Plant Anthuriums ✔️

I planted out 53 anthuriums today in about 2 hours. Since it appeared that Laura bundled 10 similarly colored plants together, I would take one from each of the bundles & plant them in a section so that the colors will be mixed throughout the planting areas. She had also given me an extra bundle of plants that had no flowers on them. I concentrated planting in the areas of the bed that had more mulch; they are about 1 foot apart, which is the spacing for field grown anthuriums recommended by the UH College of Tropical Agriculture & Human Resources. Like our mitigation sites, I will take photos each year to document how well the anthuriums do. Usually the 3rd year after planting is when our sites explode with new growth.

Seven bundles of bareroot anthuriums.

Close-up of a bundle.

Planting in progress.

Bed #1 east portion, before.

Bed #1 east portion, after.

Bed #1 northeast corner, before.

Bed #1 northeast corner, after.

Bed #1 north portion, before.

Bed #1 north portion, after.

Bed #1 southwest corner, before.

Bed #1 southwest corner, after.

Bed #1 south portion, before.

Bed #1 south portion, after.

Bed #1 southeast corner, before.

Bed #1 southeast corner, after.

It rained a lot last night; it was the remnants of Tropical Storm Linda. There was a flash flood warning for the entire island. So I was unable to see the moon in the hours just after midnight like I had for the last couple of nights. Today I had to wait until after 4 a.m. to see the moon! (I didn't stay awake to see it; I was awakened by the bright light streaming in the room.)

The Saffron Finch started singing about 5:45 this morning. I got out of bed about half an hour later. When I am here I tend to operate more on the natural diurnal cycle rather than by a clock. In Honolulu I need to set a clock to get up around sunrise.

Birdrise 26 minutes before sunrise.

Wake up at 2 minutes before sunrise.

Here's my list of things to do for today. Many of th3 things were carried over from yesterday; I had not anticipated I would stay so long at the luncheon for Ohta-san. I had a good time there meeting new people.

For breakfast I had another 1/4 dragon fruit. There's one more quarter left for breakfast tomorrow morning. 

 

Sarah & Keoni from Aikane Nursery showed up to do an additional hour of weeding just as I was getting started. That helped out a lot; I asked them to start with weed removal in Bed #1 where I would be planting the new anthuriums. I also had Keoni pull the invasive syngonium off one of the hāpuʻu; the upper parts were too high for me to reach easily.

I also checked out the kalo & hāpuʻu. They are doing well but I need to spread them out more so they can expand; they're kind of getting tangled up in each other since they are so close together. That will be a project for another visit. I also need to get more stepping stones for the path; the area that is constantly soaked by the misters is becoming quite soft and mucky. I may need to put down some gravel under the weed cloth to firm it up a bit before I add the stepping stones.

Hāpuʻu.

Kalo.

The muddy path.

I was so hot & sweaty by the time I was done planting the anthruriums I was glad there was an outdoor shower! I spent a while scrubbing the dirt off my legs & arms. Then I headed in to town.

My 1st stop was at the post office to see what the yellow cards were about. It had been too long, so whatever it was had been returned to the sender. I think it was the mosquito zapper that I ordered that was supposed to arrive on July 15th but never did. I don't think it would be the i3+ Roomba; I think that would have gone straight to the house.

I also went to see Virgil at the "bowl shop"; I forgot to find out what the name of the shop really is. But I can do that tomorrow since Virgil wasn't there. But Debbie was. She remembered talking to Sarah & asked if she was bipolar & had gone off her medication! Debbie said she had a heartfelt conversation with Sarah & gave her a necklace that she had made that had been for sale at the shop; she said it was a grounding necklace & it looked like Sarah was in great need of it. She said it was not necessary to apologize for Sarah's behavior; Debbie thought it was just fine.

This is why Sarah called it The Bowl Shop.

I got lunch from Minnie's; my usual Catch of the Day Plate. It was ahi today; which I always get seared.

Before I sat down to eat my lunch, I took a hand of maiʻa over to Delphine. In exchange he gave me some achiote seedlings that he had potted up.

The ahi was also my dinner; they give 2 large pieces. And now my back is toast. Even though I stopped & stretched every 15 minutes (& basically spent a little less than 4 hours bending over) I am now feeling tight & stiff in my lower back. Hopefully a restful night will help it feel better tomorrow. I really need a massage!

Speaking of maiʻa, today is Day 2 of the photo documentation of the ripening process.

I got an email from Duolingo today trying to entice me to participate in more of their language learning opportunities. 

I also got an email from Google, telling me I was out of storage space. It also told me it was my photos that I had stored that were taking up space. But the thing is I have never downloaded the Google Photo app to automatically back up my photos to my Google account. But there they were on Google. I followed their instructions to turn off the automatic Back Up & Sync function but donʻt have the app installed so I am not sure how to turn it off if I do not have the app. Auē!

I saw Mom Cat with 3 half-grown kittens this morning! There was 1 each of a mainly white kitten with calico patches, a white kitten with black patches, & a white kitten with orange tabby patches. They were walking from Jessie's back porch to the brush behind the old chicken coop on the far side of Jessie's yard. Later in the evening I saw Mom Cat walking up to Jessie's house alone.

Mom Cat leading her latest litter of kittens.

The calico kitten attacks something in the grass.

Mom Cat later in the evening.

The Aix weaher app showed very heavy rain & lightening for both Honolulu & Kapaʻau for most of the day. It looked especially dire for Kapaʻau; but it turned out to be a pretty nice day here. It did not start to rain until the evening & it was the normal amount, not even close to flood worthy. But in other parts of the island like Honomū there was a flood watch; by 7 p.m. they had 0.25 inches of rain. I am not really sure what it was like in Honolulu since they were also under flood watch, but the traffic cam showed there was precipitation in the evening. For Marysville, the app said it would have partly cloudy skies throughout the day; since I only checked in the evening it was hard to say though the roadway looked dry.

Kapaʻau looking northeasterly at 6:33 a.m.

Kapaʻau looking southerly at 5:17 p.m.

Kaimukī looking westerly at 7:02 p.m.

Honomū looking northeasterly at 7:02 p.m.

Marysville looking northerly at 7: 03 p.m. HST.

The remnants of Tropical Storm Linda affected surf on east facing shores; I have not been able to find a good web cam for that direction. And I was unable to make a trip to Keokea to see how the surf was there. The only surf cam I have is for a south facing shoreline in Waikīkī, which was small today.

The Pfizer vaccine has been granted full approval by the FDA for use on people 16 years and older. About 54% of people who are currently vaccinated in the country have received the Pfizer vaccine; most of the rest have received the Moderna vaccine. 

There were 571 new cases of COVID-19 reported today, bringing the total known cases up to 56,670. There were no new deaths reported so the number of fatalities remains at 564: currently there are 9389 cases considered active. As of yesterday 1,829,974 doses of vaccine have been administered making 62% of the state population fully vaccinated and 70.3% having received at least one dose. Currently 409 patients are hospitalized with 81 in the ICU & 67 on ventilators. The 7-day average of new cases on Oʻahu is 441 with a positivity rate of 9.7%. 

Hauʻoli lā Hānau e Jette, Susie, & Lyussy!