Hilo Coastline

Hilo has many miles of accessible coastline.  Inside the bay most are smooth grey sand.  South of the bay most are black (and sharp) lava like this one.  The nice white sand beach exception is Onekahakaha where a almost solid rock reef protects the sand.  If the tide is in it is a calm place to swim but when the tide is out it gets too shallow.
We have snorkled some of these but Kapoho is so much nicer for both fish and clarity that it is worth the longer drive south.

Green sea turtles are common all over Hawaii but we are sometimes surprised at what rough waves they will feed it.  This one is resting in shallow water.  Often they will be seen on very crowded beaches.  Sometimes we see them as small as 12" but most are around 36" long and 32" wide.

Banyan Drive, along the bay in Hilo is lined with giant Ficus trees like this one that Myrna is standing in front of.  The common ficus leaves are small.  The large leaves you see here a kind of philodendron vine.
There is at least one true Banyan towards the North end of Banyan Drive which has a larger leaf and prop roots.  Yes, this is only ONE tree in the picture.

    




 Here I am standing in front of the hotel that Myrna stayed in for two months while our house deal was closing.  The other end of the building is nearly within fishing pole reach of the bay.  Rent by the week or month was quite reasonable.

Akaka Falls

Akaka falls is in a misty draw only 2 miles south of us.  The circular path to it goes by very dense bamboo stands with diameters up to 8" and two smaller water falls.  Most of the time when we visit there it is raining but it is still worth it to take the whole circle.  There is a side walk the whole way so you won't get muddy but as you can see in the picture below, there are lots of stairs!

Photos

 Our first papaya from a plant that we had planted as a 4" pot start.  That plant only took 8 months to get six feet high and to bear its first fruit.  Not only that but the flavor is far better in all the local papayas then those I had tried that were shipped to Washington.  Each of those little seeds, we found, could grow to first production in our garden in 10 to 12 months.  We now keep 6 plants in our garden and usually need to eat two fruit each day.

This is our talapia tank that is watered by two downspouts from the roof.  I regulate how much flow by bypassing one or both downspouts when the fish don't need fresh water.  We have a small airator going all the time and too much fresh water would be undesirable because it would dilute the algae that are a large part of the fishes diet.  In this year of drought there have been a few days when we wanted more rain for the fish.  At this point there are 60-80 4"-5" fish and we haven't eaten any except one of the breeders that we started with.  It was the best talapia I've ever had.


The Green Sea Turtles are always present around Hilo.
At least, I can always find some one of four places.
They seem to be only of mature size here while on the Kona side it is common to find immatures in the one foot size.  I guess that is because we don't have any sandy beaches on the windward side.  Once, at Hilo's Carlsmith Beach, we spotted a mature with an injury that had a radio glued to its back.  We were later told that it had been treated for a boat inflicted wound on Oahu and released there.

FINALLY HOME ON HAWAII

JULY 6, 2009 ON HAWAII

I’ve now finally joined my wife as a resident of the State of Hawaii and the island of Hawaii.  I didn’t quite get everything out of the old residence but hopefully was close enough that my son and friends will finish for me.  So much Stuff I will never have again!

I arrived mid afternoon on the forth of July and was at my first luau by 6:00 pm.  It was a graduation party for the son of one of the people that Myrna works with and the people (about 200) were all very friendly.  The 3 piece string band included an amazing electric ukulele player.   We ate several new things and saw the Hilo fireworks as we left.

Sunday we did a lot of unpacking and I started assembling the bookcases, some for the third time and I hope the last!  At the end of the day I took a short bicycle ride to Wielea and toured the art exhibit and museum that is always open, as in door standing wide open, next to the BUDDHIST BED AND BREAKFAST where I will suggest you stay if you visit when our guest house is already full.  It was nice to see the history of this neighborhood and to feel that here were kindred spirits in the sense of community organizing for good causes.

Monday morning as Myrna headed off to work I went for a hike down the gully below our house.  I’m always on the lookout for wild foods I can try and this morning I was hoping to find some ripe bananas because although we have lots of them on our place and the vacant lot next door, none are ripe just now.  I saw lots of bananas all right, including some red ones that I’d like to try but they weren’t ready either.  I did see 2 or 3 kinds of yam and gathered a couple called air potatoes because they grow above ground.  I’ve read that some of the yam tubers can grow to 20 pounds and more but the air potato kind only gets to a couple pounds.

I went under the highway through a 6’ X 6’ cement waterway that was dry, then around the lava stone culvert beneath the old railway grade that was smaller, darker and unsafe looking.  I saw a large avocado tree with round fruit a long way from ready.  Every where there are lots of invasive weed trees of different sorts changing the ecology of the area.  Here there are African tulip trees, Alexandra Palm and ironwood trees crowding out the old species.

The sound of surf became very loud before I reached the edge of the cliff over looking waves breaking over rocks.  I’d guess the drop to the rocks was 130’ and I was reminded of the many migrant workers who were so over worked in the sugar fields and so underpaid before unionization that they could never get out of debt to the company store so that in despair they walked over the edge.

The bottom of the gulley had lots of taro which is the old reliable standby food from which poi is made.  On our Island it is called Kalo.  I don’t like poi but I’ve heard the root is good fried so I would have brought some back to try except that I did find a ripe clump of bananas as I returned home and that was all I wanted to carry (I didn’t worry about a property owner intending to harvest these because the gully was too rugged for sending workers into and these already had been started by the birds eating them which is why even if they are in your backyard you always pick them a little before they ripen).  It turned out that this clump tastes like Cavendish (the most commonly grown commercial variety) so I’ll still be looking forward to our own which have better flavor.

Not long after I returned from my hike the cable installer arrived so now we have the fastest internet we’ve ever had and you get this story of my day!

We ate the air potatoes in stir fry.  They were good.  I later learned that they are not recommended because they are a bit poisonous unless thoroughly cooked.  Desert was best though, smoothie made from 3 frozen bananas and one mountain apple (looks like apple, tastes like a mild pear and is related to neither) from our own plant/trees and a papaya from the farmers market in Hilo.  Now we’ve had our evening walk and it is time to let the coqui frogs sing us to sleep.

