Yesterday Trudy & I made arrangements for me to take her to Kona today after she got off work to pick up the SUV she bought from Anne & Catie, which has been at the collision repair shop; someone ran in to Catie just before she sold it. Trudy texted this morning just before 6 saying that she thought she should go take a COVID-19 test.
She called a couple hours later to let me know that she was unable to get a test at the local hospital; they now only test people being admitted to the hospital. So she tried through her healthcare provider & was told she would need an appointment for that; but they did not have any until tomorrow. Auē! Her employer requires a clinic-administered test to allow her to go back to work, but to pick up her car today her last resort was to use an at-home test kit. She texted me a little later, hers had expired! Auē! I went down & dropped off several of the tests I had that were not expired. (I had 2 that were.)
Later I got a text; she is positive. Auē! I dropped off a bottle of Microban spray & some hand sanitizer. Right now they are good on food supplies but if they need more she will give me a call. Her mom will be making her own meals while Trudy stays in her room. She said she thinks this is the worst it will get since her throat had been sore the past couple of days but she thought it was just from smoking. We shall see; being a smoker is a pre-existing condition that can make your COVID-19 outcome worse. Fortunately she is fully vaccinated which will help alleviate symptoms. Her mom is also fully vaccinated; hopefully that will keep her from getting infected. Trudy was also going to call today & make an appointment for next week for a COVID-19 test from her health care provider so she can go back to work as soon as possible.
Trudy checked with Glenn to see if he could help today but he was busy. Her friend Debi was available, unfortunately Debi had been around Trudy during her infectious stage. Although Debi is currently testing negative we really need to wait for a negative test on Day 5 of her last date of exposure to Trudy before anyone sits in an enclosed car with her for over an hour to go pick the car; the repair folks did not want it sitting there for 5 more days waiting for Debi to test negative. So tomorrow Fran & I will go to Kona to pick up the "new" car.
In the meanwhile I organized my canning jars. I moved the empty jars out of the lower cabinets & moved them to the top of the upper cabinets. They are also labelled so I know how many of each size I have. The filled canning jars are in the lower cabinet which now also has more room for the rest of the jams I will be canning for the remainder of the year.
We received another Fire Weather Watch information statement from Hawaiʻi Island Civil Defense. Our district as well as 4 others are under a fire watch beginning tomorrow morning. The watch also noted that northeast winds are anticipated to be blowing at 15 to 30 mph with gusts up to 45 mph. Dane & I have been discussing how much more on the ball the Hawaiʻi Island Civil Defense seems to be than the Maui County Civil Defense. On the day of the devastating wildfires on Maui I got about 10 alerts for fires on Hawaiʻi Island; people on Maui that have been interviewed said they got no alerts at all.
This morning the low pressure area about 800 miles south of Hilo that was given a 10% chance of becoming more organized was even smaller. It was now forecast to have a 0% chance of becoming a more organize system in 7 days. By the evening it had petered out & was no longer showing up on the maps.
I made a batch of jaboticaba-calamansi jam today. I am experimenting with using Sure-Jell pectin for use in low sugar or no sugar recipes. I read the instructions the pectin came with & decided to use the directions given for making cooked blueberry jam which had the nearest fruit:sugar ratio that I have been using which is about 1 cup chopped fruit to 2/3 cup sugar; the usual is 1:1. The big difference is that instead of cooking the fruit for an hour or so in order for the natural pectin to be triggered, I only cooked the fruit-sugar mixture for about 15 minutes. It set up nicely! And has a much fruitier taste than my previous jams with the same amount of sugar. From 4 pounds jaboticaba with 1 pound calamansi I made 26 quarter pint jars (4 ounces each). I have enough jaboticaba & calamansi for 2 more batches of jam but I only have 14 jars left out of the 40 that I had ordered earlier; I made another order with Amazon today for 2 more cases of 40-quarter pint jars. Although I try to support local businesses, it costs me almost the same amount to buy a dozen quarter pint jars from the local store as it does for me to buy 40 through Amazon Prime.
