IASA #47

This is my new puppy, Moʻo.

 

IASA #46

Kona low created minor flood in bathroom & porch.

 

IASA #45

Honolulu Marathon.

 

IASA #44

This year's Christmas tree; it lasted less than 5 minutes.

 

2022 Holiday Greetings!

Dear Family & Friends,

If you haven't already heard, on February 11^th I moved to Hawaiʻi Island permanently! I am living in my maternal grandparents' home in a wide spot in the road known as Kapaʻau. The house was moved to this location in the mid-1960's from Shimabukuro Camp, a collection of houses for the plantation workers that was in the middle of the cane fields. The deed says it was originally built in 1926; somewhere along the way 2 houses were joined to create the house I am living in now.

Don't worry about our safety regarding the eruption on Mauna Loa; it is located in the south central part of the island. I am located on the very north end of the island near the 270 highway sign on the map. As I write this, the lava is sort of flowing along the line between the blue & orange areas & is 3 or 4 miles south of Highway 200. From that point the lava would have to flow uphill a couple thousand feet in order to get to me; it takes me about 1 hour & 15 minutes to drive to that location. Air quality here is also usually not affected due to the near constant trade winds that blow the vog towards the southwest.

When I arrived in February the tangerine trees, calamansi, & Meyer lemon were almost done bearing. As the citrus petered out the jaboticaba began to ripen. Then it was the mountain apples for a couple of weeks & about 6 weeks later they gave a second crop. The jaboticaba also fruited for a 2^nd time in November. In between, the dragonfruit & guavas steadily gave 1 or 2 fruit a week over the summer & 2 of the bananas also fruited. The calamansi began fruiting again beginning in June & is now nearing the end. In November the navel orange finally started to bear fruit & made great orange juice! At the end of the month the tangerines started ripening again. I am now waiting for the persimmons to ripen; they are sort of greenish-yellow as I write this. With all this fruit I have learned how to make jams & dehydrate most of them; I do jams instead of jellies since there is less wasted fruit.

Jaboticaba.

In March, Catie came for a week long visit; among other things we went on a boat for a snorkeling trip & also saw dolphins, whales, & honu (green sea turtles) in the water. In April, Terri visited for a couple of weeks; she has a thing for manta rays & found where we could go to a talk about the mantas & watch them from the shore. Later we paddled out in a double-hulled canoe with a tour group at night to watch the mantas close-up feeding on plankton attracted by lights under the canoe! In August Joe came for a few days to see the volcano. If you want to come for a visit, give me some lead time so I can make sure the guest room will be available for you. At the present time, I really have only 1 usable room unless you don't mind sleeping on a couch in the living room surrounded by lots of boxes.

 

Kai came in October to help me out after cataract surgery; he was originally going to be my driver but got COVID-19 the day after he arrived. We think it was from sitting in Sea-Tac Airport overnight since he missed his original flight. When he finally tested negative he came out of isolation & helped me by moving heavy things which I was banned from doing for a couple of weeks while my eyes healed. (I had both done at the same time.) While Kai was here, Aunty Jeannie & 2 of her friends were in Kona for a short vacation; they stopped by to visit us at the house.

L to R: Janice, Judy, Kai, & Aunty Jeannie; calamansi in background.

I made 2 trips to Washington to help Kai find new housing. On the 1^st trip in May I tried to buy the house he was in that was being sold but wasn't able to come to agreement with the seller so Kai found another place to live after I left. In September, I went to help him find another place since the previous one just wasn't working. He thinks he'll stay at this new place for at least a year. I also made 4 trips to Oʻahu for dental appointments, blood donations, & meeting with my financial advisor, among other things. I usually stayed for a week. I will be making 1 more trip to O'ahu this year to help cheer on a friend who will be doing the Honolulu Marathon!

Kai's room is upper left.

When I arrived here Mom Cat, the feral cat I tried to get spayed twice last year, showed up with 3 kittens. It turned out the kittens were all females. And they all got pregnant! At one point there were 4 feral adult cats & 14 feral kittens here! Aue! I was finally able to get the spay/neuter non-profit to respond & caught all the adults & had them spayed. I also trapped all the kittens; I turned 10 over to a non-profit no-kill shelter. I kept 4 kittens which are almost socialized now but still a little leery of strangers. They all have Hawaiian names related to their characteristics; I am also training them to respond to voice commands in Hawaiian.

L to R: ʻŌhuna “secret”, Paʻipaʻi “diluted”, Hoʻokoa “brave”, & ʻAlani “orange”.

Since they are currently indoor-only felines, my friend Trudy takes care of them when I am off-island. I have recently trained them to use the Cat Genie self-cleaning litter box which makes things a lot easier & less smelly! I have ordered a self-feeder but my order got messed up; I got a Sushezi instead! It was supposed to go to Grace in Cedar Park TX according to the shipping invoice in the box; the outside was addressed to me. I wonder if Grace got my Wireless Whiskers feeder? (The Sushezi appears to be a sushi mold for people who don't know how to properly roll maki sushi with a sudare.)

Hope all is well with you & your family!

A hui hou! Mālama pono!

IASA #43

Mauna Loa is erupting after 38 years of dormancy.

