russell and katie: It's a new year. . .

It's a new year and our garden is still growing! We both agree that this is our most productive garden yet. We still have lots and lots of delicious kale and rainbow chard, as well as some basil.

The jalapeno pepper plants are really starting to produce a lot now and the tomatoes are coming right along! In fact, this photo was taken only last week and just today I noticed there are at least 3 orangish-red tomatoes almost ready to pick.

Of course, we did already pick a few green ones to fry up with our cornbread, black-eyed peas and greens. . .

Last weekend we helped a local non-profit group who harvests unwanted fruit from people's yards and then donates the harvest to the local food bank. The day we helped, they harvested tangerines at one location and 'ulu, or "breadfruit" from another location.

The 'ulu trees are very beautiful, with very large leaves and these amazing looking fruits. The branches ooze a lot of milky sap when cut. The sap may be used to help heal cuts and the wood may be used for building all kinds of things from canoes to homes to surfboards (so I hear). Here's some more info on 'ulu if you are interested: http://www.canoeplants.com/ulu.html

So far this new year, Russell has continued to build things (furniture mostly) with the readily available bamboo from our yard. He had a little help one day recently from one of the neighbor's cats, Mama.

She seemed to really like the machete. . . as a pillow.

At the end of the year, we harvested some macadamia nuts, also known as "mac nuts" from our yard.

We air dried them for awhile on the porch, a.k.a. the lanai. . .

And then we cracked them open with a couple of flat rocks. The oily nut inside was really delicious! We made mac-nut pesto with some, and just ate the rest.