Twenty-six 4 oz jars plus enough for a slice of toast!
My next experiment using the Sure-Jell pectin will be to reduce the amount of sugar in spite of what the instructions say. Even though it says this pectin is for "less or no sugar needed recipes," none of the instructions provided use less sugar than what I have already determined can be used when cooking the fruit without added pectin for 1 hour. Last year I did try a 1:1/2 ratio with no pectin but it was a little runny. The instructions, however, warn against using less sugar than directed or it, "WILL RESULT IN SET FAILURES". (Yes, the warning was in all caps.) The only "no sugar" recipe provided is for using Splenda instead of sugar but I don't really want to do that. I also ordered some Pomona pectin which uses a calcium solution to aid the setting of the pectin & will be experimenting with it in future batches of jam.
In the Central Pacific, there is an area of low pressure about 900 miles southeast of Hilo. It is forecast to have a less than 20% chance of becoming a more organized tropical depression over the next 7 days as it moves westerly at about 15 to 20 mph.
Tropical Storm Irwin is still in the Eastern Pacific basin. Its west-northwesterly movement is at about 10 mph & it is forecast to enter the Central Pacific basin sometime on Thursday. Irwin is expected to lose speed & become a tropical depression at about the time it crosses in to the Central Pacific basin.
Hauʻoli lā Hānau e Deb! A me ka Hauʻoli lā Hoʻomanaʻo makahiki kanakolu e Umi & Brian! A me ka Hauʻoli lā Hoʻomoana makahiki ʻelima e Diann & Robert!
My friend Yvonne has given me the okay to share her story on this blog. Mahalo e Yvonne! Here are her photos & own words about her experience. (To see the photos that had no captions, go to Yvonne's Facebook page.)
Yvonne, I'm glad that you & your friends made it back home safely!
For those who want to make donations, the best thing right now is money which will help fill in shortages of donated items. Here is information about one of the organizations collecting monetary donations.
Yvonne was able to post on Facebook about 5:30 this evening; she's okay! She was without power but had sewer & water; locals provided them with food. She will be flying back home tomorrow.
I am glad that Yvonne is not one of the 89 people who are now known to have died in the wildfires on Maui; this has now become the most deadly wildfire in the US in 100 years. There was a press conference this evening about the coordinated recovery efforts. As of today they said only 3% of the impacted areas have been searched by the 8 cadaver dog teams, so the death toll will definitely increase.
The 1st task on my To Do list this morning was the Cat Genie; it woke me up announcing, "Error, drainage issue" Which is not a comforting message to hear! I raced in to the bathroom to see if it was overflowing; fortunately, it was not so I could slow down & attend to taking Moʻo out for her morning lua. There will be no photos of the clean-up since opening up the entire unit & getting into the working parts is a little disgusting, after all it is basically a sewage handling system for cat waste. But it's all clean now & issuing no more disturbing error messages! (I think being a biologist helps me handle this type of clean up without getting nauseous.)
After that I needed a shower. Since it was daylight & warm out I also gave Moʻo a bath. She does not seem to appreciate baths; she willingly goes into the outdoor shower but then gives me very sad looks when I turn the water on. She doesn't know how lucky she is that she gets lukewarm baths instead of cold ones!
I did a dump run to throw out stuff I removed from the Cat Genie, as well as Moʻo's bag full of filled poop bags. I also threw out the regular garbage from me. I accounted for only about 1/3 of the volume discarded!
I rewarded myself for taking care of those unpleasant chores by stopping in to get some ice cream at Our Founding Farmers. Mark had made a batch of Jaboticaba Sorbet with the 20 pounds of jaboticaba I dropped off with him last week. He used only the juice from the berries which he squeezed out; he had kept the skins on in the process so the sorbet had a nice pinkish color. He will be putting it out for sale once the strawberry ice cream is gone. I also tried the Mango Ice Cream & Matcha Ice Cream that he had made; the mango was not that intense but that is one of the difficulties with using mango in an ice cream. The Matcha was just right, just bitter enough to get the matcha flavor but not too bitter.