 

Some Changes During the Day

Apparently 3 fissures have opened up on Mauna Loa over the course of not quite a day. The original one was in the summit caldera Mokuʻāweoweo, then there were 2 along the Northeast Rift Zone. Only Fissure 3 is currently actively flowing; it is at about the 10,000 foot elevation, about 10 miles from the highway. There have been some great shots of the lava flows in West Hawaii Today. They show a lot more than the USGS webcams.

By comparison here are the USGS webcam photos. For most of the cameras, during the day there is much less to see than after dark. The thermal images capture much more of the extent of the eruption but there is only a thermal image camera at the summit caldera Mokuʻāweoweo.

Hoa hānau Leiani can see the glow from her home in Waimea.

(Photo by Leilani)

Thanks to all of you who texted or emailed your concerns for our safety. During one of the exchanges I also checked in with a friend who had asked about coming to visit in March. A mutual friend is interested in coming along if they can get a cheap companion fare. Good thing I have this additional warning; the 2nd bedroom for guests needs some work to be habitable! 

There is a bed somewhere under there!

The Roomba is still confused about where it needs to clean. I have made it re-map the house several times since we rearranged the living room & moved the base for the Roomba. That has not helped. I may have to move it back to its original location to see if that makes things better.

The west half of the house.

Had to send it out again to get the east half.

I went to Lapakahi State Historical Park today to talk with Dane. There are some changes happening in his office; he will no longer be able to help with cataloging the artifacts from Lapakahi. I will be meeting with him at Hapuna on Wednesday to finish up what the last tray that we had started, then I will be working solely with Tracy on the artifacts.

It was raining almost all morning; when it wasn't raining it was drizzling. I was going to pick more tangerines for Dane but did not want to be standing on the top of the 8-foot tall ladder when it was wet & slippery.

Drizzling at 8:53 a.m.

Still drizzling at 9:23 a.m.

I took a series of photos along the drive to Lapakahi, documenting how the weather changes as you go around the point from the wet side to the dry side of the island.

On Akoni Pule Highway near Kynnersley Road at 11:50 a.m.

Outskirts of Hāwī at 11:52.

Approaching downtown Hāwī 20 seconds later.

Climbing hill out of Hāwī at 11:54.

Near access road to Upolu Airport at 11:55.

Coming around to leeward side of island at 11:56.

On leeward side of island at 11:57; note change in vegetation.

Twenty seconds later things begin to get much drier.

Near access road to Kapaʻa Beach Park at 11:59.

Near access road to Mahukona at 12:01 p.m.

Approaching Lapakahi at 12:02; note how it is even drier than Mahukona.

 

There was a roadkilled feral pig on the way to Lapakahi. I donʻt usually see dead feral pigs on the dry side of the island; usually they are on the wet side with feral goats being more common as roadkill on the dry side. It was also an adult which is also uncommon; usually its the smaller, less experienced feral pigs that get flattened.

It has now been about a week since I have been letting the kittens out of the bathroom & in to a limited part of the house; for now they can roam through the hallway & the kitchen. I have increased their roaming time to about 20 minutes; I do it just before I feed them so that they have an incentive to go back in to the bathroom by their own choice. I also reinforce the action with voice commands in Hawaiian. I do it both for their morning & evening feedings. Hoʻokoa, Paʻipaʻi, & ʻAlani all eagerly explore the new areas; they are now racing around the hallway & kitchen as well as the bathroom. ʻŌhuna has only cautiously made it to the bathroom door; the hallway is still too scary for her.

The kittens are now all using the Cat Genie with no problems; even ʻŌhuna uses it without issues. I think they all like that it is very clean most of the time. I do really need to have 2 units though. Although I have it set to cat-activation for cleaning it does have a 10 minute period that it waits before it starts. During that time, if another cat enters the Cat Genie it resets the timer. This allows for all 4 of them to use the Cat Genie before it starts up; which is okay if it is a mix of pee & poop. But if all 4 of them leave a solid deposit it sort of overwhelms the Cat Genie & it does not clean as well; I usually go in & manually start another cycle to get the rest of it cleaned. (Cat Genie does recommend 1 unit for every 2 cats in the household.) My plan is to get a 2nd unit after the renovation of the sewing room is completed & I have a small space specifically designed for the Cat Genies to occupy. Yes, my cats are spoiled!

Hauʻoli lā Hānau e Jace!

Don't Worry!

We're safe! Here's a map that shows where we are; we're at the north end of the island near the 270 highway marker. The house is located on Kohala volcano which is extinct; it last erupted about 120,000 years ago. For any lava to reach us it would have to flow uphill over several thousand feet; so, not happening.

I had received an alert from the Hawaiian Volcano Observatory just after midnight, announcing that an eruption on Mauna Loa had started just before midnight; at that time it was confined to the summit caldera Mokuʻāweoweo. Later in the day I got another notice about 6:30 a.m. saying a small flow started from the Northeast Rift Zone; its heading towards the northeast (blue area on map above).

That 2nd notice included a link to the remote cameras on Mauna Loa. At the present time the most spectacular view is the thermal image of the Mokuʻāweoweo caldera; the flow from the Northeast Rift Zone is not visible.

 Check back later for more info; I will try to be better about posting sooner!