January 6th, 2020
New Year 2020 but still have an Old Project
also known as: "we're back to fixing and upping"
Rainy Day in Hawaii
they say rain brings good luck, hopefully the good luck will last all year
Now that the festive winter holiday season as well as the new year holidays seem to be over, we're now back to fixing and upping the little house again. We kinda took most of December off from the project, although some work was done, but not as much as we had been doing before the holiday season. Our first day back to 'work' was a rainy day with a lovely rainbow.
Before we got back to working on the little house again, we already had a pair of guests this year, although they only stayed for a day or two. We did have fun playing tourist with them, although we seemed to have not taken many pictures of scenery that didn't have them in it. I'm sure you'd not be overly interested in pictures of people you don't know so I won't post them here. There may be a few general scenery pictures, though.
Waianuenue Falls near Hilo
lots of blooming kukui trees
I guess we have a rainbow theme going on this year?
"Anuenue" is Hawaiian for rainbow and "wai" is freshwater, so it's name is Waianuenue Falls. But, not everyone is able to say that, so a lot of folks call it by it's translation "Rainbow Falls". There's a lot of places in Hawaii like that, though, there's one name on paper and another name that's used. Waimea/Kamuela comes to mind. Anyway, this is about Waianuenue/Anuenue/Rainbow Falls.
We started out to go to Akaka Falls, which is a much taller waterfall, but there's some sort of tourist throng around here these days. We went to Akaka, which is above a little town called Honomu, but the parking lot was full and there were cars parking a quarter mile alongside the road. There was a group of folks waiting to get in. At Akaka Falls? This is different! We decided to try again later and as we went down the hill, there were two big tour buses going up. How they're gonna turn around in that parking lot, I dunno, but it's not my circus and not my monkeys.
So we opted for the smaller Waianuenue Falls in Hilo. After a fervent prayer to the parking gods, there was even a space to park. Anuenue Falls is a much shorter experience than Akaka, there's almost zero walking before you can see the falls so folks pop in, look at the falls and then go off to somewhere else. Which means frequently the parking gods will smile on you.
Waianuenue Falls Again
a view from under the kukui tree
Depending on rain, the waterfall can be either all the way across and thundering or just a little trickle over the edge. This is more or less a 'normal' size for the waterfall if not a touch on the larger size. Sometimes people swim up above behind the falls, not that I think that's a particularly good idea, though - especially if it's in a huge torrent and not just a trickle. There's lots of safer places to swim and Hawaii does have a few diseases in fresh water such as leptospirosis so since the ocean is so handy, why swim in fresh water? But, we didn't go swimming in either, so I guess we were just slackers that day. We didn't even take all that many pictures, so we must have been.
This is more of a classic picture of Anuenue falls, although it makes the falls seem a bit larger, don't you think?
orchid on a tree at the zoo
The Panaewa Rainforest Zoo outside of Hilo isn't a very big zoo, but it's a nice zoo. Kinda half botanical garden, though. Again, most of the pictures were of people in front of things so there aren't a lot of zoo pictures to post here. I did take a picture of an odd orchid up in a tree. There were loads of orchids in trees, but I didn't recognize this particular type. I'll have to ask some of the orchid folks what sort it is. It was too high up in the tree to see if it had a scent, but it was interesting looking.
It's still avocado season!
We may have a New Year and be done with winter holidays, but the avocado tree says it's still Avocado Season. Woot! Holy Guacamole, Batman!
I put in a regular half pint sized mason jar so you'd be able to get an idea of the size of the avos. They are not small at all. These are particularly good avocadoes, no strings, creamy and tasty. Thin skin so we can tell when they're ripe, too.
Last week I was wandering around town with a 5 gallon bucket of avocados giving them to folks since we can't keep up with as many as the tree is giving us. I popped into my friend's shop and asked her if she wanted some avos, there were some folks shopping there so I asked them if they wanted some. They asked if they were "Hass" avocadoes. The reply of "Ick, no! They're not Hass at all, these are good avocadoes!" may not have been what he was expecting. I think perhaps, that 'Hass' is the only variety of avocado most folks not-from-around-here know? There's a big marketing push to get folks to think Hass is good, it's mediocre at best around here. Hawaii has over several hundred named varieties of avocado plus all the ones sprouted up from crosses of those. I'm not sure what type these are, but I asked the neighbor and she said the tree had been there when they bought the property in the late 70's so she didn't know the specific variety. It is somewhat reminiscent of a Sharwil avocado, but I don't know if it is or not.
gotta do something with the bounty
That's a 1952 very yellow countertop. We occasionally lose bottles of French's mustard on it. Goes pretty good with avocados, doesn't it?
Hmm, there should be a recipe for guacamole around here somewhere. My friend with the shop did ask me if I put mayo in my guacamole. Mayonnaise in guacamole? What?
To make guacamole around here, we take a few avocadoes, mash them up, add the juice of whatever citrus we have on hand, although lime is the preferred option. Lime, then lemon, then orange, then tangerine, then grapefruit. I've not tried it with calamonsi, that might be interesting. Anyway, mash up the avo, squeeze citrus juice on it (if it's a lemon with lots of seeds, squeezing into a dish and then straining out the seeds saves having to dig the seeds out of the mashed avo). Stir that together so the citrus juice will keep the avo from turning brown. A dash of cayenne pepper (optional if you don't want spicy guacamole) then some salsa or tomato sauce, a big slug of minced garlic and mix it all together. No mayo.
Chips! Quick! We need chips!
The bowl got too full so there was still an avocado left over. That got diced up for salad, so it wasn't wasted. During avocado season, we pretty much put avocado on everything. Avocado, ham & cheese omelets, avocado chunks in salads, avo slices on sandwiches. My friend just likes to put some lime on the avo and eat them with a spoon. Hmm, maybe it was salt instead of lime? Well, whatevers, but just give her a spoon and she's good with these avos. She doesn't like all of them that way, though, just these.
