I ran outside with my camera to get a shot of this great spider, who made her web in the middle of our red hibiscus bush.  I love how they make an X in the very center of their web.  We appreciate spiders, since they help rid the garden of unwanted pests!

We’ve enjoyed a beautiful Saturday.  The weather was perfect, with plenty of hot sunshine and even a few small sun showers!  Everyone kept busy all day long, doing small meaningful projects.  Being able to spend most of our day outside is lovely!  While the kids played, I planted a mango seed (from our beloved mango tree that we planted for our first son’s birth), and I also started some mamaki seeds.

We have just begun to harvest fruit from our mango tree, which is now seven years old.  We only have five fruit on the tree this year, so we watch each one closely as it ripens.  We hope to see the tree bear many more fruit in the coming years, and we even planted a second mango tree next to the first for our third son’s birth, with the plan in the future to hang a hammock between the two mango trees!  Yum!  These mango trees are called Raposa Mangos, and are supposed to grow better in a wet climate.

Mamaki is a great plant that only grows in Hawaii.  I look forward to writing more about it later, since it is one of my favorite plants.  It is similar to stinging nettles, without the sting!  We harvest the leaves to make tea with them, and it is great for high blood pressure, among many other things.  I’ve only just begun to try growing these plants from seed, so we’ll see how it goes.

Our day has been full, and we have so enjoyed the sunshine after so much rain!  Zeoc spent a lot of his day weed wacking and mowing, trying to keep up with the ever growing grass!  We also find it very useful to collect the grass clippings to dry for mulch on the gardens.   It’s looking beautiful here on the farm, and today has been just lovely.