Are we winning yet?
Seems like there is less virus out there!

Good Jab Everyone! Not sure how it is in your area, but here in Hawaii the virus numbers have dropped dramatically and there's hints of soon we may be done with it. Not quite yet, not officially, but it seems like there's a little bit - at least a glimmer - of light at the end of the tunnel. It will probably be spooky to see folks' faces again and even spookier to gather in groups, but guess we will get used to it again. Hopefully sometime really soon!

February 22nd, 2022

"2 - 22 - 2022!"
Isn't there a special name for calendar numbers like this?

Just what are we supposed to do on a day with numbers like this? Isn't there an official 'to do' sorta thing? Especially, at 2:22 in the afternoon? It was quite the quandry. Something involving duality, I'd expect? A friend said 'tea for two', which is a good idea. Another friend said her neighbor - "who does ceremonies" (although she didn't specify what sort of ceremonies) anyway, she said her neighbor had six ceremonies to do today and was running all over the place to get them done. I'm guessing marriages? Well, did you do anything fun today for 2-22-2022?

Dji Mini 2
Still boxed and staying outa trouble

And, dear people, don't you think the obvious answer of 'what to do' on 2-22-2022 should be: "Why! I'll buy a drone! Woot!"? Why, of course you do! And so - voila! a drone!

Dji Mini 2
quite the small little critter

It's a small little guy - as you can tell compared to the ink pen next to it. It has little wings that unfold and little propellers on the ends of the wings/legs. Four of them, although we've only partially unpacked it so two of them are still in their wrappings. That will keep them safe until it's first flight.

Dji Mini 2 underside

The underside kinda reminds me of a bug carapace somehow. Maybe it will make annoying bug noises, too? Well, we will see.

This the first drone I've had anything much to do with so everything is new and unknown. Apparently, there's a pull out slide on the controller (that's the gray box like thing the drone is sitting on) which is where the smart phone with the 'DJI Fly' app is placed. Which is fine, we've upgraded from the flip phone several years ago so we have smartphones now. HOWEVER, our current 'smartphone' is only about half smart since it's a '32 bit' phone and the DJI app requires a '64 bit' phone in order to work. Hmpf! You'd think that sort of thing would be written on the box. So, apparently we have the options of flying it without the app or upgrading the phone. Since the phone had been a bit problematic lately, it may be a choice of a phone upgrade, although the jury is still out on that.

The app has several features such as 'RTH' which in drone-speak stands for Return To Home. Which is a good thing since this tiny little drone has a range of 10 kilometers or just over six miles. Like we're gonna be able to tell what it's up to that far away unless we have a phone screen to let us know what it's looking at in real time? The other thing with RTH is that in RTH mode, it doesn't see obstacles so 'Home' should be specified as higher than anything nearby that it can run into. A hundred feet overhead?

The other little side observation to the 'it doesn't see obstacles in RTH mode' is WHAT!? It can see obstacles in other modes?

Well, obviously, we are at the very beginnings of a possibly steep learning curve. Should be fun, hopefully it won't just fly away and disappear on it's first flying attempt.

This drone thing started when we met a nice fellow at the harbor several weeks ago who had the same drone as well as some amazing pictures he had taken with it. It was a tiny thing, fit in his hand and he said they were selling them at Costco. Which they were, later that day when we went to Costco, but we didn't buy one that day. A week or two later, when next we went to Costco, there weren't any more available. That frequently happens when living on an island. When it's gone, there's no more for awhile if ever. However, more appeared so now we have one. Not exactly to celebrate 2-22-2022, but, then again, why not?

Hapuna Beach, February 2022

It's winter here so the beach has been a bit, hmm, let's call it 'lively'? Surf at Hapuna is shorebreak so there's lots of injuries there when the surf is up. There have been several weeks where the surf was too boisterous for us to swim. Which, if our town pool were repaired (IT'S ONLY BEEN BROKEN FOR THREE YEARS! Get it together Hawaii County!) we would be able to walk to swimming and surf at Hapuna wouldn't be much of a problem. But, Honokaa's pool is still broken, so we have to go to the next town over, Laupahoehoe, and use their pool. Occasionally, even that one is closed due to some necessary repair or lack of life guards or some such thing. Sigh!

