Nirvani Tejadevanatha writes us from his travels

Aum Namah Sivaya from Singapore,

Satguru and I enjoyed some time to catch up on e-mails and rest a little before leaving Singapore. We had a nice lunch of rocket dosi, coconut chutney and Mango Lasi with our church members. Then it is off to Malaysia. The weather here reminds us of Kauai, except a lot more humid. Stay tuned for another upcoming report. 


Aum Aum,     
Travel Team

A couple of weeks ago, Doug, our excellent hired worker, was planning out some closet shelving for the slipi house, which he is helping to renovate. That's the building the slipis live in when they come to Kauai. In passing, he consulted with Acharya Kumarnathaswami as to whether he should buy MDF (press-board) or plywood for them. Acharya offered to provide solid boards instead from our large stock of local woods, milled and dried here at the monastery. 

The option that jumped forward was to use some of the wide monkeypod boards that came from a tree that arborists gifted to the monastery after removing it from the side of the Shell station across the highway from Coco Palms hotel. The tree was enormous, and its antiquity was revealed by the fact that it was already a large tree when captured in a photo taken at Elvis Presley's wedding. 

Over the retreat Acharya chose the boards from a pile made from a single log just the right length, so wastage would be close to zero. Fourteen shelves were needed, 10 of them 19 inches wide and 4 at 16 inches; all about 5 feet long. 

Since our thickness planer accepts a maximum 15" width, Acharya ripped the wide planks down the middle, ran them through the planer and then edge glued them back together. (Sometime in the future, we hope to get a 20 inch planer!)

Step two was to hand plane the machined surface. Step three: sand with 6" orbital sander. Step four, apply sanding sealer, and Step 5 brush on one coat of lacquer. Eighteen man hours after the ambitious offer was made, the shelves stood ready to be installed.