2025 Holiday Greetings!

Dear Family & Friends,

As anticipated, Chris finished the renovation of the last room needing work essentially by the end of March. Furniture & books have been moved in & the room is now ready for guests who donʻt mind sharing the space with 4 cats! All the windows in the house are also now impact-resistant so they are more likely to be able to withstand a hurricane.

Fred & his sons installed a new fence along the east & west ends of the anthurium garden & enhanced the height of the fence along the property line, creating a safe, escape-resistant, outdoor area for the cats. They now have their own hurricane-resistant room with a cat door that goes out to a large outdoor cat yard to play in. There is also a small deck with just enough room for a small table & chairs for me & my guests to have a pleasant outdoor meal along with Paʻipaʻi, the friendliest cat. 

The banana keiki that I replanted on my side of the back fence are doing well. The replacement dwarf coconut though, seems to have succumbed during the drought; I am now seeking a replacement for it. The laʻi that is now growing too close to the fence have been munched on by the cows in the pasture; I have replanted the others farther from the fence. I occasionally throw dropped fruit over the fence for the cows.

At the end of 2024 I was elected to be vice chair of the Leeward Planning Commission for 2025; I have now been re-elected for 2026. It has been a great learning experience & my 30+ years working for either the planning or public works departments has been very helpful. We usually meet once a month, but have just started looking at amendments to the Planning Department Rules which requires the Leeward & Windward commissions to hold a joint meeting when we are voting on the amendments. We had one meeting via Zoom in December & anticipate at least one more next year in-person in Hilo.

I made 2 trips to Washington state this year. The trip in August was to attend the 40^th Anniversary Celebration of the Adopt-a-Stream Foundation that I helped with during their inaugural year when I was pregnant with Kai. The 2^nd trip was in October to attend the annual conference of the Hawaiian Council (formerly Council for Native Hawaiian Advancement) that was held at the Tulalip Resort in the county where I worked for 30+ years. I had also worked on a large wetland mitigation site on the reservation; the forested area is now doing so well it is hard to believe it was just bare dirt when it began.

I had a little more time to harvest fruit this year. I harvested 20# Meyer lemon, 8# dragonfruit, 112# calamansi, & 87# jaboticaba; as usual, I gave about 85% of it away. This year the drought affected the mountain apple so there was no fruit. I also joined a canning hui to learn how to pressure can items; we made the salsa seen here as well as calamansi marmalade with fruit from our tree.

My 1^st visitors for the year were Tony & Taren from CA via WarmShowers.org in January, followed by Gage from SD in March; they all camped overnight in the backyard since the renovation was still in progress. Later in March I met Barbara & Bruce for a luʻau & took them on a tour of Kohala & whale watching. In April Shabbir & Ruqqyi (in photo) stayed for a week. Brendan from Australia stopped by for a night in June while on a motorcycle tour. And in November Barb stopped in for breakfast while their ʻohana was visiting the island. 

Kai was here for most of July; he came to help with the Kohala Reunion which is a 3-day celebration held every 5 years on the 4^th of July weekend. Cousins Tomiko & Rei also came to help with the Reunion. The Obon festivities were included in the Reunion so there was no separate event at the Kohala Jodo Mission. When he visited for the Thanksgiving holiday week, Kai helped install security cameras so I could keep an eye on the cats & dog even while I am off-island.

The ʻohana lost 3 kupuna this year. Cousin Lem (97 y.o.) passed away in late April. In late October we got a big surprise when Aunty Judy (84 y.o., #5 from left in photo) passed away. Then just two days later Aunty Daisy (96 y.o., #2), who had been in hospice care, passed away. On a happier note, Tomiko had a great opening of her photo exhibit Hatsubon at the Kahilu Theater in Waimea in June that a lot of ʻohana were able to attend. 

Hope all is well with you & your family!

A hui hou! Mālama pono!