Sometimes Hawaii seems like a third world country. Keeping existing facilities maintained just doesn't seem to be on their 'to do' list as often as it should be. Instead of gardening, they put out fires. A little something isn't fixed until it's a major repair and then they wonder why it's expensive to fix things. Maybe I should dig up my councilperson and suggest the County's facility maintenance crew be tripled or quadrupled in size?

So, anyway, we've been going to Hapuna because it's the closest beach to us. It's also a nice beach, but once the tourists are back, then it will be crowded again. There's a hotel on the beach there and one wonders why Hawaii allows mainland corporations to use the best parts of Hawaii and not do much for the folks who actually live here. The hotels are not owned by folks who live here. They only provide service type jobs and the tourists who are everywhere are paying scads of money to mainland owned hotels, mainland owned rental cars, food brought in from the mainland, etc., etc. Local folks have to deal with tourists everywhere and most of us don't benefit from the bother. Maybe the County and State get some tourist dollars after the majority goes to mainland owners of hotels, rental cars, restaurants, etc., but the County and State can't keep basic facilities working for local folks. Anywhere we want to go is crowded out by tourists.

They're going where they shouldn't go as well. It may have been a 'secret' beach or 'secret' spot and only a few local folks would go there so the landowner didn't mind. Then some yahoo puts it out on social media and not even a parking lot is big enough to hold all the cars of folks going to the 'secret' whatever. Then the landowner has to fence it off and put up 'no tresspassing' signs, which the tourists then ignore and climb over. Then tourists wonder why locals aren't overjoyed to see them. Another part of that may be from the massive entitlement attitude many tourist bring with them. "I'm spending $X,XXX or even $XX,XXX dollars for this Hawaii Vacation, therefore (fill in the blank with what they think they should get)".

Friend of mine lives on the road down to Waipio valley. There's a nice overlook to the valley and there's a tour company which has some sort of shuttle down to the valley with some sort of tour down there. But there's now tons of tourists who want to park at the overlook and lots of them want to walk down into the valley. There's no facilities whatsoever for them down there. No bathrooms, nothing to buy, no public park, etc., etc. There's a bit of beach (without any lifeguards), taro farms and some dirt roads, some feral horses that will steal your lunch, a waterfall or two, but there's easier to get to waterfalls. My friend says she comes home all the time to folks sitting on her porch and then they wonder where her 'aloha' is when she asks them to leave. Why don't we go sit on their porch and see if they don't howl?

I'm not sure why there's so many of them going there these days, either. We've had lots of tourists on island before, but the level of crowding at scenic spots and beaches has increased by a lot. Where did they use to go that's closed now?

Well, I'm sure once the covid rules are rescinded and things get back to more or less 'normal' then tourism will be back with even more of a vengence. Tourism the past year - even while we're still under semi-lockdown - has been almost at 'regular' levels. Yet, we've not had any tourists from Japan since they still require a two week quarantine when the people return to Japan. Usually, the Japanese visitors are more than half our tourist crowd. They're usually the much more polite half, too, so perhaps that's why even though we're only at 2/3rds the usual number of tourists, it seems there's a lot more rude ones? Once the Japanese visitors start arriving, we are going to be absolutely swamped. Urgh!

So, anyway, this has been an odd digression from starting out discussing swimming, now isn't it?

Okay, back to the more usual update. Most of what we've been doing lately has been getting the house we used to live in ready to sell.

Ocean view from the back lanai

This was the house with the big deck with the hot tub and ocean views. Lovely back deck, although I suppose we will be able to build another one so I shouldn't miss this one?

There had been a tall Russian olive hedge across the back of the back yard. It had sorta hid the neighbor's roof, but it had also sorta hid the ocean view. Seems like there's prettier clouds now that the hedge is shorter, too. The hedge will grow back pretty quickly, though, so it will lose it's 'scalped' look pretty quickly.

Clear redwood walls in the living room

The house was built in the '70s, so it's made of materials that aren't available anymore. Clear redwood and canec ceilings aren't available anymore, but we can still get solid oak floors so at least that will be something 'honest' for the new house. Most folks who visit the house we're selling say it 'has good vibes', although I'm not exactly sure what that may mean. Something good, at least. It does have a sheer honesty that many houses seem to be missing these days. Maybe it's the plastic flooring which is now so common that does it?

