Mom's Big Island Visit, Day #4

Mom had been having difficulty putting her shoes on while standing or squatting, so she was bringing them into the house and sitting on the couch; she didn't like wearing outside shoes inside the house. So I started 12/16 by finding and cleaning up a bench for the front porch. I took one of the benches that are usually in the patio area adjacent to the garage. It fit perfectly on the front porch.


I met with Brad & Kai from Aikane Nursery later in the morning to talk about the fruiting trees. I would like the trees to be shorter so that the fruit are easier to harvest. When they examined the approximately 40 foot tall avocado tree they found a very large, hollow, rotted portion in the main trunk making it hazardous to keep around; they also found 2 suckers, one large enough that it is bearing fruit already. The rotted main tree will be completely removed, the 2 others will be trained to grow more laterally so that the fruit is easier to harvest. Kai will be doing most of the work trimming the trees and shaping them. The lychee tree had already lost 2 main branches and young shoots were growing from the sides of branches adjacent to the gap that had been created. They will be shortening all branches back to the level of the new shoots. The tangerine trees will also be pruned down. The persimmon branches hanging over the garage roof will be removed and the new shoots lower down will be trained as the fruit-bearing branches. The very tall panax hedge to the east of the persimmon will be completely removed so that the persimmon can expand towards that direction. The mountain apple is at just about the right height, it will be encouraged to put out more lateral growth. The shrubby lower growth on the macadamia nut will be removed, but it will be allowed to stay tall since macadamia nuts are harvested when they fall off the tree. The 30 or so banana plants will be thinned out and the area they covered will be pushed back to be closer to the pasture fence. The fence itself will be reinforced with hog wire to keep the pigs out; they have been coming in and tearing up the ground around the trees to get at the fallen avocados. Forgot to get a 'before' picture, so here is a photo of part of the area.

July 2014: Mom checking out the lychee tree, before the branches broke; avocado in background.

After that I met with Masa. He comes by every other week and mows the lawn. Sometimes he thins out the plants near the house to keep them healthy. Last month I marked a bunch of invasive tree species - African tulip tree, octopus tree, & Christmas berry - that I want him to remove. We talked about exactly what I want done, timing, and payment.

Then we went to visit Uncle Kazu. We arrived about the same time as the carolers from the Girl Scouts. The turnout in the Day Room was sparse - just the 3 of us - because both Sadie & Cheryl were off.


The Girl Scouts gave each of us a hand drawn card. The carolers left the Day Room then went from room to room singing for the residents.


Here's the card I was given.


I changed Mom's bandage and her thumb is looking really good. By the end of next week it should be all healed up.


Mom has been complaining about the cold even though it has warmed up and the evenings are only getting down to 68 degrees F. I even turned the heat up on the tankless heater to 120 degrees F so her showers will be warmer. I think it is the anemia that is causing her to be so cold all the time. It wouldn't be so bad (on me) except she won't do anything to try to keep warm. I tell her to put various things on that she brought to keep warm like her leggings and her vest but she doesn't want to do that. And I have a really nice heavy fleece with a hood that she refuses to use. I even brought a heating pad but she refuses to lie in bed to keep warm.

The task of the day for me was removing everything from the kitchen cabinets to get them ready for Chris to repair the termite damage. The uppermost cabinets along the south wall were very interesting, I had never looked in them before.

Upper cabinets along the south kitchen wall.

Here's what the inside of the cabinets look like. It's one loooooong cabinet.


There has been a lot of termite damage throughout the house. It has been most noticeable in the kitchen since that is the place where we spend the most time. When you don't know exactly what it is, termite frass is annoying, but when you now what it really is termite frass is very unappetizing. Frass = insect poop. So when I had earlier written about having to wash things before cooking it was the frass I was needing to remove.

Termite frass anyone?

Last month I put out some sticky traps to catch various unwanted guests. Here is one I found in the corner of the kitchen. It wasn't here the day we arrived. It came in some time over the first few days we were here. The card was originally in the corner to the right. Even with only a couple of its feet on the floor this centipede was able to move the card all the way over to the left!

Centipede on sticky trap, quarter in photo for size.