This year is shaping up to be an amazing planting season. The three tiered nursery buildings are complete and fully stocked with over 75,000 trees ready to go into the ground at first sign of the winter / spring rains. An additional 75,000 trees are at various stages of development in the nursery and will be ready as soon as the first 75,000 are planted. Additionally, we have in excess of 10,000 other native trees ready for field planting. The bulk of these are sandalwood that have been paired in the nursery with native understory plants.

 To support the scale of this year's efforts we have established a field camp to house additional workers for the planting season. A military personnel tent is being used as a test of a number of "off-the-grid" technologies. Wind generators will supply the standby power for most of the lighting needs. Hydraulically heated elevated flooring panels have been designed and built to take the chill off the cool winter nights. The nighttime temperatures have been getting into the mid forties and with the rain can be pretty harsh without dry heat. Various techniques are being explored to heat the circulating water with the ultimate goal being to use solar heated water as much as possible. Water sources are always a challenge and we have put in a test catchment in a depression next to the tent. The water will be pumped using 12 volt pumps driven by wind generators and collected in an elevated chamber in the field support structure. Purification will also be possible for the portion needed as potable water. Beside the value of keeping planting crews comfortable and near the job site, this is a first opportunity to evaluate many of the renewable and low impact methods of providing needed utilities in remote locations.

As far as the weather goes December brought record rainfall levels and our planting site weather station is showing full soil saturation at the 2 foot, 3 foot and 4 foot sensors. The surface sensor had been showing lower readings due to recent dry weather. Rains last week and heavier rains over this weekend should bring the surface moisture up to optimal levels. Once the moisture is at holding capacity we will start the planting in earnest. We are set up for 4 planting crews to operate in tandem. The field preparation is almost complete and the field prep crew will be able to stay several weeks ahead of the planting crew.

We have started the process of repurposing surplus military equipment. As it turns out there is a lot in common between a military operation and a large scale planting operation. We have been able to source "Water Buffalo" water hauling trailers, multi-fuel field generators, 5 ton and 10 ton flat bed trucks, military tents for both personnel and equipment and an array of extremely well built field support equipment. It seems only appropriate in the long standing tradition of forging military hardware into plow shares.

Thanks again to all of our supporters. It is ultimately you that are bringing back the Hawaiian forest.