How Can This Even Happen?

I had a nasty surprise this morning; I opened a bottle to fill it and there was a terrible smell! Turns out there was a gecko in the bottle; a dead gecko. I couldn't figure out how it got in there.

Hmmm ... how did that get in there?

I was filling up the bottles that I had collected since the last hurricane warning about 2 years ago; I had stacked them empty in the study. All total I had collected enough bottles for us to store a little over 19 gallons of water. Which is only about 1/4 of what we need for our household for 14 days. If necessary, we will use these for drinking and cooking. The water bottles that I filled in 2017 will be used for washing things. We can collect rainwater for flushing toilets; hurricanes & tropical storms always bring heavy rain events.

The empties.

Sorting the empties.

Lined up waiting to be filled.

Disinfecting the caps in a bleach solution.

Bottles filled today; more to do for tomorrow.

I was filling the bottles because all parts of the state are either on hurricane watch or hurricane warning. At 5 pm Hurricane Douglas was a little less than 300 miles easterly of Hilo. Hurricane Douglas is now predicted to pass north of Hawaiʻi Island later tonight or early tomorrow morning. It is predicted to pass closer to Oʻahu by Sunday evening. Douglas is predicted to pass even closer to Kauaʻi late Sunday night or early Monday morning. My phone has been blowing up with alerts from FEMA; since I requested alerts for Honolulu as well as Hawaiʻi counties, I get 18 or 20 alerts each time.


I saw a bunch of regulars during my walk this morning. I started out on the circle where I saw a bunch of cats with similar markings to Keala! I sent a photo of them to Sherry; she said they tried to take them in to the Humane Society or the vet to be spayed but it was just at the start of the COVID-19 stay at home order and all appointments were cancelled. I saw some people have prepared for the hurricane; others have not.

Thirteen minutes before sunrise on Maunalani.

Strays at the water supply access.

These people have secured their bins.

These have not; hopefully they will take care of it before the winds start.

This place really got cleaned up! It's been worked on for the past few months, not just for the hurricane.

As I was starting down Sierra, I saw Steph coming up the hill; I waited for her and turned around & walked with her and did the circle again. I walked down Lurline with her until she turned off on Monterey; I turned around and headed back up Lurline. When I was near the top of Lurline, Lynnette and Noe started down Lurline so I walked with them. They also headed down Monterey; I turned around again and headed up Lurline again. All total, I walked 2.88 miles today! Along the way I also saw Wolf, Fred, and Ona.


Last night The Potential Most Favorite Roommate's hanai mom called to ask if they could stay with us during the hurricane. I cleared off things on the bed in the study in preparation of their arrival.


We should be fine with power since the solar is hooked up and has been working well. When I talked with both sales reps for the solar installation I specifically asked how hurricane resistant the panels were. Both reps said the roof would fail before the racks for the solar panels. The Tesla battery has a setting called Storm Watch; it is apparently hooked in with the FEMA watch alerts. The Tesla system in Kohala went to Storm Watch on Thursday; on Oʻahu it switched to Storm Watch today. When the system is in Storm Watch mode no power is taken from the battery to power the house; everything comes from the grid. For both systems, once the storm is past, the excess power generated will offset the energy we are getting from the grid.

The app for the system at Dad's house.

Power is being provided by the grid.

The Potential Most Favorite Roommate was craving corned beef tonight; he made a trip to the grocery store and made a great dinner!


This evening Keala was in the shark! This is the first time I have seen any of the cats using the shark. Later, S'mores was hiding under my bed; I am keeping the doors open to my bedroom and the study so the air conditioning can work on the east end of the house. I was checking to see how effective the A/C can be when we have to close all the windows when the wind & rain arrives.

For the 3rd day in a row, we have broken the record for new COVID-19 cases; there were 73 today! Our total known cases is now up to 1620; there was a correction to one of the Oʻahu cases. None of the new cases was on Hawaiʻi Island. There were no new deaths reported today but there were several new hospitalizations. The LG says there will likely be a spike in deaths the first week of August based of this spike in new cases.






Hauʻoli lā Hānau e Jesus, Darrin, & Margie!