9/14/10 HOME AT LAST

                                                      9/14/10 HOME AT LAST

On August 4th I flew back to Spokane County, Washington to work on the house we used to live in and to try very hard to sell it.  Last year it drew only four tours in the four months we had it on the market when prices were dropping and the banks were scared.  Then we took it off the market and leased it with option to buy.  The monthly payments were usually late and the leaser won't communicate so we never knew what to expect.  Even though we had paid the electric for the first four months with our State solar incentives credit that we earned with the photo voltaic system I installed there, still I had only received one electric payment since.  After it became clear that the renter would not be able to buy the house at the August 16 end of the lease, we put the house back on the market in mid July and had one prospective buyer.  When I arrived it was obvious the renter had made no move to pack and she evaded talking to me.  The garage door was broken and what had been a new rug had a big hole dug in it by the inside dogs that were not allowed.  In fact she had three outside dogs and two inside dogs and four kids.  When I finally cornered her she said that she didn't have time to move till maybe the end of the month.  I did manage to collect the 5 months back electric but even at the end of the month she had not started to pack.  In the meantime I was trying to work on the neglected yard and make some repairs but she said I was making too much noise.  I talked to a lawyer and hired him to start the very slow 

legal process for eviction as a back up just in case she wasn't out by the end of the month so she ordered me off my own property that she had no legal right to be on.  The lawyer said she could do that until we got through the process.  In the meantime the earlier prospective house buyer had signed a contract to close by 9/17.  I didn't finally get home again until Tuesday evening, one week after finally getting the squatter (former renter) out out of our old residence in Chattaroy.  Before I left I signed the sale papers and today, 9/17, the new owners should be taking possession. 

For us to regain possession of our own house required hiring a lawyer (Thomas McGarry, in case any of you in Spokane are in need), waiting through 3 stages of warning my former lessee and finally paying the Sheriff to have a deputy go in and order her out “in five minutes or you’re going to jail.”  Then some of my very best friends and I had to box and remove most of the belongings of 5 people (they had removed one load the day before).  Her friends arrived and started hauling things away from the stacks we’d made in a couple hours.  I spent the next few days cleaning repairing and painting.  It was a terribly stressful situation to be in but I needed to have the house ready for the closing date and the squatter had lied to me all along and could not be trusted.  

So now I am home just in time to vote in our state primary.  Today I’ll take the late afternoon for the last pre-election action then Saturday we vote.  Meanwhile the sun has now dried off the grass enough that I’ll go work on the gardens that I’m much behind on.  The string beans seem to have gone through most of their production cycle while I was gone.  Most of our purple sweet potatoes need digging.  The old broccoli plants are about done and I need to start new ones.  I had some kohlrabi when I left but I don’t even see them now.  Our avocados that had barely started when I left are all done (but other kinds are just beginning elsewhere).  Our pamelos are nearly as big as my head and still not yellow!  The tilapia that were 1” when I left are about 3” now.   The old lawn mower that broke a drive belt when I wasn’t here to fix it has been replaced by a new one.  The guy who owns the agricultural land across the street has started cutting down all the invasive trees in the gully.  The two breadfruit trees in back of the guesthouse that looked they wouldn’t have a worthwhile crop this year are suddenly loaded with fruit.  We are at one of those unusual times when there are no ripe bananas in the yard so I’ll need to hunt some.

The Weather cast for the next week is lows of 68 and highs of 81 to 85 degrees.

Aloha!

Rico

FISH AND FISHING

                                                   FISH AND FISHING

On the 5^th of July I noticed that I finally had free swimming baby tilapia in my 12 foot wide roof fed tank.  They were only the size of medium mosquito wigglers but their fathers were no longer protecting them so they were on their own.  As they were in three separate groups I assume they were from three separate spawn.  By four days later they had merged into one school and had doubled their size.  Four days later they had doubled size again.  I think there are 60 of them and I’ve decided to leave the breeders in for one more spawn before I pull them out.  All the breeders are now much bigger then when they were put in but only the biggest is the size that would be a good meal.

Although I continue to feed the tilapia meal worms or earth worms when available I feed commercial feed three times a day usually.  If you know any good home grown fish food recipes I’d still be interested.  And although I wasn’t successful in getting the fish to eat much sweet potato at least the dog usually will eat it mixed 50% with her kibbles.  My hopes of attracting significant insects to the fish with floating solar lights has not proven very effective either and, in fact, the termite queen flights have been very much lower in numbers this year than last.

Soon, by the time the fry tilapia are 1 1/2”, I will need to add aeration to the water.  I’ve put it off because there are several ways I could do this and I’m not sure which is the most effective or cost effective.  I need to crunch some numbers today and buy what I need so I will be sure to have it installed before I leave for the Mainland trip next month.

Another fishing experience occurred for me last weekend at Volcano National Park where there are no fish.  We attended the annual Hawaiian Culture Festival up there and besides the all day music, hula, games and crafts there was instruction in throw net fishing.  Although that is a skill I doubt I will ever practice, I took training and on my second cast might have had a productive result if it had been onto fish instead of lawn.  I think from all my snorkeling that I could pick places to throw a net that might bear results.  Since I think the reef fish mostly have too much pressure on them I’ll just keep that information in the back of my head.

While at the Culture Festival I took interest in the making of paper cloth (kappa) from the cambium layer of mulberry shoots 1-2 inches diameter.  All the steps took hours and I just followed it by checking in on the progress of one woman at three different points.  I also volunteered at the palm frond hat weaving circle to make ‘set ups’ from whole fronds for the students to use.  I’m not good at the weaving (maybe my fingers are too big and blunt?) but since I had the sharp clip knife with me, that Rob gave me, I was able to catch up the hopelessly behind set up department. Meanwhile Myna made a perfect hala woven bracelet at another teaching station and a feather flower at a third.

As the Culture Festival took place on the grounds of “Military Camp” which was a Japanese internment center for three years spanning ’43-45, we took a short walking tour to see what it is like before leaving.  It seems the buildings have been all well preserved and are currently used as rentals if military families who have first priority for leaves don’t take them all.

On the way down the Mountain we ‘had’ to stop at the orchid propagator who has a large retail store on the highway.  Myrna added two more varieties to her growing collection.  They don’t require much attention here except for the ones that need to be watered because they’re under the eves of our house.  Myna now has about 20 including two useful ones – vanilla bean orchids!

Lychees are all finished in our neighborhood now and the avocados have begun.  The year around bananas and coconuts are very numerous so we have been drying bananas to take on trips and making coconut milk to use in place of milk.  The lilikoi (passion fruit) in our yard and neighbor’s have been producing 3-4 quarts of juice for us each week.  The pole beans I planted two weeks ago are about 10” high but the squash are again getting insects (multiple kinds) boring into their stems even though I have traps for the kind of fruit fly that I thought was the main problem last two plantings.