It's not on the menu yet.
Jaboticaba Sorbet.
Mango Ice Cream.
I got to taste test the Mango.
Hurricane Dora no longer gets its own warning cone graphic since it is not heading towards any other US controlled areas. But there is a low pressure area about 1500 miles east-southeast of Hilo in the Eastern Pacific basin; it has a 60% chance of becoming a tropical depression over the next 48 hours. It is moving westerly at about 10 mph & is expected to cross over in to the Central Pacific basin tomorrow night.
In the Eastern Pacific basin, Tropical Depression Seven-E became Tropical Storm Fernanda early this
evening. It has maximum sustained winds of 45 mph & is moving
west-northwesterly at about 10 mph. Forecasters expect it to reach
hurricane level winds by Monday as it moves towards the Central Pacific
basin.
The other activity in the Eastern Pacific basin is a large area of disturbed weather south of the coast of Mexico. Forecasters have given it a 20% chance of forming a tropical depression within 48 hours & anticipate that will happen in early to middle of next week. It is moving roughly west-northwesterly.
I am rarely on Facebook any more but yesterday I made a quick post to let friends there know I was safe since I had received many texts, emails, & phone calls. While I was on FB, I noticed that a friend from Washington who was on vacation in west Maui had posted early on Tuesday morning, but had not posted anything since then. Some other friends on FB noticed the same. Hoping she is safe and just stuck out there in a no cell or wi-fi service zone right now.
I slept most of today; I'm pretty sure it is a response to the COVID-19 vaccination I got yesterday. My body is working to create antibodies to something that is invading & I am okay with that. For dinner I heated up a bowl of chicken & papaya soup that Dane had given me yesterday; we made a car-to-car hand off in the parking lot in Waimea as he was on his way home to Hilo & I was returning from Hilo after my medical appointments. It was so ʻono & much appreciated!
When I visited Aunty Doris in Hilo yesterday, she brought out a photo she had found while cleaning out some things. It was of Uncle George, the older of my mother's 2 brothers, who passed away in 2006. According to the information on the back of the photo, it was taken on December 10, 1953, in Korea; Uncle George & Uncle Tom had served in Korea at the same time. I took a photo of the photo & sent it to Uncle George's daughters.
"Dec. 10, 1953 - Korea" (photographer unknown)
On my way back it was raining on the mountain road, so I took Akoni Pule Highway. I drove past part of the area of Kohala Ranch that burned in the fire on Tuesday. I was unable to see if any homes were damaged but the perimeter fence & trees around the guard station as well as the station itself were damaged. It looked like the fire only got as far north as Milepost 8.5; I think it burned out there due to the fire in July 2022 in that area that removed a lot of the fuel for a wildfire. Lapakahi is at Milepost 14 so was not in any danger.
The plastic fencing near the wildfire melted.
Guard station is in background by trucks, many plants around it have burned.
There is a low pressure system in the Central Pacific region about 1650 miles east-southeast of Hilo that is predicted to have a 40% chance of becoming a tropical depression in 48 hours. It is moving westerly at about 10 mph.
Hauʻoli lā Hānau e Bev & Sistah T! A me ka Hauʻoli lā Hānau e ʻAnakala Tom! He would have been 93 today!
Thomas Tadashi Takimoto (08/11/1930 - 06/02/2023).
Locally there are a lot of places accepting donations to be shipped over to Maui; there are several here on Hawai'i Island. O'ahu County Medical Reserve Corps is putting together a list of volunteers who are able to go to Maui to assist. Other local groups are also organizing volunteers. For those of you who are not located here in the state here is information below on where to send donations. Mahalo nui loa!
