Beautiful Days

More days full of working hard, getting lots done, appreciating we are still getting hot and sunny days with rain now and then but not steady. Certainly was weird to prep Thanksgiving on a hot sunny day, hearing about the snow and freezing temperatures back in Oly. I missed cooking with and for the girls, especially, and wish I could send them virtual pie, but did have a fun dinner with Jason and Lauren and oh 18 or so other folks (and puppies), over at the neighbors!

Here's my typical daily pattern: wake up when the sun's been over the horizon just for maybe a half hour. I do around 20 minutes of yoga, and maybe write in my journal, as Dan needs more sleep and we have basically a one-room house, so this is a perfect time to be forced to do things that are very quiet. I'll walk around the garden to see if any fruits have dropped and check on anything recently transplanted. Then once Dan has stirred I start making the morning fruit smoothie - first soaking the chia seeds, then getting out frozen apple-bananas, a couple liliquoi, apple, ginger, maybe a papaya, lemon or lime, a partial avocado pit and some avocado (very high source of insoluble as well as soluble fiber, very good for the arteries), and whatever we have that's green (mint, chard, basil, kale). Also a little water or ice cubes. Blur it all up in the vitamix (have to turn the generator on), then add the soaked chia seeds and voila, delicious morning drink that's kind of like bubble tea, I imagine, with the pleasing tapioca-like texture of the chia seeds.

We figure out what our priorities are for the day, and then either work together or go off to do what's top of our list. Usually gardening for me and something with a large machine for Dan. Always nice when we are working together, always very interesting... like last week, Dan needed to move some steel he has been welding at neighbor's, a 74' beam that will be a bridge for the hydro pipe to pass over a small stream called Mahe Make. To move it he needs to use the big excavator he shipped here last year. He asks if I can help, so I trot along, thinking I will help him adjust it on the machine and then head back here.


Dan and excavator

But it turned out the beam needed to be steadied as he drove it back over here, a hilly half mile with many interesting obstacles to avoid. I walked at one end, keeping the beam from swinging around and hitting things, like the neighbor's shop, truck, fence, gate, and trees. This took a lot of strength as well as a certain amount of finesse to control the momentum, felt like steering a ship with a huge bow sprit through a cramped marina.

We slowly progressed, at a walking pace, back to our side of the bridge - this part was a little tricky, bridge is a one-lane, partly rotting wooden structure over a steep rocky ravine, and Dan had to drive the excavator not down the middle as he prefers, balancing the 20 tons of machine over the beams of the bridge, but off to the side so I could control the beam dangling from the excavator claws. Don't know if you can imagine this, it would have made a great picture... There actually were a couple guys in a pickup that stopped to watch us for awhile.

This was a typical daily adventure in that although I say "sure" I get to a point of thinking "not so sure!," but then eventually am proud and well yah a little boastful. Growing up with older brothers prepared me well.


Here's an early morning (moon was still out) picture of a bean and cucumber trellis we made out of the super handy bamboo stakes from the upper part of the property. This little garden patch also represents two mornings of prying out hono hono grass and perennial peanut, which is a cover crop nitrogen-fixer. After getting good and hot digging with pitchfork in the 80+ degree late morning, it's time to go down to the upper waterfall area (the one with the basking rock) to take a dip. And be amazed always at the dazzling beauty of that area, and think how I would love to share it with anyone who can venture out here!


Here I'm planting a miracle berry up on our house site. Miracle berry is a fruit that makes whatever you eat next taste as sweet as candy; lemon tastes like lemonade.


Sophie says to take more pictures of me, so here's another one, at the City of Refuge by the Great Wall, which was built around 1550. We spent a day over at the Kona side and visited this beautiful site in the evening, ancient royal grounds that provided a sanctuary for anyone in danger, during battle or if they had broken a kapu (law) that was punishable by death - such as women eating with men.

I wanted to write about what it's like being on "the other side" of the county and it's regulations... and how it looks like we finally have the go-ahead to build our house - we got an architect's stamp and submitted the plans to the county and it seems to be a go - but I have run on long enough so I will stop now.

And go prep some more garden beds.

Hoping everyone is super well in your life, and that you had a great Thanksgiving!

love and aloha,
Rachel

Rainy season starts

Hi friends and family,

It's quite fun for me to think of things to share with you all week, until I have so many things to say I can't wait for a day when we're running the generator anyway; like today, doing some laundry, too wet to work outside just yet, so I can get on my computer.

It's been storming and pouring here for a few days, 10 inches from Friday noon to Saturday noon! I was just driving back from a big plant sale at a fruit tree wholesaler, the station wagon loaded down with 24 avocados, citrus, sapote, rollinia, figs, soursop, a curry and a miracle fruit, when it started to pour, and barely has stopped since, now these babies (well some are 5 feet) have been sitting out in the yard getting knocked about by the wind... fine welcome to their new home.

When it rains like this the stream jumps up and churns reddish brown, and the waterfalls pound like thunder. Sometimes I'll think it's a jet plane going overhead low, but it's just the roar of Umaumau Falls, which is the next stream over the hill, or Kamaee Stream, which is right here. Just a few days ago I was lying out on a wonderfully smooth basking rock in the middle of Kamaee, absolutely in a state of divine sunshine bliss, as was Cinnamon the little Chihuahua neighbor dog hanging out with me. Now that rock is getting even smoother, blasted by bits of lava and clay.