I’ve been doing more political action this past week.  I attended a two person sign waving and a 21 person sign waving for the Neil Abercrombie campaign.  Tonight I plan to attend one that we hope to have 50 people on and I did some telephoning for that.  Next month they expect to be reaching 100 people per event.

Since we’ve had such relatively dry weather a lot this year I’ve been swimming many mornings when I take the dog for a run to the old mill site on the Hakalau River.  Last week I encountered a group of 3 couples about to take a hike up river which is daunting jungle and cliffs.  I asked to join and they were agreeable so Kea and I stepped in line.  I had been that way before but gave it up in a swampy tangle of brush where the trail quit.  But when the river is low, I learned, the way to go is on a tail that runs right into the river and then crosses back and forth depending on which side has some shoreline that is not straight up.  The river crossings were not a problem because I was wearing Crocs and everyone else was wearing water shoes or Crocs.  But in many places we were hopping from bolder to bolder and Kea, our dog, was having a hard time keeping up.  This is compounded by the fact that Kea hates to swim and some times we were wading deeper than she would follow.  Near the end I left Kea to find her own way.  The goal was a waterfall 30 or 40 feet tall with a large rock lined pool below it.  We swam and relaxed there enjoying the massage of the waterfall then I dressed to start back while the rest of the crew ate lunch.  Almost as soon as I left the pool I found a very tired Kea and we took our time getting back to the car from this idyllic Hawaiian scene.  If you visit during dry weather and have good balance and strong legs I’ll take you there and, this time, remind me to bring my camera!  Don’t ask when that dry weather is going to be but you probably won’t feel like being wet half a day in the winter three or four months.

ALOHA!

P.S.  Much latter I learned that one of the ladies on the waterfall hike fell and broke an arm on the way back down the river.

A BUSY WEEK

                                                            A BUSY WEEK

Wednesday was the Sierra Club’s monthly Conservation Committee meeting.  I usually attend and try to learn as much as I can there however when it comes to discussing club positions I always find myself in the minority.  So Sunday we made a trip to the (nearly) top of Mona Kea where the world’s best astronomy site that is close to a major University hosts 11 observatories.  The summit is 13,796’ and the observatories are several hundred feet lower.  Part of the reason that  I wanted to see it at this particular time is that the U of H board of Regents, as the management body for the astronomy zone, was about to make their decision whether to take the next step towards allowing the construction of the planned thirty meter telescope (TMT).   The TMT would provide nine times the collecting area of any telescope presently in operation and it will be built in Chile if it is not approved for here.   The local Sierra Club (or at least their leadership) is on record in opposition and the co-chair of the Mauna Kea Issues Committee had his long article in both the Big Island paper and the Oahu paper and I’ve argued at meetings that most of their arguments are poor or none of the Club’s concern (native religion).  I will try to attach both sides in case you’re interested.

Myrna and I had a beautiful day above the clouds and walked around all the different telescopes and enjoyed the views.  I did not feel it to be a religious experience as some have suggested I might but then we did not walk to the very top from the pleatueo where the telescopes are.  In fact, the overwhelming memory will always be of how odd it seemed to NOT be able to get our legs to obey the command to walk faster.  We had spent one hour at the 9,000’ level to allow our bodies to get acclimatized yet even so the amount of effort that any movement requires at that altitude is hysterically unbelievable!  The next day I wrote my answer to Nelson’s argument and sent it to the Board of Regents but not the newspapers.  I also sent it to the club secretary and asked her to distribute it but as far as I know, she has not.  The Board of Regents received 30 in favor and 10 opposed and a week later approved proceeding.  I’m sure the Sierra Club will try to block them at the next stage as well but I doubt that a vote of the members would sustain that position.  At Wednesday’s Club meeting I gave a copy of what I wrote to Nelson and he said he’d read it and phone me later.  I’ve not heard from him.

Hawaii has two major Democratic candidates for governor this year.  One, Mufi Hanneman, is Honolulu mayor and sounds way too Republican for me.  The other, Neil Abercrombie, was a ten term congressman and former professor who resigned this spring to run for mayor.  I wanted to hear him in person so I attended one of his “school bus tour” rallies at a town four miles south of us.  I rode there with a long time local organizer who introduced me to Neil during the luncheon preceding the rally and had me sit across from him.  (I should add here that, here on the Big Island at least, politics is notably different from Washington for the lack asking for money.  It was never mentioned throughout that rally or the next.  Just pleas for volunteers.  I think this is because we are a very poor neighborhood and the fund raising probably takes place in Honolulu).  Neil answered all my questions as if he could do anything I wanted and with the assurance that he would see to that all was accomplished quickly.  He said he would sign or veto all bills sent him within 24 hours and I cautioned that that may not be possible.   My only fault with him was that he was too quick to over commit himself.  After the local talent show in his honor and the local speeches he finally took the floor and very soon had himself and the audience worked up to a fever pitch.   We drove home in time to tell Myrna, who had just returned from work, about the meeting and suggest we drive 10 miles up the coast to the next rally so we could see him together. 

At the next stop, Laupahoehoe, there was a fancier free meal, entertainment more to my liking (the group Java Jive who I have played with at THE 50’S RESTURANT on a past Friday) and oddly enough we got to sit with Neil there also so Myrna got to ask him about and inform him of healthcare issues.

The next night we were off to THE PALACE THEATRE in Hilo for a concert of Ukele Jazz.  I think I’ve mentioned being surprised by excellent jazz played on the Ukele at a first birthday party we attended so you can imagine I had my hopes up.  I was not disappointed.  The opening act was a local guitar, bass and ukele group with vocals.   The first number was slow and the rest were hard driving with very tight interplay between the instruments.  After probably five numbers the main act, Benny Chong on ukulele and a Japanese descended fellow, whose name I can’t recall, on electric upright bass came out and opened with a Duke Ellington number and then played the theme from Bewitched.  These guys were marvelous technicians who could achieve anything with their instruments either solo or duo and their program had a wide range of complicated material but it probably tended more to the classical side then my taste would have liked.  And I mean classical jazz.  The program went on till after 10 which is late enough for us that we were falling asleep.  I found the opening act more exciting even though some of the numbers were sung in Hawaiian which I can’t understand. 