I was awakened just before 5:30 this morning by the 1st of several emergency alerts from Hawai'i County Civil Defense. Even though Hurricane Dora was over 600 miles south of us, & tropical storm force winds only extended about 105 miles out, the winds we were getting were still enough to do some damage. The 1st fire alert requested people take the Kohala Mountain Road as an alternate route. But then the next alert said there were trees down across the Kohala Mountain Road! Āue! Fortunately they got those trees cleared out of the road quickly. I think they went down because of the high winds & strong gusts which also kept firefighting helicopters grounded.
Just before lunch, the voluntary fire evacuation zone was expanded. Now 4 gated communities with multi-million dollar homes were being asked to evacuate. I guess that's what happens when you decide you want to live where it is dry & you want an expansive view of the ocean; you move to old pastureland that has been converted to large residential farmettes with nice roads, gates, & guards at the entrance so the riffraff can't come & bother you. When it was pastureland this type of fire would not have been as big of a problem. Now firefighters will have to put their health & safety on the line to save these expensive houses.
In mid-afternoon it became a mandatory evacuation. The Akoni Pule Hwy was now closed from mile post 6 to 16; which means Lapakahi is within the area that is off limits. I decided to see if it was true; since Dane has taken the day off for a medical procedure no one would be at Lapakahi to make sure all the tourists got out & the gate was closed so none could get back in. The road was actually closed off at MP 17 by a Department of Transportation truck parked sideways in the road. I talked to the driver; he said Lapakahi had been checked & the gate was closed. I relayed the information to Dane, who had been unaware of what was happening since he was just coming out of the operating room.
The 1800 acres burned was later revised down to 600.
The truck across the road is way in the background.
As I drove back to Kapaʻau, another emergency alert came through. Now Queen Kaʻahumanu Hwy was closed between Hapuna & the Kawaihae junction! Āue! That means Dane will not be able to get to his office in the morning & will also not be able to get to Lapakahi! I texted that information to him also; he is calling his supervisor to find out what to do.
By 6 pm, the mandatory evacuation order had been lifted in the mauka areas, but the makai areas of Kohala Ranch were still under mandatory evacuation.The road closures on Akoni Pule & Queen Kaʻahumanu are still in effect tonight, so we may not be going to Lapakahi tomorrow. As of 8 pm this evening, the fire has 60% contained & had burned about 600 acres. Hawaiʻi Island has been much more fortunate than Maui where several historic structures were burned in Lahaina town, among other major damage on the island. Here is a video & some photos of the destruction.
Here's the Hawai'i County Hazard Impact Map.
We are located in the green portion at the north end where the green & white emergency shelter symbol is shown; our hazards today are high wind
& high surf. The wind has impacted me by knocking over one of my
tall plants that is still in the pot & one of the shorter ones that
has a lot of surface area; they're now waiting out the high winds in the
garage. The yellow area to the west has only high wind as its hazard.
The pink area has high winds & dry fire hazard conditions; the fires are located at the brown circle with the white triangle. The red dashed line are closed roads. You can see the light gray lines
near the bottom end of the red dotted line indicating roads around that area; those are where the
multi-million dollar homes are located. Just to the south of them is the
Kawaihae Hawaiian Home Land subdivision, a much lower income
residential area for native Hawaiians; they will probably be safe since
all kinds of efforts will be made to save the multi-million dollar homes
standing between them & the fire.
The wind blew the koai'e sapling down even in the garage!
The Tesla app was also letting me know that high winds were a possibility. I like that it automatically starts storing energy in case there is a power outage as happened on Maui when poles were burnt down.
High wind warning from last night got extended.
The warning was extended several times.
In the video below, Chief Meterologist Jennifer Robbins for Hawaii News Now explains how Hurricane Dora is impacting the winds here.
