2/14 Happy Valentine's Day

We woke up at 5:30 this morning and began moving our things over to the cottage. We finished in time to have breakfast in our new digs. The cottage is quite nice for the four of us. There are two bedrooms, each with a bunk bed and a single, a bathroom and a small kitchen. We made our lunches and since it was sprinkling, Katie thought that we should finish the garden enclosures that we started the other day. We were joined by a young man named Dan who is a Fisheries and Wildlife person from Washington state. He and his wife, a nurse, are taking a year off after the birth of their son who is now 4 months old. Some of us worked on replacing the chicken wire fence with a hardier pig-proof fence and then attached the chicken wire to the top to prevent the deer from jumping over. The rest of us weeded the second garden – it was really full of that horrible grass that has long underground runners. The day turned out to be a nice one despite the rainy start and we got almost all of the weeds – there is just one corner left to do. We got back to the cottage and took turns in the shower and then sat on the porch and enjoyed cheese and crackers until it was time for dinner. The Cornell students arrived in four vans. Apparently they are in Hawaii for a semester. They are taking a course called An Environment Study of the Hawaiian Islands. They will be here just a few days and then will move on. Dinner prep was very easy tonight has be had leftovers from the party. We did the dishes and then drove up the road to the U S Air Force tracking dome. It is part of the NASA system – all fenced in, but you supposedly you can see bats flying in the lights. Well, we waited quite a while and saw only one bat. A guard came out and asked us to move our car out of in front of the gate which we did and after waiting a while longer with no more bat sightings we decided to give up as it was starting to get quite chilly. We came back and settled into bed with our books ready to enjoy our first night in the cottage.

2/13 A Day at Camp

We woke up this morning to a beautiful day. After breakfast, I got started on the cooking. I made key lime pie and cornbread for the going away party for Alan and Leilani tonight and then made a batch of cherry/almond muffins to have with our oatmeal for breakfast this week. Dave swept the kitchen and the community room. After showering and starting some laundry, we went up to the two lookout spots above the camp to take some pictures of the Na Pali coast. When we came back down, we stopped at the restaurant next to the museum for lunch and then headed about a mile down the road to the only telephone pole where you can get cell phone reception. We called the kids and it sounds like everything is going well at home except that it has been cold. We are now back at camp and I am finishing the laundry. We will sweep out our room tonight so that it will be clean for the next people when we move to the Cottage tomorrow. Everyone will be gathering here at 5 for the party so we want to have everything ready for them. We lazed around camp this afternoon just reading and enjoying the sunshine. At 4:30 we started getting ready for the party. Katie and Jim came as well as Eben and his girlfriend, Tammy. Mike and his friend Michelle came. Mike worked here just before we came and Michelle is from Germany. The six of us volunteers made up the rest of the party. Everyone brought something to share so we had cooked wild pig, pork and cabbage, chicken and rice stir-fry, salad, Lilokoi pie, Annie bars (which are like peanut butter rice krispie bars as well as what we had made. We had a wonderful feast, told some great stories and had a wonderful send-off for Leilani and Alan. We cleaned up and went to read in bed.

2/12 Shopping Day

This week's blogs may be devoid of pictures until later as were are sitting on the verandah and have realized that the computer is only half charges. I will try to add some later. It was 59 degrees when we left the mountain this morning and 72 at the coast. We showered and had breakfast and then went into Waimea. Our first shop was the book drop at the local library. Leilani had finished a book that she had borrowed and we offered to drop it off so they wouldn’t have to drive down the hill to return it. They had been packing and cleaning so they will be ready to leave at 5:30 AM on Monday to go back home to Alaska. There was no rain at camp, but we hit rain on the way to Lihue. We stopped at Kmart to buy a small hand mixer (last weekend we used the Armstrong method – Dave’s strong arm!) and a candle just in case the power goes out again. We also stopped at Home Depot to pick up a file for sharpening our machetes and weather-stripping to muffle the banging of the screen doors at the cottage. We got our dry grocery goods at the Times store and stopped at a local farmer’s market to pick up some tomatoes and native oranges. Driving back through the rain from Lihue to Waimea we found that Waimea was dry. We stopped at Plantation Cottages to post the blog from yesterday and to look at email. We then went for a late lunch at Obsessions and then into Big Save for our cold goods. When we left the store, it was 77 degrees and it was 63 at camp. We put away the groceries and then we had a bit of rain here. We read for a while and then had dinner. After dinner we watched Social Network – a bit dark and awkward at times, but not a bad movie. Leilani and Alan had company so we were by ourselves for the movie. We went to bed to read and get warm in our sleeping bags.

