Hakamairi

The most important task today was going to the ohaka; I had not been able to do that prior to Sarah & Kaia's arrival. Kaia helped with cutting flowers and ki berries to take to the haka. When we got there she helped with cleaning the vases and plate and arranging the flowers; she even found some nice purple flowers growing around the cemetery to add to the arrangements. Finally, she also made incense offerings at both family graves.

Taking the full vases back to the grave site.

Offering incense at the grave site.

Standing at grave site for her Great Great Grandparents.

Standing at grave site for her 3rd Great Grandparents & Great Grand Aunt.

In columbarium by 1st Cousin thrice removed's urn (on top shelf).

This cat was hanging around when we arrived but disappeared shortly after.

Here's the handy chart I referred to in order to figure out Kaia's relationship to the relatives. 

(Chart by Alice J. Ramsey)

I started out the morning, waking up at birdrise. But I lay around in bed until about an hour before Greg, Adam, & Kalani were to arrive to talk about the fence work.

Birdrise, 21 minutes before sunrise.

It turned out only Adam & Kalani showed up; I walked them along the fence and showed them where the pigs had been getting in. I told them I wanted the old fence removed and a new coated hog wire fence installed; the catch is that there are plants growing through the fence. It is mainly mock orange, which has a nice fragrance and would be nice to retain; except for the one closest to the road that blocks my view when I am pulling out of the driveway. I told them they could remove all the African tulip trees, Mickey Mouse plant; I am also having them remove the leaning Yucca sp. that would take out the fence & the gardenia when it falls. 

(Panorama from L to R) Adam examines the Yucca.

Kalani brings the chainsaw down to cut the Yucca.

Early in the morning I also got a bunch of texts from Darla about the Paige mitigation site. She had questions about how much area was left at the site for more mitigation. That can be a tricky question; if a site is left undisturbed for a while, native plants could move in on their own and begin to return an area to a less unnatural condition. The question then becomes, how much credit does the project get for the mitigation?  

Diagram from mitigation report. (Photo by Darla)

Color-coded working plan. (Photo by Darla)

Little Bear Creek at Paige mitigation site. (Photo by Darla)

Sarah left about 9 this morning for her retreat; they have an overnight session this evening so she won't be back tonight. The tentative plan is for us to pick her up at the end of the day tomorrow and have dinner somewhere in Kona. I am thinking about leaving a little earlier and picking up a few more lava rock stepping stones & a vanilla orchid at Home Depot.

Kaia & I started our errands by making a quick trip to the dump, which is just up the road from the house. I wanted to get rid of a bag that contained some things I was sure were going to attract the ants.

As we left the ohaka, we saw some goats in the pasture down the road from the church. Since Kaia is an animal lover, I stopped so she could see the goat.

After placing the flowers at the ohaka, Kaia & I had lunch at King's View Café since it is just down the road from the cemetery; we both had cheeseburgers with chips. The burgers were quite thick; neither of us was able to get the burger in to our mouths. I ended up having to cut Kaia's burger in to bite-sized pieces; she still had more than half a burger left by the time she was full.

Munching on chips wile waiting for the burger.

Even cut in half it was quite a handful!

She finished the tomatoes & left the rest for later.

While we were having lunch I had sent Kai a photo taken from King's View of the King Kamehameha statue, like I did when I was there in February. He IMed saying he was in Oak Harbor training for the mail route! I was surprised since there was no way he could have gotten his identification papers so fast. He said he was being trained because, "...they really needed a driver, and their only other lead apparently flaked." The job involves a 6-hour layover & his instructor is his housemate Ian; after driving and parking practice with the 26-foot long box truck, they went to some used bookstores after parking the truck!   

A little wetter than the last time.

For a short while we were the focus for a few House Sparrows who were begging for food from all the patrons of King's View. I used it as an opportunity to teach Kaia how to tell the difference between boy and girl House Sparrows.

Female House Sparrow.

We walked across the street to see the statue of King Kamehameha the Great. I told Kaia how he had united the Hawaiian Islands and she told me she knew that from the book I had given her to read while she was here, Kōlea and the Chiefʻs Cloak! I had forgotten that was the story line in that book which I got at the Hawaiʻi Wildlife Center.