Before the emergency alert woke me up, I had gotten a text just after 4 am. It was saying someone tried to change the destination address of my package near Springfield, IL. Since I had just gotten notification the day before that something I ordered was being shipped from Elk Grove Village, IL, it initially sounded legitimate. I clicked on the link, it asked for my zip code. Then the next window asked me to pay to have the shipment rescheduled within the next 2 days or my shipment would be returned to the warehouse. Even in my sleepy state that did not sound right. I double checked the earlier email about the shipment & realized my package is coming via FedEx not UPS. So I went back to sleep.
The wrong tense & punctuation would have tipped me off if I was fully awake.
After this screen it asked for money.
It looked so peaceful when I woke up this morning. It was a little windy but nothing like it would be in the middle of a high wind warning area.
This morning I spoke with Dr. Pham, my primary care physician; she was following up on my emergency room visit last week for my back pain. I haven't seen her in a while so I made an appointment to see her in person in October when I will be on Oʻahu for my dental appointment. I was also overdue for a mammogram & a dermatology check; I will also be having those done while I am on Oʻahu. I tried to get both of those done on Hawaiʻi Island prior to October, but appointments for those were not available on-island until January & February 2024! Āue! Good thing I am fortunate enough to be able to travel inter-island frequently.
Just after lunch, I got a call from Jeremy from Kraftsman Auto Body. They will be repairing the ding by the tailgate window on the Crosstrek that I got in Waikiki a couple years ago. The part is in & Don will be able to do the repair next week! Hulō! They also have an arrangement with a nearby car rental place which will provide transportation to & from their shop plus a discounted rental price! Which means I won't have to have Trudy or someone else go to Kona with me to help me move the car around while I get a rental to use for the 3 days that Don will be working on the Crosstrek.
In the evening I attended the North Kohala Community Development Plan Advisory Committee's Utilities subcommittee's meeting on cesspool conversions; a 2017 law requires all cesspools to be converted to septic systems or hook up to sewer by 2050. A State task force is looking at prioritizing which systems are worked on 1st depending on their impact to the environment. A new grant initiative passed last year to provide up to $20,000 for a property to aid in the conversion spent $5 million in 2 weeks on the highest priority sites & is now out of money. I checked the interactive map & found we are in the Priority 3 area so need to comply by 2050. But I would rather not wait that long if I will be funding it myself. One of the positive suggestions was creating something like a sewer district for areas where houses are clustered together; the Kynnersley Road area where our house is was one of the places suggested. If it does happen; it would mean the State would foot the initial bill & repayment would be in the form of an additional assessment on property taxes over the next 30 or so years.
I saw Beth at the cesspool conversion meeting. I had been concerned about her since early this morning when the fire broke out; she lives at Kohala Ranch. Or so I thought. When I talked to her tonight I found out she lived there when we 1st met online in 2020 through the ʻŌlelo Hawaiʻi class at University of Hawaiʻi Mānoa. She has since moved to a place just north of Hāwī town so was not in any danger. What a relief!
Although the High Wind Warning is scheduled to end at 4:45 tomorrow morning, the winds seemed to slow down significantly by the early evening but then flared up again. Major Hurricane Dora is now about 750 miles south-southwest of us & moving westerly at about 23 mph. But this morning Dora was about 600 miles south of Hawai'i Island with maximum sustained winds of 130 mph; hurricane force winds extended out about 30 miles with tropical storm force winds extending out about 105 miles.
And things are not slowing down in the Eastern Pacific. There looks to be another storm brewing that may make its way over to the Central Pacific. In the morning (Hawai'i time) it was forecast to have a 50% chance of becoming more organized over the next 7 days. By mid-day that had increased to 60% over 7 days with a 0% chance of forming within 48 hours. At the end of the day it now has a 10% chance of forming within 48 hours; stay tuned!
Hauʻoli lā Hānau e Paul, Bill, & Dominique! A me ka Hauʻoli lā Hoʻomanaʻo makahiki ʻumi kumamālima e The Most Excellent Cook & The Bronco Dude! A me ka Hauʻoli lā Hoʻomanaʻo makahiki ʻehiku e Leigh & Lenny!
