The Finer Points of Buckets

So my bucket collecting days are all pau (Hawaiian Word of the Day: pau [pow] - finished, done, complete), and that's good and bad.  At the end, I was collecting  at least 50 five-gallon buckets full of green waste a week.  On the upside, it made my arms really strong.  But with the large amount of compost we now have on hand, and with the rainy season quickly approaching (making dry compost piles a figment of everyone's imagination), it was decided to put compost creation and therefore bucket collection on hold indefinitely. Chances are we'll be back at it in the spring.

Still, you know it's time to stop when you start getting buckets like this one:

Blog Forecast

"Weather" you like it or not *rimshot*

I'm really feeling like I need to post something.  The last thing I want is to relapse back into not posting at all, and a gap of more than a week is a good start for something like that to happen.  So here I am, blathering away like a homeless person talking to a doorknob (no offence to my many many homeless readers).

Fun With Pineapple

Well, it's that time of year again, folks (not that it was that time at this time last year, since it was the first year....I thought it was that time that time too, but that time ended up being later....it just wasn't time yet....but that was that time,and this is this time, and this time it is indeed that time....uh...this time................yeah.......again, or something).

That's right! It's pretty nigh on pineapple season!

Honestly, I had my doubts about posting about this, but I was telling Annie about it on the phone today, and she chuckled (do women chuckle? Is this one of those things like sweating/glistening? Should I say "giggled" or something?) laughed a little during it, so figuring that's worth something, here I am working on my gnome-sized keyboard, tapping it all out for you.

Yes, it is raining and I am bored. Why do you ask? :)

So with everything else going on here at the farm lately, the pineapples have been a bit neglected. Therefore I took it upon myself the other day to do do something about that. I set aside an entire day to work on the pineapple, and I've been working on them here and there each day since.

And I. am. torn. up.

I've got scratches, cuts, scrapes, puntcure wounds, bruises, swollen nasty bits where part of the plant is still stuck in me, nicks, one or two gashes, blisters, calluses, and sore muscles. I've got them on my hands, my arms, my legs, knees, elbows, on my back, my chest, on my butt, in my armpit, under my fingernails, and I think I even have a few chunks of plant still stuck in my forehead (for the record, safety glasses only direct the damage directly into your forehead right between your eyebrows....there should be some mention  of that in the documentation, but there isn't).

Blog About Nothing

Hey everyone.

Nothing much of noteworthiness going on these days, but I thought I should drop a line anyway, just to let you all know I'm still around.

Things have been busy, but not so busy that life has gotten out of hand. Mostly, though, life this last week has been a series of mishaps followed by work to correct them.

For those who don't know, my laptop crapped out on me. I'd been having troubles with the power cable, and the day that a new one arrived, Windows stopped working. Once I got Windows reinstalled, all of my installed programs were missing. Most of them still are, but I'm really trying not to worry about that too much at the moment. But that whole process ate up a whole day right there.

Skye and I have been working on getting electricity to the yurt this week. We've run into some problems there too, which then led to problems with power here at the house as well, but I think we've gotten them pretty well ironed out, and while the power to the house is working great now, I think we'll also have the power to the yurt up and going in a few days.

The weather has still not been incredibly cooperative, with rain every day. At least now we typically have at least a clear afternoon or morning (of course I say that as today has been cloudy and rainy all day long), but everyone keeps telling me that the big break in the weather should happen in the next couple of weeks. Everyone also keeps telling me that even in the typical rainy seasons it doesn't rain this much. When I first got here, everyone I met would ask "How do you like all of this rain?" and I'd always say that I really enjoyed it, because it just doesn't rain like this in Colorado. Last week, Linda across the street asked me if I still liked the rain. I told here that I do really still like the rain, but I'm starting to think that it doesn't like me. :)

On the upside of things, the work on the yurt has been going pretty well. We've got the painting all done (other than the ceiling and floor in the control room. The soundproofing in there is working really well, and with a few more added items where the ceiling meets the yurt, I think it's going to work great. We've moved in some furniture already, as well as the drum kit and the guitars. Kaleo gets home on Thursday, and will be here for over a week (11 days, if memory serves) so I'll be officially moving in to the yurt on that day, whatever shape it's in (I'm betting "round"). And for those of you that are curious, yes, I'll be adding more photos once all of the trim and furniture and everything is in.

