start again. Going to try Mountain Magic this time around, it’s supposed to resist Early Blight.

I want to put a bottom pond in, so I got a liner for that, a power box for the top one, I want to get the ponds fixed up so that I can build a better aquaponic system, I just need to make a few adjustments so the system doesn’t get clogged.

Tuesday: Last week I was doing some extra science tutoring and it was very rewarding to have a student who was open minded and enthusiastic about doing some states of matter experiments, making some hypothesis and seeing that real life gives us results we don’t expect.

This place I set aside a border in the spring wanting to grow rhubarb, then was busy with the kids school and camping and scouting and didn’t come back until October. Adding a weed cloth and brown mulch path helps so much, when weeds grow through or on top they are much weaker than otherwise and when they grow across I can see immediately where to cut them back to, it gives me a place to store the compost from East Hawaii Organics for now. I put vermiculite, sea kelp powder, steer manure, chicken manure and composted mulch into the grow bed with straw, I enjoy working with straw, it really has a farm vibe I like. Cutting back the weeds out of this area is going to be way easier and passing through this area is going to be way easier, the plants are going to grow better with this soil, yes I would like to have made it on site with no waste and carbon foot print, but I didn’t have the mental and physical energy to do that this time. I am just starting to learn how to do compost and leaf mulch and I don’t think I would want to garden if I had to wait however long it takes to make all my own soil. I do really like taking the time to load the composted mulch from East Hawaii Organics, it’s not too much cheaper to buy the containers and make an extra trip, but it feels really good to be a part of them diverting waste from the landfill and standing as an organic non-profit in our area, I feel grateful when I’m driving home and when I’m adding to my garden, I don’t know if I should be finishing out the compost further or not, but I am happy I’m finally starting to source local stuff. I think when I do start to get a better compost system set up I will set it up here next to the green house and I’ll call it Southeast Hawaii Organics as a tribute to East Hawaii Organics compost system. My favorite thing in this garden is my son’s apple tree. I’m building a little planter next to the path on the right I’ll move his other apple tree there so you can walk between the two someday. There is a No. 1 Idea hydroponic system I want to try to build right next to the rock wall, still mentally debating it… Love the idea but in ground would be more my style and plastic would feel safer than glass with so many kids in my life. I’m excited to see the front garden going through so many changes, I’ve been learning a lot about landscaping helping friends in our Farm Together Program.

I want to do the Mexican Sunflower boarder today, I took a lot of cuttings two days ago, but it’s really hard trenching them into my poor and rocky soil. At least this time I have an augur and a mattock, the first time I did 100 with a trowel and at the end it broke and that really seemed fair for it to break. I kind of knew it was the wrong tool, but I still don’t know exactly what the right one is. I did do a bit of work, cutting back the weeds to walk to where I am going to work is usually the worst part, because I don’t see any progress on the goal task, but it’s a necessary part of being able to work on the goal.

Wednesday: Last week we stayed home from the beach sick, but some people went and that is cool, that we can take time off but the community doesn’t collapse. This week was art week, we didn’t have painting, but we did have oil and water, so it was fun having principal boxes, we did double leg takedowns. I spent some time with my family in the beginning of the day and it was awesome watching my little boy swim, he really picked it up without me noticing.

Thursday: Last week I soaked 8 kinds of onions, this week they are growing into pretty good little transplants. I visited the train garden, built a little desk, was learning more about what plants the gardener liked, what building they were planning, still trying to get a feel for the garden and landscape, checking out drainage ext. It’s a different garden then mine, more frogs, hoping they eat the other pests, but not sure at all, still trying to make sense of that ecosystem.

Friday: Last week I wanted to start exercising, spend more time outside, draw more, do music, get the house cleaned, finish the paperwork, be a good person, and stay organized. This week I still want to, but I definitely feel tired by the seasonal weather changes and want to be strategic. I made a soup by myself, it was a bit salty, but pretty close to on target, so that surprised me, it always surprises me how much work goes into some dishes. We made nan and it was pretty decently good, not like the restaurant, but pretty decent, even though I like fry bread better alone I like nan bread better with soup, I think I’m like nan bread, I make room for other people to be themself in my life.

But anyway, the week was a good week overall, caught a small gecko named Jumpy, had some good times in the ocean, pretty good week despite the unwanted invites to winter stuff and feeling of doom the end of the year seems to have.

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Gratitude

Something new this week: The onion starts came up a lot better indoors than when I tried to grow them outdoors in the past.

Something good this week: I really enjoyed the ocean the way I used to when I was growing up, as if it is magic, as if it is okay to have fun.

Something unexpected: We caught a little baby gecko named Jumpy, I think they are easier than frogs and chameleons because they can eat non-live foods so I’m willing to try to see how it goes keeping jumpy.

🧅