Two days ago, I planted some seeds to start a container garden... they've already started to come up! Marigolds, cucumbers, chard, & tomatoes in little pots; an entire planter of mixed lettuces; and another container with basil & parsley starts from the farmer's market, along with cilantro from seed, and garlic that was sprouting in the kitchen. A nice little beginning to keep me going until the big garden beds decompose enough to be planted. That should take about 2 months in this climate. It seems odd to be starting seeds in October; I would never have done that in North Idaho! But it is prime planting season here in Hawaii, so lucky me! I have to get used to the idea of planting just enough to eat from fresh, as opposed to enough to can and freeze and store away for the long Winter and on until next harvest season. Here, we'll be able to eat from the garden all year long, so I guess I only need a couple tomato plants at a time, huh? And how long a row of green beans??
I also bought a cacao tree from which I hope to get the pods to make my own chocolate. It takes about 3 years for a cacao to begin to produce pods, and these pods grow directly from the trunk! They'll start out yellow, turn orange, then red and will have these fruits in all stages at the same time; sounds colorful and exotic. There's quite an involved process getting from cacao pod to bean to nib to actual cocoa and then on to chocolate. It's all so fascinating and I love the idea of being able to produce my own. I have the keiki (young) tree in a pot for now until we get an area cleared out back. Cacao want to grow in the shade of other taller trees - it's an understory jungle tree - so we'll tuck it between some of the big ohia.
We had fun visiting Volcanoes National Park with the local homeschool group this past week. Explored all around Crater Rim Drive: the Jaggar Museum, the Visitor Center, took a guided walk with a ranger who had grown up in the Park during the 70's when the caldera was full of lava curtains! But the highlight was exploring the Thurston Lava Tube. The first half of this huge lava tube has been smoothed out somewhat and lit up for an easy walk. The fun part comes at the mid-point of the tube where most people go on up the stone stairway to ground level and continue their hike back to the parking area. That's where we open the gate (it's okay, you're allowed), turn on our flashlights, and explore the second half of the tube where it's been kept in a more natural - and very dark - state! This section twists and turns as it crawls deeper into the earth; there are drop-offs, chunks that have fallen in, ledges and cracks. Ohia roots dangle overhead and rainwater drips through tiny cracks in the lava. It is awesome! And, I'll admit, a little scary to me, although Kerry absolutely loves it inside this earth-womb. The littlest kids and most of the moms opted to stay up at the surface in the sunshine, but all the teens and big kids (including Mike) went all the way to the furthest reaches of the tube, another 330-some yards; even little Kyla at 5 years old, was all smiles and excitement on this, her first trip inside the earth. I went partway in and then took a scared little Cedar back out to Mommy; then went back for another go, and ended up helping a tourist in the midst of a panic attack back to the surface. I understood her completely: been there myself, so it was interesting to be able to help another soul through it.
Progress on the ohana/studio has been slow but is picking up speed now that we're done running around every day. The delivery of our first load of materials arrived on Wednesday, as scheduled. Everything was off-loaded, accounted for, and moved under the carport before it rained again. Mike has drilled holes in the concrete and in the foundation blocks for rebar to connect the two and keep them in place. Right now, he's setting each block on its own mound of mortar mix so it'll rest level, then filling the hole with epoxy and sliding the rebar into its hole... it'll all set up and stay put even in a hurricane should one pass by! The siding on that side of the house will come off and be saved for reuse later. Then the beams and joists and all that can go up. I'll keep you posted.
So, everything is here now, and only 2 casualties: my golden elephant figure and my favorite mug from my good friend Karen :-( I was sad about that, but if this is all we lost I must have done a pretty decent job of packing and the sea must've been fairly calm to bear our cargo along smoothly. :-)
The only glitch now is the Post Office; they have completely screwed up our mail now. If anyone has sent us anything and it has been returned, keep trying. You have our correct address, and if it is on a lucky day it will get through to the Pahoa PO and then be delivered to us. Otherwise, it seems that somewhere along the way, it gets caught in the wrong slot or who knows what; we know that there are bills, checks, and dvds gone missing. :-( If anyone knows of any tricks besides calling the local PO, filling out their paper and online forms, let us know!
