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.