On Saturday we had planed an early start to the Westside but we slept in an hour and moved slow.  We did manage to get to Honaunau by 11:00 for the annual Hawaiian celebration of culture that included arts and crafts demonstrations and taking to sea (harbor) of the ancient dugout outrigger canoes that are normally only on display in a shed.  Since there was no parking left by the museum for this day of free events, we had to drive by it to the picnic ground so naturally we proceeded to eat lunch before walking back to the “Place of Refuge”.  There I noticed that three canoes with sails were giving rides on the bay, one was ancient and two modern, one of these a catamaran, and since the line waiting for a turn was not very long we did that first.  As it happens when our turn came we got a modern canoe made with wood and fiberglass.  While not as unique this did offer the fastest ride of the three and our helmsman seemed to be enjoying the perfect wind on the bay so we had a longer ride than the others as well.  Every time we came about and I thought we were heading in he spun it around again and every time we went over a shallow reef I could see yellow tangs and once even less colorful fish.  This boat carried four in the hull and one on the trampoline between the outrigger struts.  We only retuned after about the fifth crossing of the bay.

After the canoe ride I wanted to look at the coconut frond weaving demonstration and this led to us both taking a class and producing a bowl each.  Myrna’s is the more perfect one in the pictures.  By this time the sky was darkening with both clouds and sinking sun so we hurried back to our car for our dive gear then walked back to “two step”, one of our favorite diving spots for a quick tour under water. 

We drove home through Kailua to stop at the Costco for a couple items and came out with cases of stuff because “hurricane season is here and shipping could be interrupted by any one of them for days”.  Myrna had already bought two pounds of Kona coffee, at an estate where she gets an especially good deal, that morning.        That’s life on an Island!

JUNE MUSIC

                                                            JUNE MUSIC

I don’t recall if I’ve mentioned it in these letters, but one thing I’ve really missed since moving here (in addition to our friends) was knowing where to get my fix of music jams.  There are music performances in Hilo every weekend, and a lot of them are free, but what I really enjoy is taking part in the spontaneous creation of music.  Connecting with that has proven elusive.  The local 50’s café has an excellent string band on Friday nights and they have tolerated my harmonica on one occasion and invited me to do it again but I’m a little shy in that setting and eating is not compatible with harmonica.

Last Friday morning I did my monthly turn with the work party at the community park where the old Hakalau Sugar Mill used to be.  There were more workers and less work to be done than usual so we were starting lunch by 10:30 when a small Hawaiian fellow who I had not met before brings out a quality ukulele and starts playing.  Here you see this in parks in Hilo everyday but this man was a really excellent instrumentalist.  I asked him if I went home for my tub base and harmonicas if he would mind my joining in.  He was agreeable so I hurried home and although there was no music when I got back it resumed shortly and we all had a good time, some singing, another uke player, rattles, another tub player and the first guy, who says he will attend the Friday work parties again (so I might go every week to make sure I don’t miss him).

Saturday was also a special music event.  This one was in honor of Bob Dylan’s birthday and was an excellent performance of 28 of Dylan’s songs – better than Dylan because he was easier to understand and a better instrumentalist.  We attended the concert with neighbor friends and preceded it with a Thai restaurant dinner.

Each weekend we do an outdoor activity in addition to neighborhood walks and gardening and although there are many hikes we’d still like to see for the first time, I think we are still under the northern mode of if it is warm out we’d better take advantage by snorkeling.  Here it is so warm in the water now (74-84 depending on depth and currents) that we don’t really need the black Lycra shirts that we bought to keep warm in the winter water but I still wear mine to protect from sunburn and “reef rash” (scrapes on the rock reef).  I’ve added one pound ankle weights in addition to the 5 pound weight belt I’ve been wearing so it is easier to dive and to stay still on the bottom when I want to.  Another pound or two and I’ll be neutral buoyancy.

Through my gardening I’ve already met some nice older neighbors who are curious about who built my unusual garden and want to offer advice.  Most here use chemicals and insist that I will need to.  I am considering using herbicide on the trunks of some of the otherwise unstoppable invasive trees and I have already used a little chemical fertilizer on the bananas and fruit trees because I don’t have access to manure here except by the bag.  I do keep two composters going and also rake grass clippings from the road side for mulch when the county mows.  Today an old man who grew up down the street but now is in a retirement home came by to pick some “spoon" stage coconuts from the gully.  He came over to talk story when he saw me in my front garden and we visited for 20 minutes.  Unlike most, he understood the value of mulch feeding for the garden, especially in this time of drought.  His parents were from Portugal and he married a Hawaiian.  He has promised to return with some special seeds that have been favorites of his.  Another older man who lives down our street has been bringing me starts of trees and plants that he has proprogated .   It seems common that us old guys who believe in growing our own lack family to pass the skill on to.  Too sad.

MAY DAY DEMOCRATS CONVENTION

                                                MAY DAY DEMS CONVENTION

You could say I’ve been shirking my duties of participation in this democracy since arrival on this Island and compared to the standards of my former activist life that would be accurate.  But I do read the paper daily, have submitted four letters to the editor, of which two were printed, and we attended our Democratic caucus.  Myrna and I were one of two couples from our precinct at caucus and I accepted the duty to attend County Convention.

At the lightly attended convention I found that some electeds and our candidate for governor would not be attending due to the new owner of the hotel, a democrat, refused to recognize the union agreement of the failed past owner.  Since we are not in the congressional district that was vacant from Neil Abercrombie’s resignation we did not have any speakers from the campaign for that seat then underway.  The main business was consideration of resolutions.  The resolutions had been worked on at a “pre-convention” open to all delegates instead of just a “platform committee” as would have been done in Washington State and all 19 had survived a vote and were recommended for approval.  The whole package was offered for an up or down vote by the chair and just as in Washington that move was rejected and the chair then allowed those individual resolutions that anyone wanted to amend to be separated. 

While 8 resolutions were considered separately only three of them were hotly contested.  The one with the clearest division of the votes called for support of the Civil Unions bill which passed the legislature on the last day of its session.  This legislature has only 3 Republicans but the civil union bill passed by only one vote and although the Republican governor will probably veto it we had a very fierce discussion and I thought the vote might be close but in the end only about 12% voted against this resolution which none had opposed at the “pre-convention”.

Another pulled resolution would have required adherence to the platform and resolutions by those running for office.  Similar resolutions are often introduced in Washington and there they are diluted as they pass up the line or rejected outright because we all know delegates to conventions tend to be more radical than the average voter and it seems, under the theory that the candidate should know his own district best, counterproductive to winning elections.  In this overwhelmingly Democratic district that thinking can be challenged by the need to show leadership but the resolution was diluted before being passed.

