Rainy Days and Sundays?

When I first woke up it was somewhat dry. But as I waited to wake up it began to drizzle. Then it turned in to rain. And did so on and off all day. Until the early evening.

Five minutes after sunrise and drizzly.

I went out in the drizzle to pick up a lawn rake. Basically, since there are very few tools here, when I need something I go to Sunshine True Value and buy it. So over time I will accumulate all the tools I need here. I also picked up fencing staples; now we have enough if we redo the fence between Jessie's house and this house; I had to buy the whole box, there was no bulk bin where I could just get a dozen or so.

I got the metal one on the left.

For lunch, options were limited since it was Sunday. I ended up at King's View Cafe again. This time I got the Steak Salad; I had originally asked for a Steak Plate but without the rice and extra salad instead, like I did with the Mahimahi Plate. This time the guy taking orders said, "You know you could just order a Steak Salad," so I did!

King's View's menu.

King's View's ice cream choices.

Steak Salad with Caesar salad base; I think I'll try their regular offering next time.

No plastic take out containers are allowed in the state.

While waiting for my lunch to be prepared, I looked over towards the Senior Center. It looks so barren without the 2 large trees that used to provide shade over much of the lawn area as well as the street and the other side of the street. Last June part of one of the trees fell across the road and caused a big problem; it was blocking all emergency services and the police from being able to respond. It had fallen across the only road that access those services! It took a couple hours to clear enough to allow them to exit. Ultimately both trees were removed; the other one also had a badly rotted section. Now Kamehameha I really is the Lonely One.

The 2 trees would have filled the upper half of this photo.

I also walked along the store fronts next to King's View Cafe; they were all closed. There are several nice informational displays between the store fronts. One is a hand painted map of the islands, another was interesting facts about the state.

As I was returning, I turned to go up the hill and saw that it was raining at the top of the hill. It was overcast but there was no precipitation at the main road. The house is at about 1000 feet elevation; the main road is at about 400 feet. It makes a difference in the weather here.

From bottom of hill, looking up towards house which is at end of the road that is visible.

About halfway up the hill.

About 3/4 up the hill.

At the house, looking out the bathroom window.

Last night I told Grey about the dehydrator I have that is actually out of its box and accessible! I started a batch of tangerines this evening. The manual that came with the Excalibur Dehydrator does not mention oranges or other citrus, but Google is my friend and it told me how to do oranges, which are like tangerines. It took 4 tangerines to fill a tray and since I could not slice them as thin as the directions for oranges, I could only use 4 out of the 9 trays. I started them at 145 degrees F for 2 hours to speed up the initial dehydrating, then backed off to 105 F to minimize denaturing the food enzymes. According to the directions on Google, it will take 24 to 48 hours. In the meanwhile, the Tesla app shows the dehydrator increasing the household draw by about 0.5 kW. That still doesn't overburden the PV system. The battery is at 74% as I write this; I will check before I go to bed and if it is too low I will turn the dehydrator off until the sun is shining again! Even with all the rain today the system produced 14 kWh today, which should be more than enough to keep the dehydrator going.

Before; desiccant packets were to keep it drier while in storage.

After; the dampness is bleach solution for disinfection.

Trays & mats after washing.

Washed tangerines ready for slicing.

This is a lot harder than I thought it would be.

First tray of slices ready for drying.

Only 4 trays could fit because of thickness of slices.

This seems like a good place for the dehydrator.

One of the things that I found was that the type of tangerines here would be considered easy-peel; which is great for fresh eating, but very difficult for cutting in to 1/4" thick slices for drying. A couple of the tangerines had skins that were not as loose but I only found 2 in the batch of 18 or 20 that I had picked.

Easy-peel; hard to cut thinnly.

Harder to peel; easier to slice thinner, but not common.

Vickie came by just before dinner and gave us a jar of her lime preserves. She said she salts them for a week turning them twice a day, then drains off the salt solution. She then adds honey and sugar and shakes the jar every day for a month. Then its ready to eat! I'll try it tomorrow.

Grey made dinner tonight; an Indonesian-Japanese fusion miso soup. With a whole egg. It was great!


We now have 175 cases of COVID-19; 123 on O'ahu, 20 in Maui County, and 12 each in Kaua'i County and Hawai'i Island. There have been no new hospitalizations and no deaths; 49 people have recovered. So far no word on what's happening on inter-island travel restrictions.


Here's the answer to the Gold Dust Day Gecko question.

There were 2 more but they were chasing each other around so I could not get them in the photo.

Hauʻoli lā Hānau e Ern Dog, Kektadose, & Leigh!