Project #82 : Evening Walk (with bonus picture).

At Acacia’s invitation, we all went on an evening walk up our dead-end street. The sunset was gorgeous.

And at the end of the road, she found a coconut as big as her head! When her Daddy wanted to see how far he could toss it, she told us very seriously that “this coconut is not for throwing, it is for eating”. So Grampa / my Dad carried it very gently home for her and hacked it open with the machete.

Project 365: Getting Stuff Done (double post).

#80: Demolition Crew.

My brother-in-law, Dave, took down our old chicken coop, the original Hubbell Bubble (search for it online, it’s pretty cool). Dad helped for the last part.

#81: Cleaned Up.

I organized my bathroom shelves, and actually got rid of stuff I never used so I could see what I had left! Crazy idea, right? I was pretty proud of myself for getting it all to fit nicely back on the shelves — it wasn’t as easy as it looks like it should have been — hence the picture.

Project 365: Family Time! Part One.

Here is why I have not been posting very often lately:

#77: From Alaska to Hawaii!

My older sister and brother-in-law and niece are visiting! As you can see from the mess, my niece Acacia (age two-and-a-half) made herself right at home… They live in Alaska, which is currently covered in snow. Acacia loves being outside no matter what the temperature or weather, so being in Hawaii is great for that, and she has fallen in love with playing in the sand and water — to the point where my sister is considering making an indoor sandbox for her back home. Acacia has also learned that sometimes a turtle is called a honu, and sometimes frogs go ‘ko-kee’ instead of ‘rib-bit’.

#78: Acacia with her Grampa.

She has also taken to her Hawaiian Grammy and Grampa. She even helps out with chores like collecting the mail!

#79: Brushing Teeth (with bonus picture).

She’s also been taught how important it is to brush your teeth, to get rid of all the “sugar monsters”. Independent child that she is, she insists on doing it herself!

Project 365: Triptych Catch-up #5

#74: Banana Trees.

We don’t really have soil around here. Scrap off the grasses and weeds, and you get maybe an inch of dirt at the most, and the rest is pretty much unbroken pahoehoe lava. So when we plant, we ship in green waste — chopped up trees, basically — and use soil from the pig pens which is already inoculated with IMOs (Indigenous Microorganisms, key to Korean Natural Farming). Everything sits on top of the pahoehoe. The plants grow very quickly and happily like this, with shallow roots until it can slowly break into the lava and turn it into the most nutrient-rich soil on earth.

However. We’ve been having a combination of heavy rain with strong winds. This did not bode well for the top-heavy banana trees, especially the ones who had already flowered and were actively producing fruit. A couple of them did end up falling over, and my Dad created this sling to prop up the first one, and then he ended up kind of ‘roping’ them together with the black netting. Hopefully the trees weren’t too traumatized by their little adventure!

 

#75: Paleo Breakfast.

I try to mostly eat a Paleo/Real Food diet; not only because it’s so healthy and yummy, but also because my body tends to make it very clear to me that that is the diet it wants, and it will be very unhappy with me if I fail to live up to those wants. Actually, those are pretty much the same reasons I do my work-outs…

Anyway, this is one of my favorite types of breakfast: some fresh raw veggies, a handful of nuts, farm-fresh hardboiled eggs, and an all-coconut-flour muffin. A lot of times I’ll have fruit, too, and maybe some cheese. Add a cup or pot of tea, and I’m all set ’til the afternoon!

 

#76: Tattoo.

This isn’t the greatest photo, but I wanted to show off this tattoo. It is a dragon of entirely my own design. My inspiration for it was two-fold: a line from a book, and the Uffington White Horse (if you don’t know it, look it up!). I love the way that the chalk horse is these graceful lines that represent a spirit and idea of a horse, rather than the exact image of one. I wanted to do that for the image of a dragon. And to my mind at least, I feel I succeeded.

Project 365, #73: Self-Portrait.

This is just to show off the great new gifts a close friend gave me (the feathery bit and the metal bit. She made them herself.), and also to show off the great hair cut I gave myself!

Project 365: Triptych Catch-up #4

#70: House-sitting.

The living room of the place I house/dog-sit. It’s nice, a bright sunny living room with one of the most comfortable couches ever…

#71: New Paint.

When I came home from house-sitting, I discovered that Mum had used more of the pretty yellow paint that I helped pick out for the living room, and had painted the little hallway off the kitchen.

#72: Bedroom Corner.

Since the house wasn’t exactly set up for an extra person when I moved back, we turned part of the back room into my bedroom. It actually works out well for me, because I’m sharing my room with the bookshelves and the craft boxes and the worktable — all my favorite things!

Project 365: Triptych Catch-Up #3

#67: Sunset.

The bottom of Kahakai Ave, overlooking the sea cliffs. I watched a small pod of whales swim by, and saw the clouds turn pink. Very peaceful.

 

#68: Lava Glow.

Up at Volcano National Park, at the Jagger Museum overlook of Halema’uma’u Crater on the summit of Kīlauea volcano (the most active of the five volcanoes that form the Island of Hawaii, aka the Big Island).

This is the glow from the lava lake beneath the crater floor. The lava lake itself is not visible from this angle, but the plume reflecting it creates a very awe-inspiring light-show at night.

 

#69: Maku’u Market.