2/11 Our First Day Off

We woke up this morning to guess what? (rain, of course) and 60 degrees. I showered and stubbornly put on my shorts with a sweatshirt as we were going down the mountain today. We cleaned up a bit after breakfast and then went down to the Plantation Cottages verandah to post the blogs. The temperature there was 73 degrees and sunny so the sweatshirt came off. We successfully published the blogs for the week, but couldn’t get on email so decided to check it when we get back to town. We then went to the Habitat Restore, which is located in the next town and bought a couple of drinking glasses and teaspoons, which are in short supply at camp. From there we decided to drive up towards the North shore to explore a part of the island we haven’t seen yet. Our first stop was Kealia beach where we saw boogie boarders in the 3-5 foot waves. It was a little misty there and in fact the whole day was mist, cloud, rain, sun at various times. We drove on to Anahola where we passed Kalalea Mountain, which is also known as King Kong Mountain because of its unique profile – it really does look like King Kong! Actually, it is quite appropriate as the remake of the movie was filmed here in 1976. We stopped for lunch at Duane’s Ono-Char Burger – a small spot with very good burgers, even better onion rings, and a wonderful mixed berry shake. We continued on and stopped at a place called Hawaiian Hardwood where the artist does wonderful things with driftwood (Lana would have been shipping tons of stuff home) and native woods including Koa and Monkey Pod. He did carvings as well as furniture. Everything was quite stunning. We then stopped at the National Wildlife Refuge at Kileaua Lighthouse. The lighthouse sits on a bluff that is the northernmost point of the main Hawaiian Islands. The lighthouse itself was quite picturesque, but the surrounding cliffs and sea were stunning (see photo of waves smashing against the cliffs). We saw hundreds of red-footed boobies, an albatross, some gulls and 24 whales (or maybe 3 whales 8 times each). The whales were spouting and breeching just off the coast. We stayed there for a good long time, as it was a wonderful place to see and visit (see photo of unknown purple flowers). We decided we had better head back so we stopped at Banana Joe’s for a fruit smoothie and then headed back toward our new home. It is a good thing we started back when we did because the traffic was awesome! We stopped again at the Plantation to check email and then headed up the 15 miles of twisty and foggy in places road back to camp. This is not a road that you would want to drive at night! It was 76 in Waimea and 62 at the camp when we got back at 5:30. We fixed a quick dinner and I think we will just read tonight. It is not raining yet, but it is foggy and I’m sure it will rain in the night as usual. We will try to post this blog tomorrow if we go down the mountain again.

2/10 Weeding the Garden

Today was another rainy day. It wasn’t too bad in the morning so we decided to go out to cut down some black wattle and black wood trees near Berry Flats to use as pig deterrents. Dave was in his element using the chain saw and the rest of us used our machetes to clean off the branches to make long poles about 3-4 inches in diameter. We then loaded them on to the pickup truck and drove down the road to the parking area of the Awa awa puhi trailhead. There are two enclosures planted with native plants of the area. They are fenced in with chicken wire, but the wild pigs have figured out how to dig under the fence to get to the plants. Some of us weeded around the edge of one fenced area and then laid the poles down on the ground against the fence and wired them on while the rest of us spent our time weeding around the native plants that were left. We didn’t finish everything as it started to pour so we finished cleaning up what we could and then went back to camp to have lunch at around 1:30. It was still pouring after lunch so we decided to call it a day and the Macphails and we jumped in the car and went down the hill to the museum. We had a great look around and bought a few hiking trail books that I hope we can use this weekend if it ever stops raining. The Hawaiians call rain Hawaiian snow that is better than our snow because you don’t have to shovel it! We drove the Macphail’s down to the telephone pole where you can get cell phone reception so they could call their daughter who lives on Oahu. The daughter and son-in-law are coming to Kauai tomorrow night so they will stay in Lihue for the weekend. When we got back to camp we spent some time making out a few postcards and then we had dinner. We might watch another movie tonight if we can stay awake. We will have a gathering here on Sunday to say goodbye to Leilani and Alan who will be leaving early Monday morning to go back to Alaska. Next week a group of students from Cornell will be coming in to work so the four of us are going to move into the cottage where Leilani and Alan have been staying. The cottage has two bedrooms, a bathroom and an eat in kitchen. This is going to be lovely as we were having nightmares thinking of sharing one bathroom with 20 college students! We started to watch Social Network, but it started raining so hard it drowned out the sound on the movie so we gave up and went to bed to read.

