Neighborhood Safety Watch

I went for a walk this morning with some members of our Neighborhood Safety Watch. We met at Ron's house; the other folks were Dwayne & Ken. Dwayne lives about a block up the road from us, Ken is another block up from him; I had met Ken's daughter & her dog when I used to go walking with Mom & her walking buddies. I found out they walk every Monday morning for about 1.5 miles & about 45 minutes; they know a lot of the people in the neighborhood & look out for sketchy things. 

One of the interesting things I learned today as we were walking around was about the last name of the family of one of my sister's classmates. I had always wondered how they got the name "O'Day" since I was not aware of a Caucasian in the paternal line. Ken said their last name was actually Oda, a Japanese name. He said during World War II the family patriarch changed the name to O'Day so it would not sound Japanese. Now it all makes sense! 

I forgot to mention yesterday that I managed to maintain my standing in the Diamond League. I did the minimal amount needed to not drop down to the next lower level; #25 is the lowest you can go before being demoted!

Today I made a kale proothie. The kale was from a fruit basket that the nephews got as a birthday present. The proothie was actually my lunch; I did not want to drink it before I went walking since I did not know how much walking they would do or how strenuous it would be.

When I got back from the Neighborhood Security Watch walk, I did some pruning. I was walking past the ʻohaʻi aliʻi when I remembered that one of the branches was now scratching the car when I had to park under it. After I trimmed the offending branch, I removed some of the low hanging branches that I thought might be in the line of sight for the neighbors that park in the spots nearest our fence. Then I pruned all the growth on the lower parts of the Mickey Mouse shrub that I am trying to train to a tree shape. I forgot to take before & after photos of the work I did; you are only getting photos of the things I removed.

ʻOhaʻi aliʻi trimmings.

Mickey Mouse Plant trimmings.

After lunch I went to exchange the medium scrub tops for a small scrub top. I followed Marjorie's directions & found Ciza in a meeting; he had not read the 2nd email about me meeting him at the end of the meeting. He was very apologetic & ran upstairs to get the small top. But it was okay, because I had to wait for Ciza to get the other scrub, I left the building about 5 minutes later than I would have. As I was crossing the parking lot someone called out to me; it was Melvin! He was one of the people I worked with at the LCC POD; he & Bernadette who also worked at the POD have continued to work at DOH with Alicia & Jennifer on the database. If Ciza had brought the scrub top down with him to the meeting I would have missed seeing Melvin.

On the way back I stopped at Kokua Market; I needed more cottage cheese & almond butter. This time the almond butter was creamier than the last batch. But that poor almond butter machine had apparently been doing a lot of work today; it was grinding along very slowly, it seemed to be constipated! The resulting almond butter was very hot.

I also picked up a couple salads from their deli. The Steamed Broccoli/Kale appeared to just that, not salt sauteed like it has been previously. And the Mushroom & Artichoke Salad was almost all mushroom; which is the way I prefer it!

For dinner I had leftovers from last night; chicken katsu & shrimp tempura. I also had some birthday party salad. I must have been hungrier than I thought because I forgot to take a photo. But I did take a photo of the ice that had formed in my water bottle; I had poured the contents out to drink with my dinner.

The ice formed only along the walls of the bottle.

After dinner, I got on the Zoom training for the Citizen Forester Program; tonight was Modules 1 and 2. Morgan led tonight's training; she started with an introduction to the program which is a project of Smart Trees Hawai'i. She highlighted their completed inventory in the Kailua area where the City thought there were about 2500 trees; the inventory found that there were really 5664 trees!

L to R: Morgan, Wai, Sari, & Teddy.

The completed inventory in our area.

This is 1st year in program for Kauaʻi & Guam.

This is module I am most interested in.

Module 1 was about becoming Urban Forest Ambassadors; it covered the value of urban forests & how to safely interact with the public & within the group. Although Morgan also led us through Module 2, I will summarize it tomorrow. 

Although the eruption at Kīlauea appears to be slowing down, visitors can still expect to see gas & steam during the day & and orange glow at night. The threat level has been reduced to Red. The lava lake is now about a total of 89 feet deep since it started 5 days ago; some of the vents have been covered by the lava lake dampening the fountaining seen in the opening days of the eruption. 

From west rim looking easterly across Halemaʻumaʻu crater at 8:45 a.m.

From west rim looking easterly across Halemaʻumaʻu crater at 4:18 p.m.

From west rim looking easterly across Halemaʻumaʻu crater at 4:18 p.m.

The Aix weather app forecast it would be raining all day in Honolulu; I was unable to depend on the Kaimukī traffic cam, it got stuck at 4:47 this morning & stayed that way all day. Fortunately I had been out of the house both in the morning & later in the afternoon & knew that it was not raining at either time. For Kapaʻau, Aix forecast that it would also be raining all day; the local paper mostly cloudy with scattered showers a 50% chance of rain. The Honomū weather station had recorded 0.01 inches by 8:34 a.m. & did not accumulate more throughout the day. For Marysville, Aix forecast partly cloudy skies all day; that appeared to be true.

Kaimukī looking westerly at 8:32 a.m. & 4:11 p.m.; it did not change.

Honomū looking northerly at 8:32 a.m.

Marysville looking northerly at 8:35 a.m. HST.

Nā Koʻolau at 1:48 p.m.

Honomū looking northerly at 4:12 p.m.

Marysville looking southerly at 4:12 p.m. HST.

The surf along north & west facing shores will benefit from Typhoon Mindulle; getting larger through Thursday. East & south shores are smaller but not flat.

Laniakea (N) at 8:37 a.m.

Hilo Bay (E) at 8:37 a.m.

Waikīkī (S) at 8:41 a.m.

Banyans (W) at 8:41 a.m.

Laniakea (N) at 4:13 p.m., got bigger.

Hilo Bay (E) at 4:14 p.m.

Waikīkī (S) at 4:15 p.m.

Banyans (W) at 4:16 p.m.

There were 195 new cases of COVID-19 reported today, making the number of total known cases 80,323; This is the lowest number of new cases in a while. There were also 3 new deaths reported, increasing the number of fatalities to 811; currently there are 4238 cases considered active. As of yesterday 2,031,325 doses of vaccine have been administered, providing 68.2% of the population with full vaccination and 76.6% having received at least one dose. There are 179 patients currently hospitalized with 40 in the ICU and 33 on ventilators. The 7-day new case average on Oʻahu is 173 with a positivity rate of 3.7%.

Hauʻoli lā Hānau e Cathy, Ilsa, & Ananda!