I know I should be posting photos here, and I plan to, but I need a chunk of time when my local computer genius (aka Kerry) can help me decipher the instructions for doing so. Don't hold your breath, but pics are coming eventually! ;-) And don't worry Mom, and anyone else on dial-up, I won't overload it!
Monday, October 22, 2007
Sunday, October 14, 2007
Boxes And Bins And Cargo, Oh My!
Our Blazer & freight arrived - already! - all those boxes and bins from Idaho. Yay! Only one casualty so far: my little golden elephant broke his trunk; other than that, so far so good. I will be slowly making my way though the rather large stack in the spare room for some time to come, but it's a fun process. The hale begins to feel more like it's really our home with each little addition from our previous home. Of course, the challenge is finding a spot for it all!
Mahalo nui loa to Honolulu Freight & Kona Trans for the safe passage of our possessions. :-)
Mahalo nui loa to Honolulu Freight & Kona Trans for the safe passage of our possessions. :-)
Friday, October 12, 2007
Another Gorgeous Day!
Two weeks here and construction on the ohana/studio addition has begun! Mike has been acquiring many of the tools he'll need for this project and has met with his chosen building materials supplier. Yesterday, he rented a cement-cutting saw - quite an amazing contraption with a place to attach our garden hose so it keeps cool while cutting - and after many false starts and a few minor repairs, the slab was cut to accommodate the foundation blocks. That was Step 1. Now we await the first delivery from the supplier; it's supposed to arrive 'sometime next week' and have everything needed for the foundation and floor framing. While we wait, we have to figure out what to do with all these chunks of concrete laying about... maybe use 'em to border raised beds?
Kerry has easily slipped into the Hawaiian lifestyle in the week she's been here. Of course, she's been coming to the islands since she was 6, so that helps. She has already connected with the local Dive Shop and signed up for the next set of SCUBA classes, which start just next weekend. This has been a longtime dream of hers: to become SCUBA certified. So she's been swimming laps and treading water every chance she gets to build up her endurance. This is a great activity for her since she's been bothered with shin splints lately and hasn't been able to do much hiking or running (which she normally enjoys). Another Island goal of Kerry's is also being met: she's learning Japanese! Found some cool online courses to start with; if we find something local, she'll do that too. Her third goal for her time here is to find a job, and with the way things have been falling into place for her, we have no doubt that the right one will show up soon!
We start each day by sharing a papaya. Still getting plenty of avocados, lemons, and guavas from our yard, and other fresh produce every Sunday from the Maku'u farmer's market. We've picked ulu (breadfruit) from the tree at the Ahalanui warm pond, one of the places where we like to swim. As soon as it's cut from the tree, it'll start to drip its sticky latex sap; this can be used for boat caulking (it's that sticky!) or to bind deep cuts. To cook the ulu, I cut it in half, boil/steam until tender (an hour or so), cool it enough to handle, then peel and cut out the core. Then this time I cut it up into bite-sized chunks and semi-mashed them. Sauteed onion, garlic and hamburger, added in the ulu, along with 'a little dis, a little dat'... and ended up with a yummy dinner - it was ono (means delicious).
Five more boxes of media mail arrived all in one day, but some of our mail is still being redirected back to Idaho!?! Go figure. We'll try again to stop the previous mail-forward request (from May) and get the post office system straightened out - wish us luck! So glad Chris is at one end to intercept and forward the stragglers before they end up yoyoing back and forth forever! Thank you Chris!
A couple nights ago, Kerry and I were invited to a women's new moon circle at Suzannah's house in Hawaiian Acres, upcountry. (She's a mutual friend of a friend, but that friend didn't show up.) Her moon lodge is a platform way up high amongst ancient ohia trees, and there was the most awesome nightview of the stars and of the glow from Madame Pele's latest lava flow! It was so nice to make some new friends. We enjoyed singing and chanting together, lovely cups of tea, and peaceful deep lulls in the conversation, but the real bonding came in descending the ladder - two of us needed some extra help and encouragement there, and then there were big hugs all around and a light Hawaiian rain when everybody made it down safely! Kisses from heaven.