The final hot debate was on a resolution to liberalize the terms of possession for medical marijuana.  As written and approved 18 to 4 by the preconvention, it would have aroused the pro drug war passions of some because it proposed increasing to 24 the number of plants allowed for medical use and provided for obtaining seeds.  The proposed amendment was to extend these terms to all adults.  This county already has an initiative passed ordinance that makes possession of less than 24 plants the police department’s lowest enforcement priority.  After a major debate the amended resolution passed 34 to 22!

In the meantime, yesterday I finished the 12’ tilapia pond so now I want rain to fill it.  My hope is to rarely use tap water in the fish pond and, in fact, I couldn’t use much because it is too chlorinated.  Naturally we now have an unnaturally dry weather forecast.

We’ve been snorkeling again and we are getting better at using the under water video camera.  The next thing that would do the most to improve our picture quality would be an underwater strobe to bring out the reds.   Our latest trip was to Two Step (Honounou) where there were several smallish green turtles.

APRIL SHOWERS

                                                            APRIL SHOWERS

They don’t use the expression “April showers brings May flowers” here on the Hamakua Coast because there are flowers all year around and usually only a four week dry season in January or February (this year we had hardly any rain from late December to late February) .  But there are noticeably more flowers now than during winter.  Also the fruit blooms are showing their rapidly growing results.  It looks like our lychees have set none, our avocados set lightly (but more than enough for us), our durian none, and our mango more than last year but still lightly when compared to many in the neighborhood.   Those not mentioned are all reliable annual producers.

Four weeks ago I got my first tilapia to experiment with feeding home grown food.  I can now report that they are noticeably larger and showing a good appetite.  The two most aggressive males are no longer feeding which probably means they have a mouthful of eggs.  The females lay the eggs then the males fertilize them and scoop them up into their mouths to incubate.  For a few days after the eggs hatch they will emerge from papa’s mouth to feed then rush back in at the first sign of danger.  I’m not able to observe this here because the black walled tank has a heavy enough algae bloom that I can’t see to the bottom.  When I grew tilapia in a 3,000 gallon ferro-cement tank that I built at Tolstoy Farm in the ‘70’s I saw that the fathers would put up with the fry trying to all cram into their mouths till past the day when they could all fit in then they would go back to eating for a few days before mating again.  The bottom line here is that it is time to start digging a level spot for the big tank because I think they could be worth keeping here and they will need more space real soon!

The week after Easter is the biggest event of the year in Hilo.  It is the season of the MERRIE MONARCH FESTIVAL to celebrate the revival of the hula tradition by King David Kalakaua who ruled in extravagant style for about 12 years spanning the 1880’s.  You could say it amounts to the world’s biggest hula contest and dancers do come from hula schools, called halaus, from all over the world.   This gathering, however, is much more important to renewing the Polynesian culture even though many of the dancers come from other ethnic backgrounds.  And contrary to what mainlanders may think, the men originally were the only ones allowed to dance although the women did a sitting or kneeling hula.  When white sailors started visiting the women here learned they could get more gifts from them if they danced for them.  When the missionaries arrived they put a stop to this topless expression of sexuality and tried to stop hula altogether.  As a large part of the population died from the diseases brought by these new settlers, the natives became more determined to retain some of their traditional sources of celebration so hula was practiced in private till King David reinstated the public exhibition of hula by proclamation around 1880.

The actual contest part of the week was only three days.  Tickets were mostly sold out a year in advance and hotels were all full even though they double their prices for the week.  There were many free opportunities to view what were in essence the dress rehearsals for the contest or special performances put on by out of country halau who were not allowed to participate in the actual contest.  The contest itself was also broadcast live on TV and streamed live on the internet.  Myrna and I caught three performances in person and lots on TV.  There were separate traditional and modern categories and wahine (women) and cane (men) divisions.  The most impressive aspect to me was not the beauty and charm of some of the women (who were indeed impressive) but rather the power and aura of some of the halau leaders.  They hold the respect of their members and the whole community for their manna.   I think there were more women than men leading halaus and some of them were led by a husband wife team.  All the halaus had both men and women dancers and in the pre-contest events they sometimes danced together.  I think that during the contest they always danced separately.  Each halau also had its own set of musicians who didn’t get as much attention as I thought they deserved.  I was surprised to see that some of the traditional male dances were outright odes to sexuality with chants about their physical attributes and costumes that made them look bigger where it counts the most.   

It is now a day after I started this and I have indeed begun the excavation for the 12’ diameter fish tank.  With my back as tender as it has been lately I expect the digging will take me a week, judging by today’s results, but at least there are rarely rocks.  Some of the dirt is going to a garden extension and some will be used to add to existing terraces.

Aloha!

TREMBLES

                                                            TREMBLES

Minor earth quakes are not too uncommon here but until March 8^th we’d not had one that I’d noticed.  This time Myrna, her sister Dolores and I were still sitting at the dinning table after supper when I noticed a tremor, we all stopped talking and looked at each other as in one second it progressed to a sharp shock wave and mild shaking over 3 seconds  and a cracking sound then subsided over the next couple seconds.  Five or six seconds total, no damage, but the most impressive earthquake I ever experienced.  Turns out it registered between 4.4 and 5 and was located only a few miles Northwest and 14 miles down.  This is when the light frame construction we live in is a safer place to be than heavier materials that could crush a person.  There are no aftershocks to report.

The next day we went snorkeling at the Kapoho tide pools, toured down the coast to Kalapona, saw turtles south of Hilo, ate dinner at The Ponds restaurant which is over a large Koi pond so I could feed the fish from the open window at my elbow, and saw whales on the way home.  I thought it was a perfect birthday!

Now it is April 1st and I’m wondering how a whole month slipped by.  Actually I know how.  The first half we had three sets of delightful company and the second half we took turns having a cold.

We still see whales occasionally and Myrna was even awakened by their loud slapping once last week but they no longer lay around on the surface for long.  By now some are probably on their way back to the Alaskan feeding grounds and those remaining are probably thinking hard about breaking their winter fast.  We will miss them.

I just got a couple loaves of banana nut bread out of the oven made with wheat I brought (still), macadamia nuts I gathered from three different places, and 7 or 8 of the small bananas like I usually get from our yard or the vacant lot next door.  The past week or 10 days, however, we’ve not had our own so this time I found a bunch at the Hakalau community park.  A couple days after they started ripening one of our own began turning yellow but that was a ‘problem’ easily solved when I discovered that neighbors we’ve sometimes gotten bananas from were themselves out.  We freeze some bananas and other fruit but I doubt I’ll ever bother canning any with such year round availability here.  I don’t think (since I just ate a big slice) that I’m going to freeze one of those banana/nut breads either!