Speaking of photos, Skye and Kaleo have started really encouraging me to make some large prints of some of my photos that I've taken, and to display them for sale at a local restaurant. While I know that I like my photos, and I know that my friends usually have nice things to say about them, I've got no faith that they'll sell. But as the upfront cost is not that much, and as it's not going to take very much time to get it all together and set up, I think I'm going to give it a shot. With a little luck, I'm hoping that I can make enough money to at least buy a new camera, so I can have even more flexibility in the photos I take. I'll keep you all posted on that one.

Well, that's about it from Hilo.

I hope all is well in your parts of the world.

OOooo I almost forgot.
HAWAI'IAN WORD OF THE DAY:
Koneko (koh-nay-koh): donut. (I can't believe I haven't done this one yet)

As a side note, thanks much to Jo for asking for the pronunciation for the words. I was thinking that myself after the last one of these, and with her confirmation of the idea, I think it's best. For the record, though, if you'd like to know how to pronounce the previous words, it's pretty simple. The consonants are usually pronounced the same way as in English. As far as I can tell, there's no such thing as a "silent" letter. W's are usually pronounced as an English V, but it's acceptable to use the W sounds as well. Each vowel is pronounced the same way in every word. A is "ah", like in draw. E is "ay", as in play or grey. I is "ee" like in see. O is "oh", like in grow. And U is "oo", like in food. Sometimes, though, the vowels kinda seem to blend together a bit when pronounced next to each other. For example, a previous Word of the Day, "Kaiwiki." It's pronounced kaee-vee-kee and the kaee ends up usually rhyming with "guy" or "sky." From what I've been told and been able to figure out, this kind of sound mixing with the vowels does happen, but it's not that big a deal, since the word "kai" means salt water, and it's one word. If it was two words, that needed to be distinct, then it would be spelled "ka'i" where the apostrophe is a gap between the vowel sounds, thus pronounced "ka ee" with a clear space between the A and the EE.

That's what I've been able to figure out. I'm sure if I'm wrong, someone here will read this and correct me.

Ok... that's it for your lessons today. There will be a pop quiz later in the week (maybe).

Round House Kick! (Ow! That Yurts!)

Alternate Entry Titles:

Yurt So Good (C'mon Baby Make a Yurt So Good)

Yurt Time Is Gonna Come

Hey everyone!

I was going to wait until it was all done before I posted any pics, but so many people have asked about the yurt and requested yurt photos that I've decided to break down and put something up now.

As many of you know, Skye and I are building a yurt for me to live in while I'm working here on the farm. If you don't know what a yurt is, you will soon. I was pretty excited about the idea from the start, and I think that when it's all finished it's going to be a great place to

live.

When I arrived here, Skye had already set the foundation posts and started the framing.

After finishing the framing, we added plywood panels as the sub floor.

Once the floor was done, we put up the lattice walls and the doors. This proved to be the easy part.

Then it was time to put up the rafters. The rafters run from a tension cable along the top of the lattice walls to a center ring that is supported only by the rafters, and the rafters are supported by it. The center ring is about five feet in diameter, and the rafters (there are 50 of them) are about seventeen feet long. The trick to this is that you set two of the rafters in place along the tension wire, and then lift up the edge of the center ring (still on the ground) so that the rafters sit flush. Then you're supposed to lift the ring as high as you can, take two other rafters and insert them into the center ring. Then using the rafters, continue lifting the ring up and the seat the rafters in the tension cable above the walls, thus holding the ring in place.

Easier said than done.

Skye and I tried it once by ourselves, and failed miserably. Very very luckily for us, that was the weekend that Kaleo was in town, and she came over to help out. With her help we were able to get the center ring lifted, and the remainder of the rafters set into place. We never could have done it without her.

Also during the rafter installation, we encountered a few other issues. For that, I suppose you need a little bit of back story. Skye acquired this yurt in trade for editing a video project for some folks on the other side of the island. That was a good deal. The tricky part is that these folks had not properly installed the yurt when they were using it, and a strong wind blew it down. Skye already knew this, because he had to order two new walls and a new center ring. What we didn't know is there were other parts that were slightly damaged from the previous structural failure that required our attention. Nine of the rafters, for example. After one totally split and fell (that was scary) we started looking at the others and had to do some mending. But, we eventually got them fixed and all sat in place nicely.

