Born in Bloomington Texas in 1922, she soon became a very popular American actress and singer. She recently wrote an autobiography explaining her fight with alcoholism. After a search for TV stars, I found her book and, being a fan, bought it. I kept wanting to send it to her for an autograph, but I waited too long.

I know you are thinking, who was she? Perhaps you remember her by her stage name, Gale Storm?

Her TV shows were ledgendary; My Little Margie and the Gale Storm Show. In MY Little Margie (I have some shows on DVD) she played a young girl growing up in a single parent apartment. Her father was played by silent film star Charles Farrell. The show was a staple of morning TV in the 50's and involved Margie getting in to lots of trouble and involving neighbors in her antics.

Her second series was aptly called the Gale Storm Show (Oh! Susanna) with another silent film star, Zasu Pitts. This show could be described as the predicessor of The Love Boat. Gale played a shipboard Activities Director who constantly gets into trouble.

She was also known for her singing career.

I have been a fan since first seeing he ron TV and can say thaqt I am truely sad to hear of her passing. She gave us years of smiles and we will never forget that way she rolled that sound she made (like a rolled R). It is hard to explain, but those who watched her TV shows will smile at the rememberance.

May she live forever in our hearts. Gale Storm, dead at age 87.

Wikipedia Entry: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... Her Official Site (photos and info): http://www.galestorm.tv

Still, most of the trees are doing fine and some of the almost dead trees will recover; so I'm not worried.

The mature trees were all on 1/2 gallon bags with dirt and they fared quite well. A few have some yellow leaves and I expect that is transplant shock. Still, they are thriving. I counted 4 rows today and out of 160 trees, about 40 already have good sized cherry on them. That means that I will in fact have to pick coffee from this new section of trees this year! Now just how much I get will remain to be seen, but this is the culimnation of many years of preparation and I certainly will celebrate at first harvest!

These trees are all immature compared to regular trees and a full crop will take a couple years. The trunks will strengthen and trees will develop very good root structures as they wind their way through the rocks below.

Soon I'll have to buy crop insurance. In the meantime, I'm growing replacement plants in the event some die off.

We have had a few days of good soaking rain, which is good because my tanks are dry at the moment. As soon as I can afford it, I'll divert the rainwater from the roof to the bottom tank.

I'm sure that some of you are interested in the whole process of coffee farming. A neighbor wrote most if not all of Wikipedia page entitled "Kona Coffee". Give it a read if you like at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...

Although the article says that the trees flower in April, our recent rains caused another flowering. My neighbors' trees all had blossoms and the aroma of the blossoms fills the air. It is a very light, sweet smell which fills the air.

As for the farm status, the first round of new trees are planted and the irrigation is all in. I have received payment for much od the work I have done; with one exception. The drip line and irrigation portion of the contract had the most money in it. In order to maximize my return, I need to fill in the 1000' trench alongside the driveway (and I use the word "driveway" sparingly). It will cost many thousands of dollars for dirt or sand, but when filled, I can submit all my reecipts for the microirrigation section. That payment will return, perhaps, $12,000 to me for money spent.

In the meantime, I am shuffling money from one account to another, trying to ease cash-flow for the rest of the year. If I had been a year or two earlier with this planting, as I had hoped, everything would have been smooth sailing. Still, I have hopes of a small business loan to carry me for a year until I am able to tap into some funds I have waiting. It is a very strange feeling to have, to all of a sudden not be able to pay all credit card bills in full each month. I know that may be the norm for many nd lately a common experience even for people of means. I have prided myself on being able to control costs and spending and something has always worked out.

So even though there will be some lean times, our lives are a lot like farming. (Oh gosh, is he gonna get philosophic on us?).

We have our good times when thing are growing strog, then we have lean times when we slow down and take stock and wait. Soon the climate changes and we begin to grow again. You know, as I write this, I am reminded of (or perhaps guided by) the movie "Being There" with peter Sellers. A very interesting movie where Peter is not a comedic figure. he plays "Chance" the gardener, who is not as smart as others thing, yet still has a simple understanding of the world. The following discussion explains better what I was trying to say. The President is asking Chance about the economy and the country. Chance talks about the only think he knows, gardening; but the similarities are quite close.

President "Bobby": Mr. Gardner, do you agree with Ben, or do you think that we can stimulate growth through temporary incentives?
[Long pause]
Chance the Gardener: As long as the roots are not severed, all is well. And all will be well in the garden.
President "Bobby": In the garden.
Chance the Gardener: Yes. In the garden, growth has it seasons. First comes spring and summer, but then we have fall and winter. And then we get spring and summer again.
President "Bobby": Spring and summer.
Chance the Gardener: Yes.
President "Bobby": Then fall and winter.
Chance the Gardener: Yes.
Benjamin Rand: I think what our insightful young friend is saying is that we welcome the inevitable seasons of nature, but we're upset by the seasons of our economy.
Chance the Gardener: Yes! There will be growth in the spring!
Benjamin Rand: Hmm!
Chance the Gardener: Hmm!
President "Bobby": Hm. Well, Mr. Gardner, I must admit that is one of the most refreshing and optimistic statements I've heard in a very, very long time.
(Benjamin Rand applauds)

So, let us all go out and prune and trim some, a bit of dieback may happen, but in the Spring, things should look a lot better.

Oh, and I'll keep th fertilizer going via the blog :-)

So I carry them around in the back, waiting on some free time to install them. Meanwhile, I find that a brake cylindar is leaking. The cylindar has a small piston in it and whe nyou step on the pedal, fluid flows to he piston and expands it. This causes the pads to stretch out and contact the inside of the brake drum and the friction slows you down. With brake fluid leaking in there, the shoes get damp and won't work well. Also, if you lose lots of fluid, your brakes won't work at all.

