Wall Building to Retain New Road

First we begin by excavating the job site to hold the new retaining walls above our house.



Unloading cement blocks is much easier this year, since the blocks can be delivered to the loading zone on our land directly using the new road.

Unfortunately, the road to our house is only accessible with 4 wheel drive, so we have to bring the blocks from our loading zone higher up on our property to the actual building site using our little jeep.



Once all the materials are on site, we will begin to build massive retaining walls!

Road Building

The CAT machine must first place a six meter long tube into the creek before constructing the road over and across the small body of water. The tube is about 70 centimeters diameter. It requires two men on the ground to guide the tube into the correct position, while the machine does the actual lifting and placement.

After crossing the creek and clearing-cutting trees ahead of the CAT, we begin carving out the mountainside, layering stones, clay, and gravel that comes out of the land. We were fortunate that we did not have to purchase any materials, other than the tube.

We cut the remaining eucalyptus trees, all but one, with the help of the CAT. It sounds simpler than it is. First we must get cable lines high up in the tree in order to get the best leverage while using the CAT to guide/pull the trees in the direction we want to trees to fall. Sometimes it means someone has to go up in the tree to make sure the cables are not twisted.

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With six eucalyptus now cut, there remains two, "Grand-Daddy" and "the leaner". Grand-daddy is 140 cm wide in diameter, that is a little less than Konswan is tall. It's branches sweep over the roof, allowing dead branches to fall and, at times, break tiles. Just a week ago, we had to replace two tiles. Magnus stretches out his arms to show the tree's girth.

Below he trims off the rest of Grand-daddy's stump after felling it. Magnus uses a 75 cm blade, but has to move around the trunk to do the required cutting. We do not have a blade long enough to span the 140 cm.

This is the house and surrounds after 7 eucalypti are cut. One remains, the leaner, above and to the left of the house. You can see that we have tied it off, in case of a hard blowing wind. The workers are now on their vacations and we will not see them for another 30 days. So in the meanwhile, we will de-limb the trees, pile up the "carcasses", and pray that we do not not get hurricane force winds.

The land has been remodeled on such a huge scale now, as you can see looking at the before picture featured below. If prayers can move mountains, they have done so in the form of a CAT machine helping us to have a safer surrounds to our little home. Now we can sleep better at night, unburdened by the worry of tree limbs landing on our roof.

For those interested in more detailed photos of the process, go to our detailed photo page.

Early Autumn Garden

Our hot pepper garden is thriving under plastic. We have Serrano, Thai, Jalapeno, Habanero, and Hungarian Wax, all turning red now and ready to eat.


Black Beauty Aubergines are getting huge this time of year. One is enough to feed the both of us for dinner.


The Sweet Basil is still producing more than we can eat, and some is going to flower already. We have found the flower heads are fantastic in soups.

Autumn Equinox Harvest

These sweet and succulent melons were a surprise. We planted nine vines and did not see anything until one day a fruit rolled off the vine, ready to eat! It was our first year growing Cantaloupe and we were pleasantly pleased with the ease with which they grow.


Below is an assortment of Japanese Aubergines, Pickling Cucumbers, Chayotes, and Brandy Wine Tomatoes.

September Fruit Harvest

These are heirloom tomatoes from Germany, this is our first year to grow them. They are are earliest producers, giving us pounds of flesh. We are saving seeds from these tomatoes for next year.


Below is a Purple Bush Hybrid Aubergine. An early producer. Low and bushy, they are perfect for our windy island conditions.


An array of typical garden produce, picked every three days during July, August and September.