Front gardens

It's kinda amazing how much work it is to get a house ready to sell. We had lots of little things to fix and loads of cleaning to do. The front gardens had been neglected, so at least part of the work was gardening which is much better than cleaning.

Really tasty grapefruits

There's a huge avocado tree in the back yard and I thought I'd miss that one, but now we have another even bigger avocado tree, so that's okay. I will miss the lemon and grapefruit trees, not sure if we will be planting more lemons and grapefruits here at the next house. Probably someting citrus at least, citrus grows really well around here.

There's been lots of folks wanting to see the house and since it's 'FSBO', we're the ones who get to skitter over there and get it ready for a showing. Fresh flowers, turn on all the lights, dust things, etc. Which is way more than we do for the house we actually live in. Maybe we need to up the game in the house we live in? Hmm, nah, a little dust never hurt anything. Better to go to the beach than take all the time dusting.

The major reason we're selling the house is so we can afford to build another in the sheep pasture. So, once this sells, that will just be the beginning of another - and much bigger! - project. Maybe that's why my excitement level hasn't been too crazy over this? Well, I did make a page here on the website about it. Not sure if you've noticed or not and not sure if the tab will stay active after the house sells or not. Guess as usual, we will just have to wait and find out what happens.

Raised Bed Garden #2

February is a good garden time for things like lettuces. Frequently, this time of year is good for growing the more tender types of lettuces such as the 'Manoa' lettuce. However, the U of H seed program is out of that variety so they've substituted 'Okayama' lettuce instead.

The U of H Seed Program has seeds for semi-tropical climates so they grow well around here. They are, however, an old fashioned seed source so folks who want to buy seeds from them get to print out the order form, fill it in, mail it in via snailmail and have a good opportunity to write a check. For those folks who still keep a check book around. Which, since they don't charge interest, seems a much less expensive method of making payments than using a credit card. The seller doesn't have any credit card fees to pay, either. Anyway, however old fashioned their methods, their seeds are great.

"Crisp Mint" and "Okayama" lettuces

The more vertical lettuces are the 'Crisp Mint' romaines, the softer rounder ones in the front of the picture are the sweeter 'Okayama' and the ones with yellow flowers aren't lettuces at all, but 'choi sum' which is a really tasty type of Chinese mustard. Only a few of those seeds sprouted so I'm letting them go to seed to get more seed to plant. Otherwise, it would have been eaten as soon as it made tiny flower buds.

This is the first time I've planted the 'Okayama' lettuce. At first, the young lettuce leaves were quite limp and had very little crispness to them. Kinda 'blah', was my opinion. However, now that the leaves are fully mature, it's a wonderful lettuce! Crispy and a much sweeter flavor than the usual 'Crisp Mint' romaine that is grown here. Guess there will now be two 'standard' lettuces grown around here now.

The U of H website says the Okayama lettuce can be grown all year round in our climate so I'll let the last plant that bolts go to seed and save seeds for the next plantings of lettuces. (When saving lettuce seeds, it's the last plant to bolt that seeds are saved from since we want them to be slow bolting plants. For beans, it's the first beans which show up that get saved.) I wonder if Okayama will cross pollinate with Crisp Mint? How far apart do lettuces have to be planted so they don't cross pollinate? Guess I'd better go find out.

"Dwarf Chinese" bananas

This is a rack of bananas which is taking forever to ripen, but that's typical for bananas. They are called "dwarf Chinese" bananas and they have the largest stalk of bananas you can imagine on a fairly short trunk. Makes them easy to harvest since many varieties of banana 'trees' are about twenty feet tall with the bananas way up out of reach. A banana stalk will just die off after it's made fruit, so the usual method is to cut the 'tree' down. Bananas aren't really a tree, though, they're a plant which has multiple stalks coming up from a center corm. Once a stalk fruits and dies off, several more will rise up to replace it. Eventually, you end up with a whole mat of bananas which is good, but don't plant them too close to anything you don't want crowded.

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