Basking rock on Kamaee above small waterfall we climb through to swim below

Earlier this week was spent planting and mowing. I greatly appreciate that there are no: ticks, snakes, poison ivy, or poisonous spiders here. It amazes me that I can thrash through the tall grasses in pursuit of a lemon or some other fruit usually, without really worrying about much other than some pricker slashes from the few invasives that don't realize they are on an island and aren't supposed to need pricker protection (no indigenous mammals).

I don't like that there is: rat lung disease, which makes it so you can't eat anything fresh from the garden without careful examination, triple washing, and possibly cooking - it's a nematode carried by slugs and snails via rat host. Every other week you hear someone attest to a different version of this disease - big big deal, or no big deal, in the slug slime or not, rinse in vinegar or no difference from washing in water... It is truly amazing that this potentially life-threatening disease has received so little research that after years and years of it being in southeast Asia, now here, and moving into the south U.S., so little is understood about it. I also am not crazy about the rats that carry some other disease in their pee so you also have to be careful about the outside of things like bananas, avocados, and the luscious liliquoi that rats may have crawled over. I am always telling Jason not to just bite into those...


Giant African Snail, lured by rotting liliquoi; Dan had never seen one of these here before


Other than that, it's pretty much just mosquitoes and centipedes for biting pests, not bad at all. And the centipedes are really shy, preferring dark undersides of rotting debris, and they do eat tons of other garden bugaboos. Oh and bees, anticipating I will get stung this season, and ready to try two antidotes I've heard of - smash up/chew and apply either plantain or hono hono grass. Geckos and skinks are plentiful and companionable and also are great bug catchers, as are the beautiful and large spiders.


Maybe this tiny skink (that was in our house) eats fleas?

Also here's a picture of house so you can see where we live, temporarily, while getting everything in place to build a regular house. The everything includes - a subdivision approval to get a building permit, architect's okay on house design, plumber design for catchment and cesspool. We are actively working on all these things and hoping to get started with house this winter.


Temporary house that gets bigger and bigger as we wait for building permit... from left to right, first the living area was built, then kitchen, shower, laundry, potting shed.

There is always the irony that in our effort to live "sustainably off-grid," we are using more fossil fuels than the average town dweller, and probably more than a suburban home too. I have mowed the whole place twice and must say that one thing I didn't anticipate would be actually breathing in more gasoline fumes than usual, as I chug along behind the mower. Eventually the hydro will provide electricity and we can switch to battery-powered tools and car, but in the meantime just putting in the hydro uses a lot of fuel.

So clearly we are not reducing our carbon footprints, especially of course with the air travel added in. BUT IT IS SO COOL! And fun! And I am so pleased with being able to be here and being able to make this change in my life. I am just loving my days of working in the garden, gleaning foods, cooking, some town and neighbor visits for a bit of social life, and generally working with Dan to make all our plans take shape.

One more picture - the seedlings in the seed-start area attached to the laundry (to the far right in the house picture). Planted everything within 2 weeks of getting here and already have had to transplant half to larger pots. I am very proud of these babies, and trying to toughen both them and myself up before planting them in the harsh world of the outside garden!

October 26 - 3 weeks here

(I sent this out as an email...)

Hi friends and family,

I've been thinking of how to share Hawaiian life with everyone, and wrote a few entries in a blog but that doesn't seem to be working, so I thought I'd just send out emails now and then, and attach a few photos.

So just to start off: having been here not quite 3 weeks, after feeling very surreal for a very long time, I am finally feeling more acclimatized. Slowly and carefully I am building my routine, and my sense of what to do to make this farm work, what is my contribution and what is fun!

Every day I accumulate new bumps and bruises because everything is so new. Actually yesterday was a milestone, no new cuts! Cuts are memorable because they get infected immediately unless you keep them very clean. For example - lemon tree unkindly speared me with it's huge needles as I was kindly giving it compost. Wheelbarrow leg jammed into my leg as I yanked it over a bump. Foot got scraped as it slipped through a pallette - of course I'm wearing flip-flops as I do all these garden chores, because the box with all my work shoes is still en route (parcel post is veeerrrry slow).

Exciting new home improvement yesterday: Dan and I recrafted the laundry area/potting shed which is under a tarp attached to the side of the semi-house we are in, and expanded the potting shed to allow for many more plant starts. Plus room to hang clothes. Hanging them outside runs the risk that a cloud will come zipping over and dump on them, which happens every now and then when you thought the day was cloudless.

Here's a photo of a few fruits I scrounged the other day from the lower garden, which is in the heart of our camp and mostly has shrubs and trees now: 5 Jamaican liliquoi - they are the torpedo-shaped ones (passion-fruit, oh so delish), 2 round yellow liliquoi, the brown lump is an air potato (grows on a vine, can get very high up in trees), a variegated lemon, and a cup full of blueberry guava. The leaf is from a Ti plant, which is a greeting tree planted by every home, also very tasty cooked in lau lau.

That's it for now - time to turn off the generator and make some potting soil.

love,

Rachel