Hello! I haven’t been writing because the Internet hasn’t been up to speed ever since the antenna fell off the roof. It remains temperamental with mostly “bad days” and some good days with spurts of high speed for half an hour at a time. It seems okay right now so I am taking the opportunity to write.

The weather for the last 2 weeks has been relentlessly hot. Today, we finally got a break with a long overnight rain. It is overcast today and there is a comfortable coolness which we have not felt for ages. During this dry time, we have been mowing and cleaning up the farm…story of our lives! We are just about done and will be ready to plant our new seedlings out: new trees to plant include soursop, wax apple, jujube, malabar chestnut, pomegranate and Malay (Molly) apple:

We have found that September is the best time to get trees into the ground…there are enough rains to get them established. As the rains dwindle towards the end of the year heading towards dry season (Easter time), we find that it becomes harder for newly planted trees to survive. I think that this will end up being a planting weekend.

Other news: Our good Old Grandfather Goosie has taken over the rearing of our baby geese. A couple of months ago, we were very worried about his state of health because he had trouble foraging (maintaining body weight) because he was blind in one eye. We confined him under the house with “nursing-home care” thinking that he wasn’t going to make it. Anyway, after a four week period of regular nutrition, he started Honking!! and Honking!! and Honking!! like there was no tomorrow. The sound was driving us crazy because he was starting in the wee hours of the morning. We finally got the message and let him out. He has had a new lease of life since then: he’s been foraging fine, goes to the pond everyday for his daily ablutions and leads our baby geese around. It looks like he will grace us with his presence for a while longer!

Grandfather Goosie: Live Long and Prosper!

Okay that’s it for now. If I catch some another half an hour of high speed Internet, I will write again.