Waianae Valley Homestead O&E

As soon as I got up this morning I checked how long it would take me to get to the meeting site for the Waianae Valley Homestead vaccine outreach & education event later today; 51 minutes. Much better than 1&1/2 hours!

At 6:16 a.m.

But I kept checking every few hours. The drive time stayed at around 50 minutes until about 12:30 p.m.when it went up to 56 minutes. So I started checking every 30 minutes; at about 2:30 it crept over 1 hour so changed & got ready to leave . I left at 2:59 p.m. & arrived at 4:23 p.m.; which would have been a good time to get to an event with a 4:30 p.m. start time.

At 12:32 p.m.

At 2:25 p.m. plus a warning.

At 3:00 p.m. when I left the house.

On the way there I got a call from PHN Jean; I had worked with her at the LCC vaccination POD. She was wondering if I was coming & where I was; I was a little confused. It turns out the times listed in the email I got were a little different. When Marjorie sends out the email with the information she usually lists the total time the volunteer is to be at the site; if she separates arrival time & actual event time, she lists the arrival time 1st. PHN Jan sent the email for this event; she listed the event time 1st and the arrival time later. I did not notice that & put down the event time as the total time I would be on site. Fortunately I like to arrive about 15 minutes before the total on site time so that I can find parking & report to the sign-in area on time; they were just starting to go to their canvassing areas when I arrived so I was on time for the real work part of the event.

The last vaccine schedule we had with us; we gave it away shortly after photo.

I was on the team led by PHN Melissa. Other team members were PHNs Kelli & Jean; both of them also worked at the LCC vaccine POD. Jean & I were partners working one side of the street; we went to 54 houses. We found 18 households with people at home: of those 2 didn't really want to talk to us but 16 did! All except 1 household was all vaccinated except for the keiki. The 1 person that we talked to that was not vaccinated in spite of the rest of her household being vaccinated was because she had a very strong fear of needles; we gave her a bunch of surgical masks & reiterated the importance of physical distancing, minimizing contact with crowds, & good hand hygiene. We also gave her some home test kits so she could check if she was positive in case she started showing symptoms. I walked almost 2 miles this evening.

At the end of the event, while we are doing our debrief, Gloria hand out sandwiches from Subway; she said it was to tide people over until they got home for dinner. I told her that was my dinner! I contributed a package of the Halloween themed treats from Minamoto Kitchoan. They were fancy, individually wrapped large, senbei. At the end, Gloria's daughter took a photo of the group; I was the only MRC that was able to help out this evening.

L to R, seated: Melissa, Jean, me, Gloria. Standing: Derek, ?, Mohamed, ?, Kelli,?, ?, Yumi. (Photo by Gloriaʻs daughter)

I shared the green one with the PHNs.

This morning was the weekly weigh-in; my weight today is 127.4. I was 126.8 last week. My only hope is that I have gained a half pound of muscle due to the additional walking? Nah! 

I used the last of the previous batch of beets in my proothie this morning. It was the largest one in the bunch; my proothie was very red! 

I made a quick supply run to Longs; I am out of coconut water & running low on milled flax seed & chia. I also found toffee covered macadamia nuts! This is what Kai's co-worker Alexis requested he bring back when she was covering for him in July when he was visiting; we could not find any at that time. Today I actually found chocolate & toffee covered mac nuts; though I think Alexis just wanted toffee covered mac nuts. If this is what Alexis wanted, I will have to remember that it is made by Mauna Loa Macadamia Nut when I go looking for it next time. I also bought some chicken fillets; I could not find the chicken poppers or chicken chips that Bear likes.

I am glad I stopped by Longs; I saw Sherman there. I had not seen him in quite a while & was even wondering if he had retired. Since I sometimes don't see him for a while, I stopped & gave him a business card & told him I was moving to Hawaiʻi Island in January. It turns out Sherman goes to Hawaiʻi Island about once a month to help drive cattle from the Parker Ranch in Waimea down to the slaughter house in Honokaʻa. His father still has a small ranch in Laupāhoehoe in the uplands. FYI Here on Oʻahu, Sherman lives about 2 blocks away from us, so he is not only someone I run in to near Longs, he is also a neighbor!

