2/15 A Mixed Day

We started this morning by getting rid of guava near the camp. It was a bit strenuous as we were working uphill most of the way. We worked until 11:30 and then drove up to the lookouts to take pictures and have a picnic. It was a bit foggy at the lookouts, but the picnic was delightful. We were to meet a school group at the Discovery Center, but found that they had left earlier than expected so we walked down the path to find them. We knew we were on the right path as I spotted some M & M’s on the trail. After walking for 45 minutes, we came upon the students who were assembled and about to get directions on how to dig up the ginger. This was a fifth grade class from Kapa’a Elementary School – 22 of them. We divided them up into small groups and took them out in search of ginger. I had five girls who called themselves The Island Girls. They worked quite hard and destroyed 458 ginger plants. They had to dig them out and I cut of the rhizomes into a bucket and counted. We emptied the buckets into a huge pile which Kyle would then poison after the children left. All together, the 22 students destroyed 1729 ginger plants, which I thought was quite a large number for only an hour of work. We caught a ride from Katie who was parked not too far away. She actually parked in the area where we had cut the black wattle last week. On the way back to our car she took a detour to pick some tea leaves. We will try to steep some tonight to make green tea (actually it will be quite green as we are not going to dry the leaves). We waited at the Discovery Center for the kids to get back so that we could pick up the student waiver forms from the teacher. Back at camp, we rotated through the shower and are now relaxing on the porch before dinner. After dinner, we sat with the Macphail’s in our cozy cottage kitchen and chatted. It was a lovely night with an almost full moon so we went for a walk. It was lovely.