So off I go again to the auto parts store. I walk in and the guy starts his tapping on the keyboard again. "What size shoes do you have?" he asks. I tell him I have not yet installed them, why? It seems that there are 3 sizes of cylinders...

Just having someone locally swap out the shoes costs at least $250, although I can do that part myself for about $40. The cylinders and shoes would probably cost me $30 to have replaced, yet the parts would cost me less than $100 total. See why I'd prefer t odo it myself? Total time would be a couple hours, lifting the car, swapping the parts out and cleaning up.

I know what you are thinking. "Sure you can do it yourself, but it is taking you forever and each day you take your life in your hands. Why not just pay someone to do it."

That is pretty much what happened with the coffee trees and the planting. I just ran out of time to do it myself. I have lots of projects and this is just one of them. Still, I don't have lots of extra money to keep the local economy running. Every time I pass a certain place on the way to work, I see some guys working on cars outside their house. It appears that they are fixing them for sale. I began noticing them when they started working on a Camaro, because I'm a Camaro fanatic. I'm tempted to stop and ask them if they would like t odo the work. perhaps it would only cost me 1/2 as much.

On another topic, Halemaumau Crater appears to be active! This is the crater where an explosion a while back tossed a large boulder up into the air and is causing volcanic smog to cover the state. This is the same crater where you USED to be able to drive up next to and walk to the edge to look in. Not anymore!

I think the last time there was activity in this crater, Mark Twain was here on island (around the turn of the century).

During the day, the webcam shows smoke and steam; however, now at night (Hawaii time is 6 hours earlier than Eastern) you can actually see the glowing. At least at this very moment I see glow. I may have to travel over there to see it live. It has been years since I was close to live lava.

To see the current smoke and/or glow, go to: http://hvo.wr.usgs.gov/cam3/

Around noon Monday they will come and inspect my irigation system. I will be very happy t oget this part of the project signed off.

The other day I walked down each row and noted the contion of all plants that are not doing well. Some trees were drying out before planting and some have transplant shock. Still the tall trees are doing well, but some of the small ones have issues. I'm also looking at the chart to see if I have any issues with the drip lines being kinked. That would show up as a bunch of trees in a line being dry or dying.

For those geeks reading this, I am using Excel with 41 rows or so of 41 trees each row. I still need to number the rows outside and perhaps make some mark down each row. If I lose track of my count, I have to walk back down the row and count again. I'll probably start out with the little orange flags I have and use a magic marker on it to place the numbers.

I have been contacted to help set up 2 websites. Both people are dragging their feet and I could have had both websites running already just in the past two days. Perhaps both of the people have gotten cold feet. It can't be due to price because I was not charging them much at all. Oh well!

I have a friend who used to work atthe same Kentucky radio station as I did. Randy called me the other day and told me some people he knows are coming to the Big Island and can I find them a cheap room? I did some research, but then he never called back!

And so it goes...

Normally the unit records many critical events and signals from an airplane while in flight. In the event of an accident, the box is retreived and examined to determine what went wrong.

It is too bad that we can't find a way to transmit that information to one or more satellites or ground stations. I know there is lots of data and the black box is the current best way to house all that data; however the space shuttle doesn't use one. It relies upon a downlink for the data.

There may be 5,000 or perhaps upwards to 10,000 planes in the air at any time and that would be tremendous amounts of data.

We may not be able to capture this data in realtime, but it would make it easier to analyze if we did not have to search for the black box.

The program is part of the Farm Bill and reimburses me for certain funds spent installing an irrigation system that avoids using valuable ground water (county water) which is in sort supply here.

The program reviewed my finances to ensure that I had the where-for-all to pay for substancial costs before I would be paid back. Once I passed that hurdle, an engineer met with me to discuss my farm. I was irrigating the farm for macadamia nuts and wanted to plant coffee. He reviewed my plans and then performed a GPS survey of the property. He made up a plan to use rainwater from the roof of my house and garage to fill a water holding tank. Excess water would be stored in 3 other tanks at the top of the property (altitude-wise).

Water from the tanks would be used to water the crops during times when we do not get enough rain. The plan also calls for cover crops, managing watering amounts and fertilizer to ensure that there is no runoff or waste.

As I finish certain milestones, I get paid back a percentage of my costs, up to the limit of my contract. Of course, should I not fulfil the contract, I must repay any monies paid by the government.

The nice thing about this system is that it has been professionally engineered and installed and I have been careful to ensure that even my part was done properly :-) The system will enhance the farm and should I ever dcide to sell, it will be a great addition and has already increased the cost-basis of the property.

For those who want more details, here is a link: http://www.nrcs.usda.gov/PROG...

I have to admit, they will pay in about 5 to 7 business days :-)

The next step is to use some of that money to get the water from my roof into the bottom tank.

Some of the small trees are being challenged in the growing department, but most are doing well.

I hope for a good drenching rain, and wait, and wait.... The driplines can only do so much with little rainfall.

The older dogs are being watched by someone else, because I am at work some of these days and the puppies need 3 meals a day.

For some reason, known only to the dogs, the older ones seem to want to wake me up every 15 to 30 minutes for hours at a time. Koa especially misses me so I can understand a whine from him.

I have laid all the dripline on the property and am assembling the attachments. I expect to have the whole property irrigated by perhaps Thursday. This means I can submit my receipts and get paid for the majority of my contract! Oh Joy!