2/9 Hacking the Wild Ginger

We watched Red last night – quite amusing. We read for a while in bed before falling asleep. We woke up about 6 and could see that it was going to be a gorgeous day so Dave and I had an early breakfast and then hopped into the car to go up to the end of the road where there is a great viewpoint of the Na Pali coast. The sky was clear and the sun had just risen so we got some lovely pix. I can’t remember if I have talked about the wild chickens and roosters that are all over the island. They are all around camp and even way up on the last viewpoint! It is against the law to kill them, but all I can see is Sunday dinner when I see them crossing the road in front of our car. We got back to the camp and made our lunch and then we were off. Our target area was close to the upper viewpoint along side of the Awa-awapuhi trail. Our focus today was eradicating the wild ginger (see above photo), which grows from rhizomes just under the surface of the earth. We would treat each cut part with a Round-up type of herbicide. We also found plenty of guava here to treat also – this uses a different herbicide so we were supplied with two different bottles. To prevent using the wrong herbicide on the wrong plant, they were dyed green (for the ginger) and red (for the guava). We also found a few karaka nut trees that are not native so we treated them also. We worked until 1 and then stopped for lunch in a grassy place along the trail. We then continued until 4:15. We drove back to camp, dropped off the herbicide bottles, and washed the gloves that we wear to protect our skin. I didn’t hear the final count – will try to find out tomorrow. We carry a clicker with us to record each weed that we kill. We are not back at camp and waiting our turn in the shower. We are pretty filthy today so I am going to wash our outer work clothes after the shower and before dinner. I think we will have some leftover mac and cheese and meatloaf tonight along with a fresh pineapple. If we can stay awake, Alastair is going to show a slide show of the restoration of an old mill that he owns in Scotland. Now that it is done they are going to spend 4 months over there beginning in April. The other photo is of Alan and Smidgie scraping a wall yesterday in the future wood working shop.

2/8 A Rainy Day

It poured last night and when we woke up, we discovered that the power was out – not just at the camp, but also all over the top of the mountain. Fortunately, the stove is gas so we were able to make our hot cereal and cocoa for breakfast. Katie and the staff had a meeting with someone from the Nature Conservancy so the volunteers worked out in the outdoor plant nursery for the morning. We transplanted seedlings of many native plants and repotted some of the bigger specimens into gallon-sized pots. The whole nursery area looked so much better and more organized after we were finished. We were going to eat lunch out on the picnic table, but it started raining again. Apparently, the camp gets 90 inches of rainfall annually. Just 3 miles down the road, the annual rainfall total is 45 inches and down on the coast in Waimea, the annual total is just 12 inches. At any rate, the power was back on and we all came inside to eat. A neighbor came by as we were finishing lunch and said that a pair of hunting dogs was loose in the area (actually we saw them yesterday as we were loading up the vans) and they had killed two young pigs that belonged to his next-door neighbor. They were able to catch one of the dogs, but the other got away. As it was still pouring out, we couldn’t go out to the field to put herbicide on the ginger as it would just wash away. Katie called the head of the museum and she found some work to do on one of the 3 other buildings on the property that are not in use. One of them is almost done – it is to be two huge bunkrooms with large bathrooms on each side. The one we were working on is also divided into two sides, but is intended as a wood working shop. The dream is to teach children to use the invasive woods to make items of use or items that can be sold in the museum. We scraped and plugged holes on once wall. It was quite a job. Alastair, meanwhile, worked in the first building using a razor to scrape paint off the windowpanes and then washing the windows. This whole camp was built by 100 boys hired by the CCC (Civil Conservation Corps) in 1934. They were paid $30 per month and had to send $21 home to their families. We quit working at 4:00 (it was getting hard to see and we had no electricity in the building) and jumped in the shower. We will make dinner soon and may have another movie night, as I don’t think people are as tired as last night. The photos today are of Dave and Alastair sitting outside due to the power outage. Dave is finishing his cocoa and Alastair is repairing the knees of his jeans. The patches let go from crawling on the forest floor yesterday. Somehow I got the hibiscus in again instead of the photo I wanted. I will try again on tomorrow's post.