June 29,2024
Welcome to Blog #69 and thanks for running in.
It is another blue sky gorgeous green day here in Hana and hard to believe we will soon be saying goodbye to June with the days slowly getting shorter. With our amazing reunion get-together and visitors June has passed so rapidly. I am still reeling from last week working and being in the presence of two coconut geniuses. We now have more information and ideas and the DREAM is getting bigger-really big! Besides other things we will be doing something that has not been done in two hundred years in Hawaii. We will taking the niu, the coconut, the tree of life, to a whole new level-the creation of a catalogue. This will be accomplished with the brains of Dr. Roland Bourdeix and Indrajit Gunasakara. After gathering various types of coconuts around this area they did the lab work. They sawed, sliced, quantified and analyzed the samples. Dr. Roland borrowed by big screen and did photoshop and created page one for the first Hawaiian coconut catalogue.
We have identified a young Hana man who will be mentored by Indrajit and play an important part in this project. If any of you are interested please google them as there is lots of information. There was a Wednesday evening PBS special this week on Dr. Manu Meyer and Indrajit’s Niu Now West Oahu project. And, do I feel lucky to be working with them!
This week Kira and I continued laying weed barrier cloth and shoveling hou chips. She has been a crucial part of getting the hill in shape for this planting and the project. She has been here since February and left on Thursday with the mail man to head back to Chicago where her family lives. She is just twenty and was missing them. Other than her experience here with me and my niunate friends she has had an unforgettable adventure-one that not many visitors ever have. I told her that her life probably would never be the same as my early visit to Kaulaupapa changed me. I look forward to knowing how this will affect her future.
I am anxiously looking forward to James coming July 14 to put up the frame work for my back patio and getting all the construction materials cleared away for raised garden beds with veggies and flowers. Meanwhile, in the last days I started a bed on the hill. It now just needs the plants and seeds put in the ground. This will look different next week.
AJ turned up yesterday to put the ridge piece of the cat patio. He did such a great job!
I harvested a huge bunch of Williams bananas. The tree was so heavy Chris had to cut various sections out. Also took a bunch of my squash to the farmers market for my friend to sell. These along with other varieties are going to be the ground cover and I have to find an outlet other than gifting to friends.
This is about all the news for this week. Wishing a happy and peaceful 4th of July.
This is the shower tree in full bloom gracing the entrance we planted about twenty years ago.
Aloha Nui,
Vicky
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