It´s true. More times than it used to. Meaning that brushpiles don´t burn very well, because they´re soggy. I spent a couple days on the classic machete-swinging, which I like much better the way we´re doing it now , just cutting the vines/smallish plants, etc, and letting them fall to the ground, rather than trying to pile them up in mounds. Since where we´re working now wasn´t burned by the brushfire six weeks ago, there´s enough it will burn without being piled, and needs to be spread out to dry anyway. It goes way faster this way, and I feel less like I´ve hacked at one small-room-sized area all day long. Clearing brush with hand power alone is still slow, but we´re almost done, ready to plant the little trees this next week.
Other excitement included digging up and transplanting two 2.5m/8ft-ish mandarin trees, to make room for grading our very muddy driveway (their leaves are now falling off - survival hoped for, but we´ll have to see), and caring for a sheep with a cut on it´s back leg. It´s weak, and though the cut is on its back leg, it will only kneel with it´s front legs, though it will stand with the back. Un poco confundido (a little confusing). But I´ve gotten to give my first two injections, Penicillin and Ceftrexona, IM to sheep gluteus.
Mangoes are in season. I love them. Our trees drop them on the ground, just waiting for me to pick them up and devour them (a lot of them split falling from the HUGE trees, but that only means I have to eat them sooner, since they´re going to spoil and attract ants, right?) I wish for a fruit dryer and some canning jars, to store up the wealth of fruits that are ready now. Apparently, jars are available somewhere here, and I´d like to find out where and how much they cost. And if I get around to it, I may try making a dryer, either with solar reflectors (rainy season still has a lot of sun in between the rain), or with a wooden box and a hair dryer (not sure if I can find that either, but I think so - the more tempting option, since I know it will work, but it´d only work in town, since we don´t have electricity!). We´ll see what I find time for (and how much things cost).
1 comment:
Mangoes that fall off trees! How providential is that? Do they taste different than what we get here--fully tree ripened must be amazing! When Matt was in Pohnpei they had a mango tree outside the dorm window, and they would watch them slowly ripen and just a few days before they were ready to pick the native islanders would come and harvest them--all for one and one for all!
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