Vicky Durand’s Adventure Blog #41

Welcome to Blog #41

November 30- December 2, 2023

I am starting this early as Saturday morning is our book club.

This week has been an unusual one! Monday I had high hopes of getting three big piles of cut hau chipped to make way for cutting down seven tulip trees. For weeks the day had been carefully coordinated with Ryan pulling his big chipper here on his tractor from twenty minutes down the road in Kipahulu. When he arrived Bradley’s two workers were here to feed the chipper. Unfortunately after much maneuvering and a few minutes of chipping the operation had to be called off as the hill was too wet and dangerous for heavy equipment.

Monday the concrete slab got poured for the shed which will hose the water pump, heater and filtration system. Now I just have to pick up the shed at Kahalui Lowes and hopefully by the end of the week things will be in place.

On Wednesday and Thursday we weathered our first big Kona storm with lots of rain and road closures. This place is no joke when the big storms come.
In some places Hana had twenty inches of rain in twenty four hours (luckily not here). I have learned to just stay put as driving can be very dangerous with water flowing across the roads. Happily I am not in a super wet area, but the lack of sun plays heck with the solar power. I have an amazing solar man, Cory who monitors my system. He found the batteries were low, texted me to be careful of use, and came over here in the rain to hard wire my gas generator into the system to boost the batteries back up.

We had book group today with eighteen amazing Hana women at Terry and Michael’s beautiful house and nursery. After the discussion of the book Lessons in Chemistry Michael gave us a tour of the garden. I feel so blessed to know these wonderful people.