PS: I love hearing from those of you who have written to me or posted comments. Feel free to continue!
Kerry has easily slipped into the Hawaiian lifestyle in the week she's been here. Of course, she's been coming to the islands since she was 6, so that helps. She has already connected with the local Dive Shop and signed up for the next set of SCUBA classes, which start just next weekend. This has been a longtime dream of hers: to become SCUBA certified. So she's been swimming laps and treading water every chance she gets to build up her endurance. This is a great activity for her since she's been bothered with shin splints lately and hasn't been able to do much hiking or running (which she normally enjoys). Another Island goal of Kerry's is also being met: she's learning Japanese! Found some cool online courses to start with; if we find something local, she'll do that too. Her third goal for her time here is to find a job, and with the way things have been falling into place for her, we have no doubt that the right one will show up soon!
We start each day by sharing a papaya. Still getting plenty of avocados, lemons, and guavas from our yard, and other fresh produce every Sunday from the Maku'u farmer's market. We've picked ulu (breadfruit) from the tree at the Ahalanui warm pond, one of the places where we like to swim. As soon as it's cut from the tree, it'll start to drip its sticky latex sap; this can be used for boat caulking (it's that sticky!) or to bind deep cuts. To cook the ulu, I cut it in half, boil/steam until tender (an hour or so), cool it enough to handle, then peel and cut out the core. Then this time I cut it up into bite-sized chunks and semi-mashed them. Sauteed onion, garlic and hamburger, added in the ulu, along with 'a little dis, a little dat'... and ended up with a yummy dinner - it was ono (means delicious).
Five more boxes of media mail arrived all in one day, but some of our mail is still being redirected back to Idaho!?! Go figure. We'll try again to stop the previous mail-forward request (from May) and get the post office system straightened out - wish us luck! So glad Chris is at one end to intercept and forward the stragglers before they end up yoyoing back and forth forever! Thank you Chris!
A couple nights ago, Kerry and I were invited to a women's new moon circle at Suzannah's house in Hawaiian Acres, upcountry. (She's a mutual friend of a friend, but that friend didn't show up.) Her moon lodge is a platform way up high amongst ancient ohia trees, and there was the most awesome nightview of the stars and of the glow from Madame Pele's latest lava flow! It was so nice to make some new friends. We enjoyed singing and chanting together, lovely cups of tea, and peaceful deep lulls in the conversation, but the real bonding came in descending the ladder - two of us needed some extra help and encouragement there, and then there were big hugs all around and a light Hawaiian rain when everybody made it down safely! Kisses from heaven.
PS: I love hearing from those of you who have written to me or posted comments. Feel free to continue!
Thursday, October 4, 2007
We Made It!
Whooo-hooo! We made it! It took a week to get back online but I'm happy to say we're here at last: on the island of Hawaii, in our cute little home. Although it's been raining more than not, it's a lovely warm tropical rain, sometimes a downpour, but always nice and warm.
Most of this first week has been spent settling in, transforming our hale (pronounced hah-lay, house) from 'vacation rental mode' into our home. Anyone who knows me knows that I enjoy this kind of project! We bought some wire shelves for each of the closets for a little extra storage space that allows the air to circulate, a very important consideration here in this humid climate. And of course, we had to get more bookshelves! One box of media mail has already arrived, the rest could take up to 5 weeks from when we sent them. Our car and freight are somewhere out in the Pacific, on their way over still.
My little pineapple patch was completely overgrown with ferns and a kind of 'clover' viney thing. It didn't take long for me to get it all weeded and looking healthy again. The one pineapple that was ripening had been harvested and enjoyed by one of our guests, but there will be more. Every time we eat a pineapple, we cut off the top, dry it for a couple days, then plant it in a little mound of cinders. It takes a year or so before they start producing. Each plant will give 3 pineapples, one at a time, and they each take about 10 months to mature. We have yet to eat one of our own home-grown, but only because we've never been here when they ripened.
I started a future raised-garden bed and a compost bin. The soil here is mostly cinders, kind of a volcanic gravel with a thin layer of humus & dirt on top, very fertile but hard to work with. There are also larger chunks of rock that we dig out with a prybar and add to our blackrock walls. There are rock walls lining our driveway, around a bed of ti plants, and along the fenceline in spots.