The stage that the tilapia experiment has reached is that I now have two kinds (11 fish total) in a 100 gallon stock tank that is watered by putting a gutter down spout into it when needed.  Unlike cold water fish, tilapias not only don’t require running water, they can actually do better if algae are allowed to grow in the water because they are gill strainers so that every breath they take gathers food for them also.  I’ve fertilized the water with a little composted chicken manure to encourage the algae and I’ve put dolomite and egg shells on the bottom to provide a substrate for the kinds of bacteria that breakdown the metabolites of the fish.  My main question is can I grow the protein that the fish need in addition to the algae.  Because the water is cloudy from my fertilizing it is hard to tell what they eat from my offerings so I’m not sure if they ate the shredded coconut, sweet potato leaves or heloconia leaves.  One offering that they like enough for me to be sure is meal worms (beetle larva) that grow in our compost tumblers.  That adds another way to recycle.  They also like earth worms but I’d rather have them in my garden.  And, of course, the fish will eat all the mosquito wigglers that hatch in the tank and all the termite queens that fall in it when their colonizing season begins.  I will use a light over the water to draw termites to the fish.  The commercial growers keep two varieties or more separately and hybridize them to produce a nearly all male offspring because males grow faster and bigger than females.  That is too much trouble to pay off for a small back yard tank so we will have to be happy with eating any size we get.  Aloha!

3/4/10 POST TSUNAMI

                                                    3/4/10 POST TSUNAMI

Some of you have written inquiring about how affected we were by the tsunami.  In fact I’ve not written in so long due to a lack of events worth writing about.  We learned of the approaching tsunami when we were awakened about 5:30 by a call from a charge nurse to Myrna asking about short staffing for the preparations.   It was quickly determined that although neither  our home or the Veterans Home were in danger we were both going to work because some nurses were feeling the need to be with their families and the home had, in fact, the need to have extra staff in case of power outages or other complications.  As it turned out I mostly just watched the ebb and flow around Coconut Island on TV just like the rest of you (except I have had the personal experience of SeaCycling around Coconut Island).  I did work about half an hour filling 5 gallon plastic water bottles.  Interestingly, even though all the boats in the harbor had sailed out to one mile past the breakwater to be safe from possibly being thrown ashore, as we were heading home we still saw whales spouting between the boats.

Meanwhile Myrna has made drapes for the Ohana and I’ve cleared two palms and some brush in order to put in new fencing along the part of our south boundary that is now a dog run and where I want to also build a tilapia pond. The palms were on the fence line only ten or twelve feet from the Ohana.  The first dropped within a foot of where I was aiming for but the second gave a bit of a fright by slapping the end of the gutter and landing on the other side of the dog run fence.  It is nice to finally have a dog fence that our dog can’t break out of!

Although the tsunami didn’t do much, on this past Sunday we had a hard rain (1.3”) for the first time this year.  Along with it we had high surf from winds driving the storm and these two together made for a major change at the mouth of the Hakalau River.  The last big storm, in December, had thrown up a high gravel bar across the mouth of the river.  This is a problem because a couple kinds of fish enter the river to spawn and the backed up water was too “fresh” but green with algae and the fish were beginning to die.  On February 12^th I had joined a work party to dig a channel to open the river.  The hope was that we could dig a 12’ wide channel and the river would eat it out wider.  The mouth of the River is potentially 100 yards wide.  The problem was that it had been so dry that river flow was not strong enough to carry the gravel out beyond where the surf would bring it back in at high tide.  A few days later the gravel wall was back almost as high as when we started.  On the afternoon of the 28^th the rain started and by the morning of March 1 most of the length of the bar was gone.  The rain quit Monday but the high surf continued until Wednesday.  The river is settled down now and the last I looked its mouth was still open.  It looks like the gravel got moved farther out and that should make the surfers happy since it will break the swells giving them a longer ride in a spot that has been very short this past year.

Last night we attended our democratic precinct caucus.  We thought it might be different because it was at the new president of the local ILWW union but only 8 people showed.

The five day forecast here is for lows of 64-68 and highs of 75-80 with an occasional shower.  That is so typical of winter here that you can see why life on Hawaii is more laid back… no strong seasonal pressures!  The past winter lows were only three degrees  colder.  For most things tomorrow will do just as good as today.   May your life also grow more carefree!!!

WALLOPING DA WATER, 2/9/10

                                          WALLOPING DA WATER, 2/9/10

Last night as I was returning to the living room Myrna said,”It sounds like fireworks outside.  Go out and see what it is.”

I dutifully went out on the porch and sure enough, in between the sporadic car traffic on the highway, I heard large slow but rhythmic “soft” explosions in the direction of the ocean.   It was a calm sea and windless evening so it seemed possible that someone was firing a shotgun out of direct line of sight near the shoreline.  Myrna came out and we both stood still and cupped our hands behind our ears and were able to pinpoint the sounds more accurately.  Those wamping noises were in fact coming from just off shore and that could only mean one source…whales.   With that in mind it was clear to me that we were hearing a pectoral fin slapping contest.  To confirm that we went to:

 http://www.consciousbreathadventures.com/video/pectoral-fin-slapping.html

and listened to the clip attached.  If you subtract the boat, people and water noises what you have left is what we heard for 10 or 15 minutes.

   

TANGERINES AND WHALES, 1/30/10

                                                TANGERINES AND WHALES 1/30/10

Thanks to visitors I’ve been out and about more than I’d be likely to otherwise this past month.  And almost every time I’ve spent any time overlooking the Ocean any closer than our house I’ve spotted at least whale spouts in the distance and often they have been close enough to see backs or tails.  Usually I think it’s just cows with their calves lazing about.  Yesterday with visitors we think we saw a show-off male repeatedly smacking his tail making huge splashes.  According to the paper the humpback whale winter visitors have not shown any slump in numbers, as have the human visitors the past year, and are around 10,000 in state waters probably until the end of March.  Although Maui gets most of the breeding activity, birthing is commonly reported off our shore.  I remember going out on a whale watching boat from Newport Oregon when the Baja migration was returning north, getting beat around by rough seas and only getting a brief glimpse of one whale.  As many as we’ve seen here it is still something of a thrill, I think because the Ocean is so awesome and their comfort in it is so reassuring.