Then it was time for the roof. Ugh. The roof is a single piece heavy-duty tarp of sorts. It probably weighs around 250 pounds. Add in the water that the rain had added to it over time, and I'm guessing it was over 300 at time of lifting. The way you install it is to lift it through the center ring, and then unfold it on top of the rafters. At this point, we made the best decision we've made since I've been here, and we rented some scaffolding from Home Depot. Using some rope and the piping of the scaffolding as a sort of makeshift pulley, we were able to lift that stupid roof, four inches at a time, up to the center ring.

After all of that, everything else was pretty easy. We put up the walls and wall insulation, we leveled the doors, added the skylight dome, and tied everything down. And with that, technically the yurt itself was done.

But of course we decided to do more. We decided that the best thing to do would be to build a loft above part of the floor so I could sleep up there, creating more useful room on the floor. The way it worked out, we're going to enclose the room under the loft for use as a guest room (with exterior access) and as a soundproofed control room for recording. Skye even had a few sliding glass doors in the yard he bough from a hotel that was remodeling or something, and we've turned one on it's side to create a 5'x8' window from the control room to the main room. AND the neighbors, Puggy and Linda, happen to have a old Hawai'ian Tel phone booth (complete with bi-fold privacy doors) in their yard they're going to let us have to convert into a vocal isolation booth!

It's going to be sweet.

I know you'd think that once the yurt was done that the interior work would be easy and go quickly, since we're inside and out of the rain. But noooooo........ the rain wouldn't let us off of the hook that easily. It turns out that when it rains enough, the road to the yurt becomes impassable. Not even the farm equipment can get up that road when it's muddy (and it is really muddy). So all of the lumber had to be hauled up that hill by hand. And today all of the scaffolding (due back at Home Depot) had to be hauled down by hand. Slippery messy work. But once summer comes around and the road dries out completely, we're going to spread some rock on it, and that should solve the problem in the future.

But for now, we've just about got the interior framing done, and then we'll be putting up the paneling for the walls and the floor of the loft. At that point, I'm moving in.

We've decided to try an epoxy flooring, and see how that goes. It should be durable, easy to clean, and cheaper than vinyl. That way, if Skye and Kaleo ever decide to move the yurt, they're not wasting any flooring. Then I'll go get some area rugs or some carpet remnants or something, and throw them down.

Once the flooring's all done, then we're going to address the issue of electricity. Right now, the house on the property is powered by solar panels. In the case of long rainy days, there is a gas generator to help recharge the system. It's a good system, and completely off of the grid, but the weather really plays a role in how much power you have on hand at any time, and you've got to be very conscious of your power consumption and battery usage. So we've decided that we're going with hydro power for the yurt. We're going to start with a small system that pulls water out of one of the on-site streams and runs it through a small turbine which will generate power, much like a water wheel. We think (depending on line loss due to resistance) that we should be able to power the yurt completely as well as supplement the existing house's power supply all off of that one small turbine. If it works as well as we think it will, we'll start looking at installing a larger system using the other two creeks on the property to create enough power to run a small wood shop as well as any lighting and other equipment necessary to use for farming (green houses, garages, etc.) It's all pretty exciting.

Hawai'ian Word of the Day: "Kelekele" - mud or muddy

I Live!!! / How I'll be Living

Yep. I'm a survivor.

First of all, I took my first solo venture into town. It's going to take some time to get used to getting around, especially since all of the street names are in (believe it or not) Hawai'ian!

Take Kamehameha to Kinoole then to Kanoelehua to Komohama to Puainako....after a while, especially through the rain, they all start looking the same. But somehow I made it to the store, and to the gas station and back again without incident. Hooray!

Another tale of survival: We had our first noticeable earthquake today. Magnitude 4.0 off of the coast.
http://earthquake.usgs.gov/eqcenter/recenteqsus/Quakes/hv00033291.php
Of course, I've been in some minor earthquakes before, low rumblers is all, but this one was just one big THUMP. I was over at Linda's at the time, and it felt like someone had backed the tractor into the corner of the house or something.

I knew in moving out that the whole island is a volcano, but I guess I never thought about the subsequent earthquakes that go along with that. Live and learn, I guess.