Even though Kokua Market's 50th Anniversary Celebration begins tomorrow & there are all kinds of special things happening, I went today since I was out of cottage cheese; Kokua was also out of cottage cheese so I had to settle for yogurt. This time I am trying a brand called Kind, it is an almond-based yogurt. I also picked up some seaweed snacks for late evening; lots of flavor but way less calories! And I picked up some Curry Roasted Cauliflower, Roasted Mixed Veggies with Capers, & Provençal Chicken Stew.

The nori snack collection.

While at Kokua Market, I took a little extra time to look more closely at the tree in the parking lot. I have determined that it is the True Kou (Cordia subcordata). I specifically looked for the fruit dropped on the ground; True Kou is round, brown, & woody, False Kou (Cordia sebestana) is pear-shaped, white, fleshy, & fragrant. 

Here is a side-by-side comparison of True Kou and Haole Kou. These photos are from the Citizen Forestor guidebook.

On the way back, I drove down Kapahulu to take a closer look at the Fiddlewoods. I wanted to see if I could figure them out as I drove by at 25 mph. I think I might be able to distinguish them once I become more familiar with them. I also took a photo of the Benjamin Figs; I did not include one earlier. 

Fiddlewood.

Benjamin Fig at Crane Park.

For lunch I finished off my beet proothie from this morning while I watched another episode of iZombie. It is getting more interesting; there are a lot of parallel plots going on, just as there would be in life. It's not just zombies looking for brains to eat. I also like that the show is supposed to take place in Seattle & the surrounding area. They filmed in Vancouver, BC, so the weather & architecture is very much like Seattle.

I also bought a body wash while I was at Longs. My skin seems to be drier & more irritated lately; it makes me itch a lot. I am trying the Olay body wash with hyaluronic acid; it says it cleanses & nourishes. After taking a quick shower tonight, I could feel the difference in my skin. I wish I had known about body washes like this for Mom; she kept complaining about her back itching. She scratched so much she would bleed. I think this would have helped her a lot.

Luna was out of isolation today. In the morning she let me know it by walking in to my bedroom; she rarely does this. Then she went to check out what was happening in the cat run. Later she was sleeping on the cat tree. 

A couple weeks ago a Hawaiian monk seal was found with fishing line in its mouth; later it was discovered it was also suffering from toxoplasmosis. It is currently being treated at Ke Kai Ola.

Since the beginning of October, 3 Nēnē have been struck & killed at Hawai'i Volcanoes National Park. Officials say it is due to inattentive drivers speeding through the park; the breeding season starts in October so the Nēnē are also paying less attention. People are also feeding Nēnē which causes them to lose their fear of humans & cars. 

Kīlauea: still erupting.

At 6:27 a.m.

At 9:36 p.m.

At 6:27 a.m.

At 9:36 p.m.

The Aix weather app forecast drizzles all day for Honolulu; we only had drizzles in the morning, the rest of the day was partly cloudy. For Kapaʻau, Aix forecast lots of rain, becoming heavier by the mid-afternoon; Big Island Now forecast mostly sunny with isolated showers & a 20% chance of rain. Since the Honomū weather station r3ecorded no precipitation for the day, Iʻm going to say Big Island Now was the more accurate forecast. For Marysville, Aix forecast rain throughout the day with the heaviest at midday; the traffic cam showed fog but no rain.

Kaimukī looking westerly at 6:20 a.m.

Honomū looking northerly at 6:20 a.m.

Marysville looking southerly at 6:20 a.m. HST.

Nā Koʻolau at 10:19 a.m.

Nā Koʻolau at 3:04 p.m.

The north facing shorelines appeared to have the best surfing conditions today.

Laniakea (N) at 6:22 a.m.

Hilo Bay (E) at 6:23 a.m.

Waikīkī (S) at 6:25 a.m.

Banyans (W) at 6:26 a.m.

 

There were 134 new cases of COVID-19 reported today, bringing the total known cases up to 83,020. There were also 3 new deaths reported, increasing the death toll to 883; currently there are 1728 cases considered active. As of today there were 2,136,500 doses of vaccine administered, providing 70.7% of the total state population with full vaccination and 79.2% with at least 1 dose. The 7-day new case average count for the State is 115 with a positivity rate of 1.6%; Dr, Char says if we can consistently keep this number below 100 our local health care system will have enough resources to handle the pressure without needing additional personnel from out-of-state or tents set up as hospital rooms.

 

Hauʻoli lā Hānau e Mrs. Akiyama & Mikey! Mrs. Akiyama is 103 years old today!