Little Fire Ants

I spent 2&1/2 hours in online meetings today; but there was a half hour break between sessions. The first portion was a Facebook Live training on Little Fire Ant Detection & Control. Jade was the main presenter; Franny called her "The Ant Whisperer". I surveyed the Kohala house property for little fire ants (Wasmannia auropunctata) about 1&1/2 years ago and found none; today I learned I need to survey 2 to 4 times a year! I thought I only needed to do it annually. So that is now on the list of Things To Do when I return and I really need to do it because there is a known LFA location about 3 miles away in Hoea Gulch.

This is how invasives enter & the number of inspectors.

Yikes!

These are examples of some invasives that have become a problem.

The reason why price of coffee from Hawaiʻi has gone up; they have destroyed about half the crop.

After grass dies invasive shrubs move in making pasture unusable.

OMG!

The cat is now blind.

The red spot in Hawi is Hoea Gulch.

LFA eating bait.

LFA goes after proteins not sugars.

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LFA likes trees.

Place chopstick in crotch of tree.

Very important: Do NOT send live ants in the mail!

Send to Jade for positive identification.

This is what I need to do.

Timing is important; too early & they still remember that bait made them sick or deed.

Mainland products do not work on LFA here.

This is what I would have to do if LFA are present.

She said use cheap, creamy peanut butter; LFA don't like organic pb!

Put in to sprayer & spray on trees & other vegetation.

There are several chemicals to control LFA. Start with the IGR, then choose the toxicant that works best for your situation.

No longer available in small bottle.

Must be reapplied after rain; LFA don't like it when bait begins to crumble.

Consistent treatment every 4 to 6 weeks for at least 1 year is necessary to eradicate little fire ants. Start with an insect growth regulator to stop production of new ants by the queens; then switch to toxic bait to kill the remaining ants. Surveys in the latter stage of treatment document how successful treatment has been and whether it needs to continue.

BIISC will help a group of concerned neighbors who have an LFA problem.

I will be setting up a quarantine area for any materials I bring in like these.

I am considering doing this around the perimeter of the property.

Franny showed where to find information on the BIISC website.

The 2nd online meeting was the Hawaiʻi Medical Reserve Corps orientation; it was via Microsoft Meetings. Margery, who coordinates both the Oʻahu & Hawaiʻi Island MRCs, gave the orientation. I had a little trouble with the audio; this is the 1st Microsoft Meeting I have logged in to. Initially I could not get the audio to work; I could just see her going through the slides. About 10 minutes in to the presentation I was able to get the audio through my phone. Aue! I need to figure out how to get the the audio through the laptop before the next Microsoft Meeting.

This is one of the possible deployments.

And we're in hurricane season right now.

Based on heirarchy above, even if I do get trained, I might not get called. Unless it gets really bad.

I was originally recruited by my friend Therese to join the MRC in the county we lived in. One of the training sites was right across the street from my house so it was hard to say no; she also provided dinner for the weekday evening trainings! Ironically, one of the training exercises I participated in was a new virus coming in to Seattle via a cruise ship...  I think that was in 2015.

I checked right after orientation to make sure my profile was complete.

Margery (as well as Therese) stressed that MRC is not only for medical & healthcare professionals; non-medical/healthcare people are needed to support the medically trained volunteers during a deployment. In fact, Margery said 2 non-medical volunteers are needed for each medical volunteer. Right now it looks like I am one of only 407 non-medical volunteers versus 1051 medical/healthcare professionals in MRC. Their name might be scaring non-medical people off.

There's a lot of reading I have to do!

As an official volunteer, MRC provides liability protection when you are officially deployed. There are protections both at the state and federal level since it is a federal program. You can also sign up to be considered for deployment to other parts of the country; currently I indicated I only want to be deployed locally. I can change that later if I want to.

These are the core competencies for MRC volunteers nationwide.

You choose whether you want to be deployed when a request is rceived.

Getting closer to my wake up time for my sunrise birding walk. Next step is to stay up when the 1st alarm goes off!

Fifty minutes before sunrise.

Waking up ten minutes after sunrise.

I had to break quarantine today to run an errand for Dad; his stimulus check came in so I made a trip to his bank to deposit it. I was pleasantly surprised to find that after 5&1/2 weeks the battery was still fully charged!


I thought I had received an email from Dad's bank saying that his branch was now open. The parking lot is in the back and the back gates were closed but I saw a sign directing me to the front enterance; I thought nothing of it since many places are only using one entrance so they can monitor the number of customers in the space at one time. I got to the front just as the postal carrier was dropping off the mail, the bank staffer I saw told me the branch was closed for now. Aue! On the way back to the car I checked the other signs. Guess I have to go to the Kapahulu branch.

This is what I focused on when I saw the closed gates.

These are the other signs that were visible.

This is the one I really needed to read.

Otto Cake is right across the street so I stopped there to get dessert for tonight. I got one slice each of the Peanut Butter Chocolate Chip, Li Hing Mango, Peaches & Cream, and White Chocolate Macadamia cheesecakes.

Otto now has a more formal sign.

For dinner tonight I made the Easy Ground Beef Chili again. But this time I doubled the recipe and I ueed 2 pounds ground beef with 1 pound ground venison; all from Kokua Market. And all from Molokaʻi. I served it over cauliflower rice; the frozen bags make it easy. I also like the addition of the avocados and sour cream.

The finished chili; there's more liquid than the last time.

Keto-friendly accompaniments.

Not sure where Luna was, but Keala & S'mores were sleeping in the living room when I returned.

Keala.

S'mores. My walking up to her woke her up, she is not pleased with me.

There is some potential hurricane activity headed our way. Right now there is a disturbance just east of the Central Pacific region that is likely to become a tropical depression by the weekend.

When disturbance crosses 140W longitude it will be in Central Pacific region.

This is the wrie-up that I summarize when I post a photo of the graphical outlook.

There were only 3 new COVID-19 cases today, bringing the total known cases up to 819. There were no new deaths but there have 5 new hospitalizations since yesterday. Just over 82% of people have now been released from isolation.





Hauʻoli lā Hānau e Mrs. Shibuya, Sam, Jim, Jeannie, & Kyfu!