We also saw spinner dolphins leaping way clear of the water yesterday and “spinning,” and as usual year around here, we saw sea turtles.  In fact, at a spot we call the slosh box because it is only the size of our swimming pool in Chattaroy surrounded by rock except for an opening at both ends and the waves and back surge make the water “slosh” back and forth, just as I was jumping into the water from a rock I saw a large turtle was on the bottom right below me.  I wouldn’t have been able to stop at that point but I was able to clear it by a good margin as I had been planning to dive outward anyway to reach deeper water.  

We finished yesterday with John and Rachel, our visitors taking us out to dinner at The Ponds restaurant.  Being there reminded me of how many large buildings here have what I call “outside inside” architecture.  Usually this means having a courtyard that the rooms open to even in a place like the public library or the Hilo Federal building.  Restaurants here often have a lot of openable windows and never seem to have a problem with flies.  This restaurant goes this one better (for a pisces like me anyway) by being built right over a pond full of a great selection of uncommonly beautiful koi and having all the windows open.  They are also uncommonly fat so I wondered if patrons feed them bread and I serendipitously threw them a small piece from the window at my elbow which started a bit of a pile-up.  Later a waitress at another window gave a patron a mallet to ring a bell hanging outside that window.  The fish all piled up there just like Pavlov’s dogs and then the patron threw out all their left over bread.

In the morning yesterday we went to the younger and larger of the two tropical botanical gardens near us.  This one was only started in 1996 and will doubtless look a lot better in future years but it is amazing what they have already!  While there I struck up a conversation with one of the two head gardeners and the three of us got invited to try something I’d read about but never experienced –miracle fruit!  He gave us each three cold capsule sized berries and told us mash the pulp but not crush the seeds with our teeth and roll them around our mouth.  Then he gave us each a chunk of lemon.  The lemon in our mouths was not at all sour and was amazingly delicious.  Then he gave us each a chunk of orange and it was the most wonderful out of this world fruit we’ve ever eaten!  We have a miracle fruit bush that I planted in September without ever having tasted one.  Now I can hardly wait till it produces!

Today I packed our orchard ladder on the roof rack of our car and we went to a neighbor at the end of the street to pick some of her surplus tangerines.  Prior to this we have been treated to some from a closer neighbor each time we visited them but their tree’s season is almost over and there are two loaded trees at this widow’s house.  So picking only from the top of the tree so that those remaining would be easy for this lady and her weekly visiting daughter to pick over the next couple weeks I quickly got more than us and our neighborhood acquaintances could use.  We distributed bags of them on the way home then set up the juicer to make yummy juice to save in the refrigerator past when the fresh fruit will keep we hope.

At this point the mangos are past full bloom and the avocados are getting close to full bloom.  They have abundant flowers but there is talk that there are not enough bees to pollinize everything here.  The Mac nut growers are especially worried.  The Mac nut flowers smell great along the roadsides!

I hope the month ahead is a sweet one for you!  If Spokane continues to have such a mild winter I’ll bet the spring dauphne will start to bloom by the first of March.  And if it does I’ll take credit for sending so much Aloha your way.

Aloha!

1/12/10, CATCH UP

                                                   1/12/10  CATCH UP

 I skipped a lot of the things we did in December with the daughters and son in law so first I’m going to tell you about our submarine ride!  The 48 passenger electric drive craft we rode in is one of 11 specially built for the Atlantis sight seeing tours.  They also have one at Waikiki, Maui and 8 more around the world.  Some are 64 passenger size but all feature back to back seating down the middle of a tubular cabin with large round windows the length of each side.  We road a tender craft out to where the sub waited and we started submerging as soon as everyone was seated.   We didn’t move very fast and since it is very quiet (and the fish have been seeing it for 20 years!) fish passed very close to the windows.  The day we were aboard the sun was shinning but a whitish plankton bloom gave the water a slight “fog”.  All five in our group had been snorkeling so the comparisons were at the forefront of our minds.  We’d mainly hopped to see deeper water fish that we’d not seen already and we did.  What impressed me the most was that, in contrast with snorkeling, the pace was very slow and relaxed instead of needing to hurry to the surface for air and very comfortable.  Rob and Adar, who have a lot of scuba experience, were probably the least impressed but even they appreciated being able to easily share the experience with us.  It was only about 35 minutes underwater down to 108’, around two wrecks and back but we felt it was worth the $65 ticket –once.  

That same afternoon as the sub ride we snorkeled at a beach south of Kailua called Kahaluu Beach Park.  Both the fish and the sea turtles were abundant and I thought that I finally got the hang of the underwater camera.  I expected a load of very nice pictures of fish and of a turtle feeding but when we tried to down load them to the computer all we found was the last set.  Apparently Myrna had not cleared the chip properly and, in fact, it took one more outing to figure out the procedure for this economy camera that had come without directions.

We took two hikes with our guests in December.  One was a short guided nature tour up at Volcano.  The other was a 4 mile trail through the giant fern rain forest and down into the Kilauea Ikki crater, across its floor, back up a ½ mile from where we started then through the Thurston Lava Tube lighted portion and back to the car.  Of course we also took in the visitor center there in Volcanoes National park and we went to the Jagger museum over looking the main Kilauea Caldera in which we saw two white feathered Tropic Birds playing in the steam plume.   Apparently they are sea birds that nest in the cliffs of the crater and fly every day to the ocean to return with food for their chicks.  This past weekend Myrna and I took a 4 mile guided tour up to another volcano, Mauna Ulu, which erupted from ‘70 to ’79.  Our guide was a ranger who had witnessed the first three years of its eruption and his first hand accounts made it more interesting.  At the beginning of this hike we saw a pair of Nene take flight away from our group of 80 mostly local tourists.  Along the hike I sampled some of the cranberry relatives that are reported to be a favorite of the Nene.  The berries were juicy but bland.

On a separate trip we took flash lights so we could walk in a 2 mile long lava tube that is just west of Hilo.  The ceiling where we entered was more than 20 feet high and the floor clearly shows the flow patterns.  We probably only went in one tenth mile before we came to a sharp turn to the right where the ceiling got too low to stand and we decided to turn back.  The guide book says people can pass all the way through however.

After the lava tube we continued up Saddle road and turned onto the Mauna Kea Observatory road.  At the 9200’ level there is a small astronomy guest reception/museum.  Visitors are permitted to continue to the top in the daytime IF they have true four wheel drive (not all-wheel like our Forester) and IF they stop to acclimatize to the elevation at least 20 minutes.  On this weekend evening we came for the stargazing with several small telescopes maintained by the amerture astronomers.   Because the moon was just past full this wasn’t the best night but we caught some good lectures, a film and got to do a little viewing through the telescopes.   A note for those who have been Saddle Road before: the road is being improved but much of west part is still potholed.

