My Summer Vacation: Potential Planting Sites

This is the last Citizen Forester activity in the Kapahulu-Kaimukī area for 2021. Besides Francisco & I, Dan also joined us, along with Zoe & her daughter Lilinoe & infant son. I walked about 2.3 miles today; my car was parked the farthest from the meet-up location but Zoe had walked from her house which probably added another mile; she was also pushing a stroller!

We saw some really cool things people are doing with plants around their property; like the wall decorated with airplants. Or the urban food forest. It was nice to see those things when most of what we were seeing was a multitude of cars parked along the streets & in potential planting areas. I think we added about a dozen new potential sites today.

The food forest. There's another on the other side of the driveway.

I was also noticing the drainage as we walked around. This area gets the runoff from Wilhelmina Rise. And it looks like it gets a lot of it. In fact, Francisco has a friend that lives nearby & he said in the recent Kona low that we had, his friend told him the streets were flowing like a stream!

That's a pretty big box culvert!

And we also saw a very old street sign/marker. I have seen one other like this at the corner of 6th & Maunaloa/Moʻoheau, but it says Alohea Avenue; it is at the end of a 2 block section of 6th that runs from the end of Alohea to where the marker is. I think that part of 6th used to be part of Alohea.

It marks the intersection of Claudine & Moi avenues.

For lunch I made a plain proothie.

For dinner I had a piece of fried chicken, the last of the Roasted Winter Veggies, & coleslaw.

Flux Hawaii has started a new feature in their monthly magazine. It is a series of articles in ʻŌlelo Hawaiʻi as well as English. I am glad that is is becoming easier for me to find things written both in ʻŌlelo Hawaiʻi & English.

I translated this to be "This voice of Aloha", I was close. The "Ka" threw me off.

This evening Suzanne sent me a listing for a house for sale. Are you interested?

The Navy is changing its story again about the source of contamination. They are now saying it is from a "release" of fuel from 2 of the tanks at Red Hill. Back in May they said only 1000 gallons were "released." At the time, the Navy said, "As designed, the fuel release went into a containment system in the tunnel where the pipeline is located, and the fuel was recovered. There appears to be no release into the environment." Then in October they said it was actually 1618 gallons that was released & all but 38 gallons was recovered; they never say "spilled" although that is what really happened. (In my mind "released" means it was planned & expected, whereas "spill" means unexpected.) Now they are saying there was 19,000 gallons that was "released" ... in 50 seconds. So 1900% more fuel spilled than what they said in May and a massive amount in less than a minute. Auē! Sounds like either a massive mistake or a rupture to me. And the Navy wonders why so many local officials & the public are skeptical when they say it's okay to use the water!

Looks like the eruption at Kīlauea is slowing down again, but it has not stopped.

At 8:08 a.m.

At 5:54 p.m.

Not looking very active at 8:08 a.m.

By 5:54 p.m. it showed more activity.

There is fresh snow again on Mauna Kea; which is one of the reasons the Hawaiians named it Mauna Kea, "white mountain". The snow plow came by about lunch time & cleared the snow off but a short while later it looked like it was snowing again! Later in the afternoon it appeared to stop snowing.

It continued to snow.

On the left is the front of the snow plow.

The 1st pass of the snow plow.

Looks like it warmed up a little & some snow has melted off the cleared areas.

No one came to this telescope today.

Yesterday, during the snowstorm on Mauna Kea, a disoriented hiker had to be rescued; he was found in a cave after dark. The temperatures on Mauna Kea routinely drop below freezing at night year round so it was a good thing they were able to find him & get him back down. They would have found him earlier except when he signed in at the Visitor Information Center he put down the wrong phone number; it sounded like he put his home number rather than his mobile phone number. Auē! Why would the Rangers want to call you at home? Fortunately for the hiker he was able to get a signal & called 911.

The Aix weather app forecast rain all day in Honolulu; it was more like partly cloudy all day. For Kapaʻau, Aix forecast lots of rain with thunderstorms in the morning & decreasing throughout the day but never stopping. The Honomū weather station seemed to support that, recording 1.01 inches at 8:02 a.m., 2.51 inches by 5:52 p.m. & 2.59 by 7:23 p.m. For Marysville, Aix forecast rain all day but increasing as the day went on ^ also never stopping; the traffic cams did not support that.

Kaimukī looking westerly at 8:01 a.m.

Honomū looking northerly at 8:02 a.m.

Marysville looking northerly at 8:03 a.m. HST.

Waikīkī looking easterly at 8:07 a.m.

Kaimukī looking northerly at 8:16 a.m.

Kaimukī looking westerly at 5:52 p.m.

Honomū looking northerly at 5:52 p.m.

Marysville looking northerly at 5:53 p.m. HST.

The conditions along the north facing & east facing shorelines provided the best surf conditions today.

Laniakea (N) at 8:05 a.m.

Hilo Bay (E) at 8:04 a.m.

Waikīkī at 8:07 a.m.

Banyans (W) at 8:09 a.m.

Laniakea (N) at 5:48 p.m.

Hilo Bay (E) at 5:46 p.m.

Waikīkī (S) at 5:51 p.m.

Banyans (W) at 5:47 p.m.

Some people are wondering whether the symptom caused by the Omicron variant are different than from the Delta variant or other strains. It appears not; plus it appears that what I found back in August about the different symptoms based on your vaccination status are still valid. Here are the graphics from that August post.

The Healthcare Association of Hawaiʻi is concerned that the rapid rise in the number of cases of COVID-19 will overwhelm the hospital system with 86% of all hospital beds in the State currently in use by all types of patients. Modelers at the East-West Center predict there will be up to 2000 new cases per day by Christmas if no mitigating measures are taken; based on trends seen in other parts of the world the doubling rate of the Omicron variant is 1 to 2 days. Worldwide, Omicron was 1st discovered less than a month ago but is now known to exist in 95 nations and 47 U.S. states; it is expected to be the dominant strain in the world by January 1st (i.e., 10 days). This includes in countries with relatively high vaccination rates. Here in Hawaiʻi, modelers say the worst case scenario is 15,000 new cases a day by January 1st.

On the plus side, it appears that new cases of COVID-19 in South Africa may have peaked; apparently there are 20% fewer cases this week than last. This is encouraging, however, South Africa may have a higher percentage of people who have gained immunity through either vaccination or previous exposure. Thus transmission there might be interrupted quicker than it would be here. We shall have to wait & see.

There were 961 new cases of COVID-19 reported today, bringing the total known cases up to 95,254. There were also 2 new deaths reported, increasing the death toll to 1074; currently there are 6485 cases considered active. As of today there have been 2,488,817doses of vaccine administered providing 73.7% of the State population with full vaccination & 79.1% with at least one dose. There are currently 68 cases that are hospitalized with 11 in the ICU & 8 on ventilators. The 7-day new case average for the State is 726 with a positivity rate of 7.6%. The 7-day new case average for Oʻahu is 661 with a positivity rate of 9.6%.