11/11/11 ANOTHER RAINY DAY IN PARADISE

                11/11/11    A RAINY DAY IN PARADISE

As you know, East Hawaii gets a lot of rain and even the in drought of the last couple years Hilo’s per year totals have been in the 80’s.  Historically Hilo has reported an average of 127 inches of rain per year at the airport (34’ elevation) and a lot more on the upland portions of the city.  The photo above is Rainbow Falls on the Wailuku River in Hilo early this month.  The first week of the month has been very wet with over 8 inches here at our house and 6.28 in Hilo.  If it rained at that rate all year we’d have 416 inches annually in Hakalau yet the surprising thing is that it is still easy (at least for a retired guy) to find nice times to be outdoors. Another amazing thing is that there is very little flooding or erosion as there was during the sugar cane plantain days.  Most of the former cane field area is now forest, ornamentals for export, orchards, pastures or row crops of less than five acres.   I am also amazed that even when the Hakalau River does flood red-brown it is nearly clear again within less than two hours of the rain stopping and back to normal the next day.

What potential visitors always ask is which months to visit to avoid the rain.  The answer is if you want to avoid the rain drive to the leeward side (whichever side that is on that day) or just wait an hour.  June, May and January are the driest months on average but the deviation from 10”/month is not great.  March, November and December are the wettest months usually.  Temperature range each day only varies on average from 79-83 f. highs and 63-70 f. lows and for the last few years the annual monthly extremes have moved closer together .

Yesterday, a few days after starting this entry, and 10 days into this rainy month Myrna and I decided to get away from the rain and snorkel south of Kailua.  Hilo had .36” that day, twice that at Hakalau, but only a trace fell on the Konaside beach while the 1,000’ and up got measurable amounts.  Now the total for Hilo this month is 10” and here nearly double that.  When the storms come from the south instead of the usual southeast then Hilo may get more rain than Hakalau.  If we get storms from the west, as some winter storms are, then Kona will get more of the rain.

I expected to see a lot of mushrooms and fungus when we moved here but usually we don’t and I’ve only found one that was large enough to eat and that I was confident enough about.  That was an oyster mushroom.  I’ve not tried to identify the fungus in the attachments but the lizard with one of them is a metallic skink native to Australia.  Sinks are very fast and would normally require a telephoto lens around here.  This day they were unwilling to move from their nearly sunny spots because they needed to warm between showers.  Some lizards are even more sensitive to cold.  Three times I’ve seen dead Jacksons Chameleons on the ground under trees and each time it was on a morning in the 60’s.  Usually Jacksons are not seen because they live in the treetops.

Speaking of invasive lizards, I should mention that the Day Gecko pictured on top of our Subaru (below) had been on at least one trip on the car.  

When I get near him he dashes into a space between the hatch door and the roof to hide.  Once, last year, a different gecko emerged from under the windshield wiper when we were stopped at a traffic light.  It is easy to see how they get spread around and how since we have harnessed the power of fossil fuel the mixing of our planet's species has accelerated.

This gun powder tree stump is showing not the signs of rot but rather a termite colony that had hollowed out the center of a healthy growing tree.

In spite of the bad economy, the wild pig problem seems to be getting worse here again.  Most of the lower elevations are no hunting zones (no shooting within 300 yards of a residence).  All guns must be declared upon entry to the state, must be licensed with annual renewal and must be owned only by people who have passed a firearms safety course and paid a permit fee every year.  It is good that we don’t often hear shooting near our home that we need to worry about but pigs are smart enough to learn about live traps and snares are in-humane because the caught animals maybe suffering a long time.  So the pig problem is likely to always be with us and that includes the destruction of native plants and added erosion.  One neighbor’s front lawn looks like it has been plowed.  I saw three in broad daylight 100’ from the post office Tuesday and three after dark in another place the day before.  Our dog and I visit our perimeter nearly everyday and we’ve not had any in our yard for a year.  After I get some more tree work done I’ll do more fencing.

This week, after having a few days of NO bananas, we found ourselves working on four bunches at once.  Yesterday we bought a second food dryer but until I get a third there will still be times that we need to give some away.  If we had a pig we could feed it a lot of bananas and other fruit and sweet potatoes.  But then if our pig escaped we would be adding to the wild pig problem.  If we caught a wild pig and just fed it awhile before butchering that wouldn’t be an environmental problem and that is precisely what some of my neighbors do.

Aloha!