Dear Family & Friends,
If you haven't already heard, on February 11th 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 2nd 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.
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| 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.
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| 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 1st 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!
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| 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.
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| 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!
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