Anyway, on to the more detailed aspects of my life here.

Work:
As you all know, I'll be working on the farm here. I'll be doing typical yard work (weed whacking, maintenance, weeding, that sort of thing) and once the crops start coming in I'll be doing a lot of harvest work, and then maybe doing some selling at the farmer's market in town.

As some of you know, I was thinking that I'd grow the produce for, make, and sell salsa at the farmer's market. Alas, upon visiting there since I've been here, there are now two (not even just one!) salsa stands at the market. Dang. Dang dang. Double dang. So if any of you have any ideas about what I can grow/make and sell, they'd be much appreciated.

I know that it may be difficult to come up with ideas without seeing the market firsthand, so sometime in the up and coming weeks, I'll put together an entry all about the market, and the people there (as soon as I get to know a few of them)

Apart from the work on the farm, I'll also be working for Puggy (sp?) and Linda down the street. Turns out they're the largest koa dealer in the world (talk about starting at the top floor!). For them I'll be taking over some of the things that Skye's been doing for them, being computer work (selling wood online) and manual labor (planing, grading, and sorting lumber) and some craftwork (turning bowls).

Living Quarters
For the moment, I'm crashing on Skye's futon. His wife, Kaleo, is at school on Oahu, and only comes back once every two weeks. Once we get a few days of no rain, we'll finish the yurt, and I'll be there permanently. Until then, I really don't want to be butting in on the newishlyweds' rare time together. So if they yurt's not built by this Thursday, I'll be crashing for the weekend in a shed that Puggy and Linda have on the property next door to us. (expect pictures of this one). But either way, no matter what, cross your fingers for a few dry days. I only need three.

That's about it from here at the moment. Hopefully it'll be a couple of days before I can write again, and then I'll be doing so from the yurt.


Hawai'ian Word of the Day:
Ao Pua'a: This is another two-parter. The area we're in is known as Ao Pua'a. "Ao" means "cloud" and "pua'a" means "pig". This area is called Ao Pua'a because in Hawai'ian folklore, Pele would hunt the boar, and the boar, to escape, would change into a cloud and hide in this valley. Mainlander translation: MMmmmmmmmm bacon cloud........

Settling In

Time to update on a few interesting things, I think.

Since I've arrived, it's rained every day. Not all day, but the only sunshine I saw was right when I arrived on the islands. Everything's either soaked or damp, and the solar panels on the little house are struggling to keep up enough power for the daily household stuff (like charging my laptop to write this blog)









Despite the rain, things have been interesting, and the time has been flying by. Yesterday I met one of my employers, Linda. She and her husband sell koa wood online to surfboard makers, luthieries, and other woodworkers. She seems very nice, and they've got a good operation over there. I'm excited to jump in and start helping out over there.


Also yesterday, there was a nice treat out behind the house. An 'Io, or Hawaiian Hawk, was perched in a tree about 150 feet from the back porch. My puny 3x zoom on my camera really doesn't do it justice:

So I had to get all MacGyver on it. I mean, how often do you get an endangered species hanging around outside your kitchen?

So I took some binoculars that I've borrowed from my dad, and I set the camera to 3x zoom, and the glasses are 10x zoom, and I shot the photo through the binoculars. And SHAZAM! My own telephoto lens. :) The photos came out a little blurry and a little grainy, but the idea's there, and you can tell it's an 'Io. So I'm pretty happy with it.


Despite the pouring rain, this guy sat in that bare tree for over three hours.

I tried some new food yesterday.... it's called rambutan. It's an odd, hairy, red fruit that looks like a sea creature more than typical fruit. You bite through the skin, and peel the top off, and then pop the pulpy fruit into your mouth and chuck away the skin. It's like a giant green grape that's meen peeled, and it has a seed the size and shape of an almond in the middle. It's not as tart or as flavorful as a grape, but it's not bad at all. A nice little snack.

That's about all that's truly newsworthy at the moment. I'm sure once the rain lets up for a while we'll get to work on the yurt. the neighbors have offered to chip in and help set it up when we're ready.

Hawai'ian Word of the Day:

Kaiwiki - "kai" means water and "wiki" means fast, so kaiwiki means "fast water". Therefore the street I live on is named for the many quick streams in the area.