Every Sunday Maku’u Farmers Market fills with vendors, locals, and tourists. You can find just about anything for sale here: fresh fruit and veg, local made soaps, raw honey, clothes, jewelry, books, plants, massages, swords…

And then there’s the “food court”, where you can find anything from French crepes made fresh to order, to Thai, Mexican, and just about anything else you might be hungry for. While you eat, you can listen to the local musicians playing on stage by the picnic tables.

Fun Trivia: While they were filming the tv show “Lost”, I once passed by Dominic Monaghan and Evangeline Lilly discreetly wandering through the booths.

Project 365: Triptych Catch-Up #2

#64: Happy Piggy!

This photo is actually a cheat. On day #64 I hit my head really hard in the morning and chose to miss a day rather than worry about taking a picture while I focused on recovery. However, I’d been taking a bunch of extra pictures for my Mum’s upcoming self-published book about our farm and using the Korean Natural Farming Method, so I decided to use one of them as a replacement.

This photo is of my Dad spraying LAB (lactic acid bacteria) on one of our two breeding sows, Spot. LAB is one of the basic medicines in the Natural Farming Method; it’s very beneficial and we personally use it all the time for ourselves for our fermented food and other things. The pigs love getting sprayed down, and it helps keep them healthy.

#65: Hilo Bay.

A friend came to visit for a long weekend, and after picking him up from the airport we headed out to Liliuokalani Gardens, a bay-front park in Hilo. We walked out to Coconut Island, and took pictures across the bay, looking at downtown Hilo.

#66: Steam Cloud.

The next day I took my friend out to the End of the Road at Kalapana. We walked out to the official lava-viewing area, where you can see the smoke of the lava coming down the hill, and the steam clouds where it enters the ocean.

It’s about two and a half miles away over unbroken lava fields. There’s a guided tour that hikes out to it, and boats that go near the ocean entry, and helicopter tours (one of which you can see in the far left of this picture) that fly over it. I personally have not done any of those, but when the flow was closer to the Volcano National Park side about 6 or so years ago, I hiked out to several times. The best was at night, under a full moon, near the ocean. It was so magical…

Project 365: Triptych Catch-Up #1

#61: ‘Ulu Festival.

‘Ulu is the Hawaiian name for the Breadfruit tree, an incredibly useful plant with versatile and delicious fruit that is a stable of traditional Hawaiian diets. This was my second time at the annual festival, which celebrates the ‘Ulu with workshops, demonstrations, music, games, and the cooking competition. Each recipe used must feature ‘Ulu as a main ingredient. The entries are judged, and afterward can be sampled by the public. This photo is my sample plate with each entry: everything from pizza to souffle, pesto to cake.

#62: Playing.

There is a old stables that has been renovated into a community center over the winter. In doing so, they took down part of the wire fencing but left up the bars. I’ve been using it as my personal playground as part of my workouts once in a while, and have been having so much fun balancing and flipping. Naturally I decided to take my camera and set up some good shots of me playing!

#63: College Athletes.

The basketball season is over here at U.H.H., and I noticed some of the team playing volleyball instead. Fun trivia: I’ve worked on at least two of the guys in this shot.

Project 365: Catching up: A week of photos.

Disclaimer: I hit my head really hard right before writing this post. I’m actually writing it with an ice pack balanced on the top of my head. So if this post isn’t quite up to my usual standards, that’s why. And don’t worry, there was no blood and my Mum is checking for concussion.

Now on to the photos!

#54: Copper wire.

A friend of the family back in Idaho makes really cool jewelry and such out of copper wire. He sent us this band in the mail, which Mum later turned into an arm band. The Celtic knot-work drawing in the background is also by our friend, and is pretty much his signature design.

#55: Doggy!

This is the dog I occasionally pet-sit. She’s sweet and smart and a total spoiled princess, but when I come to stay she knows I’m the alpha and learns to stop acting up.

#56: Flowering Pineapple.

Title says it all, really. I’d never actually seen one flowering before, despite the many times I’ve seen them growing. I thought it looked pretty cool.

#57: Butterfly on Sun Hemp, and bonus picture of a Painted Gecko.

I was out taking photos of the Sun Hemp my Dad is growing (it’s a great cover crop for our farm, and has nothing to do with other less legal types of hemp.) when a butterfly came fluttering past and landed just long enough to pose.

Later that day, Dad spotted a painted gecko on the wall of the barn and called me over with my camera. Right after I took the picture, it ran off, and then I saw an even bigger one. It wasn’t in a place where I could take another photo, though.

#58: Moroccan-style Veggie Stew.

I made dinner — a crock-pot veggie stew with Moroccan spices for flavor. I used some of our homegrown Kabocha squash, along with onions, carrots, daikon, chickpeas, raisins, roasted garlic, and pork drippings to give the broth extra flavor, and I garnished it with olives, parsley, and lemon juice. For spices, I used dried Hawaiian chili pepper flakes, cumin, cinnamon, nutmeg, clove, and ginger. It turned out hot and spicy and really yummy.

#59: Nightscape.

Looking down our driveway, clouds scattered across the sky and trees silhouetted by the bright almost-full moonlight.

 

 

#60: Pink Hibiscus.

I’ve been meaning to take a picture of this every time it flowers, and now I finally have as my first photo of March.

And thus ends this catch-up post — I can’t promise when I’ll do the next one, but I can promise it’ll happen eventually!