I told her that King Kamehameha was born in Kohala at Kokoiki, near the Upolu Airport. So we took a drive down that way. Along the way we passed the Hāwī Renewable Development Wind Farm. They have about 15 or 16 windmills to harvest energy from the almost constant winds that are found on this part of the island.

At the airport Kaia had a lot of fun playing in the strong, steady wind; she loved the feel of the wind blowing her hair.

Letting the wind blow her hair around.

Checking out the drainage ditch.

As we were making our way back to the main road we were stopped by a herd of cows that had broken out of their pasture. We inched our way through the herd much to Kaia's delight! Further up the road we saw 2 workers repairing a portion of fence; fortunately for them the cows were heading down toward the airport and not up towards the highway.

Bovine traffic jam up ahead.

An incoming truck parted the cow sea for us.

... at least for a short way.

If I went too fast they started to run, so I slowed way down.

Then they just sauntered along.

This nearest cow was a really slow walker.

She did not want to move, I had to get right up next to her before she moved.

The rest of them were fairly good about getting out of the way.

The ranch hands were off to our right fixing the fence.

When we got back to the house Kaia had a meltdown as we were taking things out of the car. I had my hands full with bags of ohaka items, things we bought at Takata Store, and our leftover lunches so I was unable to help her with her carry the things that she kept dropping. She had insisted on carrying them in her hands instead of putting them in the bag that she had carried them to the car in the morning. When I returned to the car after leaving everything on the kitchen table, she insisted she couldn't carry them at all because she needed to go to the bathroom, "Right now!" I directed her to the bathroom in the garage, telling her that it was there for emergencies like hers; she refused, insisting that she needed to carry all her things in to the house to use the bathroom. Then she said she didn't need to go to the bathroom and was going to stay in the car; she wanted me to close the door. So I did; I told her I would be in the house putting things away. If Kai was here he would have warned her that I would really be in the house putting things away and I would not be concerned about the threat of a potty disaster. I returned a few minutes later to a crying Kaia who had wet her pants. 

Kaia finally loaded everything in to her bag, carried her jacket, and sulkily walked up stairs. She changed in to a new pair of underwear and a new dress and was once again happy! We went to visit Jessie and spent about half an hour talking with her; she had found out from Masa that all the mock orange plants were really on our side of the fence so I could do with them what I wanted. I also asked her about putting in a gate between the houses, like I had done at my house in Everett so we could more easily visit with the neighbors; she liked that idea since she has difficulty with the combination lock. Jessie and I struck a deal on the fence; I had insisted on paying for the fence since I will benefit the most from it by keeping the pigs out of my yard (which means they would tear up her yard more). I told her to just save me a bit of the ono things that she makes; she liked that deal since she is always making extra for when her sons come over.

When we got inside, we found the gecko eating the piece of fruit that we had left on the table for it. I have not had any problems with ants being attracted to the bits of fruit that I leave out for the geckos during the day; I think perhaps the geckos also eat any ants that might wander by looking for food. I do not leave food for the geckos out on the table overnight; after all, they are day geckos...

For dinner I was going to make teriyaki chicken, sort of. I had a box of May's Teriyaki Chicken in the freezer. I was going to make it last night but found it was frozen in one solid block and needed to be defrosted before cooking. It was still about half frozen tonight. So Kaia had her leftover cheeseburger for dinner and I finished off the avocado curry from Saturday and the salad from Sunday.

Wiley was quietly waiting for us on the porch in the cat loaf position. Kaia fed her before going to brush her teeth. When Kaia got back Wiley had finished eating and was patiently waiting for more, so I let Kaia give her another small helping.

Wiley has become very comfortable around Kaia.

She waited about 10 seconds after the door closed to come in to eat.

Kaia cleaned up her bedroom floor before she went to bed. I make her clean up the path from the door to the bed in the evening before I read her a bedtime story; right now we are working on, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. (The books from the Hawaiʻi Wildlife Center are for day time reading.)

The Aix weather app forecast a relatively dry day for Honolulu and a wetter day here for us. But it said the rain would start around midafternoon; it actually started in the morning though it was intermittent.

Drizzling at the dump at 11:03 a.m.

There were 76 new cases of COVID-19 reported today, bringing the total known cases up to 33,450. There were no new deaths reported so the death toll remains at 489; currently there are 1157 cases considered to be active. The 7-day new case average for Oʻahu is 53 with a 1.9% positivity rate.

 

Hauʻoli lā Hānau e Francis & Sarah!