Good-Bye 2008!

It's been raining like crazy these past few days, even more than the usual rainy amount we get on this wet side of the island. Got another 4" just today, and it wasn't even raining nearly as hard as it has been!! Everything's growing madly - it's a jungle out there! Some of our screenhouse plants are not enjoying the extra humidity levels though (it hovers between 86-98%) and are succumbing to various humidity-related diseases, especially the tomatoes. We're still getting a few but I think I'll replant them with a more resistant variety. I need a bigger screenhouse already! The green beans have reached the ceiling and are cascading back down and the snap peas are following suit. It's an 8-foot ceiling, by the way!! We need a step stool just to pick vegies for our dinner!

The baby White Pearl chicks have graduated to the big pen with the others. Everybody seems to be getting along just fine, establishing their pecking order and squawking over the coconut halves that Mike splits open for them every couple days. It'll be another few months before we start getting eggs from these birds.

I had to pack away most of our books to protect them from the high humidity. I'm having a heck of a time keeping the mildew in check in the studio side of the house. The older hale/guest house side doesn't have as much trouble with this, probably because there's less stuff in it, but also because it has dried out over the years. This is the first winter for living in the studio and it hasn't quite dried out all the way after the drenching it got during construction! It's odd for me to not have a bookcase full of favorites and references ready at hand. We bought some shallow plastic storage bins, fixed weatherstripping along the rim of each to create an airtight seal, and added in silica desiccant along with the books. I can still get to them, but it's a bit more hassle. Better than losing them to the moisture though! We've done this for other susceptible items as well; it really helps. In our 'real' house, we are going to build a 'dry room' big enough to be a library too. Don't know when that'll be, but I'm having fun drawing up plans for it. :-)

Still not missing the snow. There's snow on Mauna Kea, almost a foot last I heard, and everyone's excited to see it. Hope everyone's surviving the winter weather in whatever form it takes in your area.

Here's wishing you all a Happy New Year in 2009!
Aloha, Liz