I made my first batch of guava jam with 4 huge guavas from our jungle next door; I got a whole quart of delicious jam! Also in the jungle are at least 3 varieties of wild orchids blooming rampantly, very pretty above all the ferns and other greenery. We have a nice crop of lemons ripening a few at a time, and loads of avocados on our tree. It's avocado season - yay!! The 3 varieties of gardenias in our yard are blooming, as well as the star jasmine, making heavenly fragrance waft in the windows.
Yesterday, Mike & I packed a little picnic lunch and drove down the road to eat it at one of our favorite nearby shoreline spots called Honolulu Landing where the ancients would draw up their fishing canoes. It's so nice to be able to be near the ocean again; that's something we both missed a lot during our time in Idaho. After enjoying the ocean for a while, we drove towards Hilo to the Panaewa Rainforest Zoo to meet up with our friends, Molly & Willow, who moved here from Bonners Ferry a few years ago. Their homeschool group was having a field trip day at the zoo so there were lots of little kids there, too. It was great to see all these people again; we're sort of 'honorary grandparents' of the homeschool group here, which is a fun way to pass on my accumulated knowledge about homeschooling.
I could go on and on but I need to have breakfast and get outside into the sunshine (before it starts to rain again!). We'll be picking up Kerry from the airport this afternoon, and look forward to having her join us in our Hawaiian home.
Most of this first week has been spent settling in, transforming our hale (pronounced hah-lay, house) from 'vacation rental mode' into our home. Anyone who knows me knows that I enjoy this kind of project! We bought some wire shelves for each of the closets for a little extra storage space that allows the air to circulate, a very important consideration here in this humid climate. And of course, we had to get more bookshelves! One box of media mail has already arrived, the rest could take up to 5 weeks from when we sent them. Our car and freight are somewhere out in the Pacific, on their way over still.
My little pineapple patch was completely overgrown with ferns and a kind of 'clover' viney thing. It didn't take long for me to get it all weeded and looking healthy again. The one pineapple that was ripening had been harvested and enjoyed by one of our guests, but there will be more. Every time we eat a pineapple, we cut off the top, dry it for a couple days, then plant it in a little mound of cinders. It takes a year or so before they start producing. Each plant will give 3 pineapples, one at a time, and they each take about 10 months to mature. We have yet to eat one of our own home-grown, but only because we've never been here when they ripened.
I started a future raised-garden bed and a compost bin. The soil here is mostly cinders, kind of a volcanic gravel with a thin layer of humus & dirt on top, very fertile but hard to work with. There are also larger chunks of rock that we dig out with a prybar and add to our blackrock walls. There are rock walls lining our driveway, around a bed of ti plants, and along the fenceline in spots.
I made my first batch of guava jam with 4 huge guavas from our jungle next door; I got a whole quart of delicious jam! Also in the jungle are at least 3 varieties of wild orchids blooming rampantly, very pretty above all the ferns and other greenery. We have a nice crop of lemons ripening a few at a time, and loads of avocados on our tree. It's avocado season - yay!! The 3 varieties of gardenias in our yard are blooming, as well as the star jasmine, making heavenly fragrance waft in the windows.
Yesterday, Mike & I packed a little picnic lunch and drove down the road to eat it at one of our favorite nearby shoreline spots called Honolulu Landing where the ancients would draw up their fishing canoes. It's so nice to be able to be near the ocean again; that's something we both missed a lot during our time in Idaho. After enjoying the ocean for a while, we drove towards Hilo to the Panaewa Rainforest Zoo to meet up with our friends, Molly & Willow, who moved here from Bonners Ferry a few years ago. Their homeschool group was having a field trip day at the zoo so there were lots of little kids there, too. It was great to see all these people again; we're sort of 'honorary grandparents' of the homeschool group here, which is a fun way to pass on my accumulated knowledge about homeschooling.
I could go on and on but I need to have breakfast and get outside into the sunshine (before it starts to rain again!). We'll be picking up Kerry from the airport this afternoon, and look forward to having her join us in our Hawaiian home.
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