microb's blog: Year if the wind

They promised us a dry winter but so far its been relatively rainy and windy. We get low pressure systems pass across the north of the Pacific and they drag weather fronts down across the islands. As the fronts approach the winds turn strong and southerly. We get wind advisories, watches and warnings for areas on the down slopes from the mountains and that is us when the wind is from the south. 10 days ago we had a gale blow through, ripped half the plastic roof off the front deck. Purchased 8 new sheets from Home Depot and put those up. Today we have another front coming through, gales again and already a large bough is down from a Paper Bark tree. So chainsaw will be busy again. Lots of small branches and leaf debris along the forest trails need raking up.
Spent the last couple of days taking out 7 large Waiwi trees that fell about 5 years ago. They have been leaning across the Secret Garden all that time and resting on a rain shelter so if I wanted to make use of the garden area they had to go. Just about finished that project and left with a stack of 6 inch thick trunk sections to carry into the forest for path markets.
Checked out a section of fence line and found out I had not been there for some months and parts are rusting out. So I have a 35 foot length of new fence to put up. Instead of replacing the long stretch of rusted fence a friend and I will get our chainsaws going, thin out some forest to make a new garden area (its already got a name sign up "The Dark Forest Garden") and then set the branches along the outside of the fence to make a pig barrier. Got lots of that working well all around the forest.
Camelias, Azeleas, Vireyas are all blooming like crazy. Philodendrons continue to put out new leaves and climb the trees. I have another plant order in the shopping basket on Ecuagenera California website. Its just waiting for me to hit the checkout button. Not had the nerve yet to spent $300 on 8 rare Philodendrons. Its not in my basket yet but there is one called Spiritus Sanctus (I think I got that right). Its the Holy Grail of Philodendrons and cost $100. I have this vision of it dying. Not sure why.
I should really keep my plant buying to the local stores. Muck cheaper but they carry the unusual varieties. Embarrassed to say I have most of the locally stocked plants. Best source locally is Lowes in Kona and luckily thats 100 miles away near Costco. So we only go there about once every three or four months.
I've been gathering Anthurium seeds to try and propagate them. I gathered about 100 seeds, had them nicely set up on a bed of moss in a clam shell, left the lid open one night to give them a bit of air and rats ate them all. End of project. So the next seeds I gather I will spread around the forest on mossy branches and see what happens. Not sure why I'm doing that because there are plenty of Anthurium seedlings under the parent plants anyway.
Cold weather slows down the grass growing so not having to cut grass much at all.
Leaf blower makes it much easier to remove bamboo leaves from the roof and gutters. I will be up on the roof blowing leaves in the next few days. How many people do you see using a leaf blower on the roof.
Will stay out from under the trees today until this gale blows over then its back out there raking up debris and cutting up fallen branches.

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