How things grow

So Pippi's roost is made out of bamboo that GB harvested from our plants. He both primed and painted it... but a mere 3 weeks later and the bamboo has sprouted thru the paint. sigh...

Some birds are molting. They look pretty ugly w/o neck feathers

Garden Grows!

Corn!

Pippi shares her roost with wild chicken

Garden

I've planted up the garden recently. Here's how it looks right now:

soybeans

corn

lettuces and chives

squash blossoms (pumpkin)

And yesterday was Ra'am's SAT day. We got up early and he jumped in the pool to wake up.

sunrise swim!

A solution, hopefully!

GB had the great idea to make Pippi a spot of her own (or for her kind- we might get more peahens). I was sick in bed and he went up to the shed and came back some hours later with this! Actually I *think* it was a few hours. But maybe it was the whole day... or maybe took place over the course of a couple of days. I was feverish and delirious!
Ra'am and GB are getting ready to place the roost in a hole and then pour concrete around the base to secure it. Next up, roof!

The following weekend- after the rest of the family has been sick....

GB had a great idea to make a thatched roof. Despite having eaten only 2 pieces of toast in 3 days, he was motivated (i.e. crazy) enough to go outside and work. He made a frame out of bamboo (no shortage of that here) and put chicken wire (also in abundance here) over it so we could weave ti leaves through the holes.

Photos by Luka

Fini!

All that work.... but would she USE the roost?

We attached a food bowl to the bamboo and I had her watch me put the food inside. She walked all around that thing, looking, and sniffing and craning her neck to see what was up. I would say it took a good 10+ minutes:

voila!

Also wanted to note that GB planted several palms here last weekend. The pinanga philipensis (near Pippi's roost) and 2 pinanga coronata.

Animals

Someone has been peeing on Gandhi's head, it seems.

Tamarind (front) and Thorn (behind)

Tamarind coming out of the bush for some loving

While picking up some bricks at the Hakalau house we came upon a "nest" of blind snakes. Yes, contrary to popular belief, we DO have snakes here in Hawai'i. They just happen to be the size of an earthworm and blind. I was unable to catch the tongue flicking out, but you can clearly see the scales here.



And here's one of our crayfish. We got a bunch of these from Tom and Eve's stream on Thanksgiving. We put them in the tank and only ever saw one- the one that was a lot bigger than the others. We figured he ate the rest?
But then in January, out popped one that we'd never seen-- a smaller one.

I'm not sure if this is the big one or the small one.

Pippi thinks she's a human. Since we've had her it's been dry, dry, dry. Rains started and she isn't thrilled with the new chicken coop configuration. So she hangs out under the house. Mostly she sits ON the Honda....
and the other day we found her here.... right outside the front door.
We wouldn't care, except for the fact that Pippi, like all birds, poops ALL THE TIME. gross!


A solution is on the way! Stay tuned!

Bananas, Avocados and loss of communications

We had another busy weekend, with the excitement of a tsunami, a birthday celebration and some farm work.

GB started it off by working on Friday and produced this lovely row of bananas (williams) that we had just picked up in Honoka'a the previous day.
Saturday was the tsunami day and once the all clear was sounded, we went ahead with plans for a birthday celebration for GB.

Sunday we set out to plant the 2 avocado trees GB got for his bday.

There were a bunch of trees (mostly waiwi) in the way of where the avos would go, so GB pulled out the chainsaw. No problemo, right?

He got the chainsaw stuck. No problemo, right?

After freeing the stuck chainsaw, more trees were downed. I went down to the house to get some water and the kids told me something was wrong with the phone. UH OH! The phone line that GB and I worked SO hard to lay was RIGHT where we were downing trees! A quick check confirmed my worst suspicions.

Wire (very thick- think pinkie width) is severed. Severed phone. Severed DSL.

Since there was no internet, Ra'am was available to dig.I sat and marveled at things close to the ground

And we managed to get 2 avo trees planted. One Kahalu'u and one Sharwil.
KAHALUU: Ripe in the Fall (August-October) but an alternate bearer (every other year). A large, oblong fruit with a tiny seed and green skin. The best-flavored Hawaiian variety.

SHARWIL: Most popular with commercial growers. Has a long and heavy bearing season throughout the winter months (November-February). Medium size, pear-shaped fruit with a small seed, high oil content, and a green rough skin. "Sharwil" is a regular bearer.

Tsunami Watch 2010

Well the tsunami we were expecting turned out to be small (1 meter) and for that, we are all thankful. It was a beautiful day and seemed like a holiday!

We went over to our neighbor's house to watch the wave from there, since they have a more expansive ocean view.

This is our gulch in front of our house. We don't get to see the waves crashing there like they do.

There were tons of boats in the water

Lots of aircraft in the sky (all emergency related... the airport was closed)

We did see some evidence of the wave here in Onomea Bay. But truly, if we didn't know there was a tsunami headed our way, we wouldn't have noticed. It was beautiful!