Today we just ended a 2 week drought with .6” of rain so I got by with only needing to water my garden once so far here.  I was planning to water today if the rain didn’t arrive.

Aloha!

DECEMBER SUNSHINE

                                                DECEMBER SUNSHINE

Yes! The sun is out most of the time so far this month.  Just as in Spokane County, we seem to be more likely to get sunshine and clear cool nights around the full moon here.  Two weekends ago when we were tired of the mostly clouds and showers we drove over to the Kona coast for some snorkeling.  From our place the shortest drive there is north on the Hamakua Coast, west to Waimea and straight down to the Ocean, nearly two hours.

We first stopped at the Mauna Kea Resort Hotel where you need to be early enough to get a ticket for one of the 30 public parking spaces for the adjoining public access.  The Hotel is surrounded on the mountain side by its private golf course that we need to drive through very slowly, then past the buildings then, after parking, we walked down a paved path to the public beach.  The landscaped white sand beach with rocky point on each side was gorgeous!  Even the hotel buildings seemed to fit in (and that’s really saying something for me!).  On seeing spear fishermen (two) I knew that this won’t be the best place to see fish but I put on my gear and headed out along the south point.  Although larger fish were scarce I saw lots of smaller fish and probably would have seen more beyond the point but the surf was a bit too rough there so I doubled back.  That’s when I encountered two feeding Green Sea Turtles.  If a person swims straight at them they will get a bit nervous and depart surprisingly quickly (also it could be called harassment which is illegal as it might weaken an endangered species) so I just mimicked its movements on a course alongside it (except, of course I can’t hold my breath for twenty minutes as they can).  The turtle soon was biting algae off rocks while holding on to brace its self against the surge and ignoring my presence as I snapped photos with a cheapy underwater camera that I couldn’t see through the viewfinder of (see Therese Reed facebook for photos).  In a few minutes I went ashore to tell Myrna where the action was and I basked in the sun while she snorkeled.

As there are several public access beaches in that area we next drove south to see more of them.  We ate lunch at the next one but didn’t think the very nice beach there offered much in the way of snorkeling, especially since it was crowded, so after a stroll we drove to examine a possibly interesting tide pools area on a very built-up piece of coast where the tide being out would have made a long and slippery walk to diving.  Got back in the car and next examined a public boat launch that appears to be very good for the SeaCycle on a future trip.  For our last trip we went to a beach I’d snorkeled before when Myrna was not yet up to it.  Last time I’d explored the north point so this time we headed south where I had an interesting time circling a small Island and Myrna enjoyed the shoreward side of it.  By then we were both getting tired and although the afternoon was young we were not and we decided to start home.

Driving home in the afternoon made it especially clear how different the weather is on different parts of the Island.  The beach temperature had been about 85.  We reached Waimea, where it is about 2,450 ft., at 4:20 and it was 72 and partly sunny.  By the 2,500 ft. sign it was 67 and raining and then by the time we got back down to Honoka’a at 4:55 it was back up to 70 and raining.  When we got home (230ft.) at 5:30 it was 75 and cloudy.  We decided we still prefer the wet/green side to the brown and black dry side.  And we still find it so gorgeous that it’s hard for a driver to keep the eyes on the road!

Now, as I resume writing on the 7^th, we are back to clouds, occasional showers and 70’s.

                                                INVASIVE OR PIONEER?

It seems I’ve been fighting invasive species all my life.  I am also keenly aware that I myself am a member of an invasive species.  On the North American continent the arrival of man coincides with the die-out, from 40,000-10,000 years ago, of many of the largest animals there at the time.  ‘Our’ arrival is a leading theory of why.  When Europeans joined earlier colonizers in the Americas they brought many more new plants, including the weeds that I as a gardener battled for most my adult life.  Now, as a new immigrant to the newest of the Hawaiian Islands I find myself fascinated by the variety of view points about what constitutes “native” and what is noxious or invasive and what to do about it.

Here plants and animals are grouped into three classes by arrival time.  There are those that found their way here before man, canoe arrivals that were brought by the Polynesians and those that arrived with and after Captain Cook.  Some later arrivals have been of huge benefit in diversifying the diet of the people and eliminating famine.  Some have contributed to the extinction of earlier arrivals.  The more I learn about the origin of the local species the more I marvel with wonder at how bare the Island would be if all the species brought by man were suddenly removed.  And the more I chuckle at those who think their lives would be better without any of the introductions of the last few hundred years.

As I’ve indicated before I don’t personally feel guilt or responsibility for the mistakes of earlier generations.  I do feel a personal responsibility to live my own life in a way that makes this a better planet for generations of people that follow and I naturally have my own pragmatic approach to what that means.  In the case of this young and still growing Island called Hawaii I agree with the efforts to remove feral goats and pigs from areas of the endangered species they are consuming.  I am also very concerned with some particularly invasive plants.  When it comes to the coqui frogs, however, I don’t see the point. 

Coqui, introduced accidently from Puerto Rico recently enough that the 1944 REPTILES AND AMPHIBIANS IN THE HAWAIIAN ISLANDS does not even mention them , are a very small tree frog with a loud for its size voice.  In urban areas their croak seems amplified by building walls and those people who can’t sleep hate and blame the frogs that they hear repeating the same two syllable word all night long (first syllable low and slow, second higher and accented).  In rural areas folks don’t allow vegetation next to building walls, in order to allow full access to air flow for keeping the wood structures dried out between rains, so the coquis are not right next to the buildings to start with.  In the second place while we have lots of coquis in the bananas across the driveway from our open bedroom window the jungle absorbs the sound, the rain adds a melody and the breeze in the coconut palm fronds adds rhythm.

The county and state both had coqui eradication programs and even here in the country some people would go out in the night with tiny gigs or spray cans to kill coquis.  And this includes the local Sierra Club ex-com.  I’ve not heard anyone argue that they are displacing more senior members of the community of wildlife nor has anyone refuted my argument that we would have more of the also introduced mosquitoes if we didn’t have the coquis eating them.  Some say they don't eat mosquitoes but I suspect that most of whatever they do eat is non-native because that is most of what is here.  I’m happy that the budget short falls have brought about an end to the coqui eradication program.  By the way, although there are no “native”amphibians, on Oahu there is a very large Cuban Tree Frog and bullfrogs that are noxious invaders.