Vicky Durand’s Adventure Blog #85

December 14,  2024

Welcome to Blog #85

It has been an amazing two weeks with a lot of excitement and more than I dreamed possible accomplished. For Thanksgiving I cooked a turkey in my new red Hamilton Beach oven and it was delicious. We had a lovely dinner with all the regulars. Sara, my step daughter runs the Da Kine shop is Haiku and since Martha Stewart own part of the corporation Sara sent her a picture of our table and she put it on her blog.

The day after James arrived with chain saws, machetes and ready for bear. Edwin, Silipe and Jim had worked the day before clearing the hay around the tulip tress so they could get in there to make the cuts. One by one we watched 14 invasive tulip trees hit the ground with a crashing sound. The view of the mountains has greatly improved plus just getting such pesky trees down is super big. I am not sure who ever introduced those trees, but it was a big mistake. Sara and I sat and watched while they took down fourteen tulips. The trees in the middle pic were covered with hau which they cleared for cutting on Thanksgiving.

Finally after many months of waiting news to start work on the grant funds arrived on Tuesday so we can proceed with the excavator to chip the trees and do five days of Chase working with his machine on the hau. Hopefully this will happen soon and there will be pictures to follow….

Besides taking down the trees I got lots of little jobs accomplished-all making the place look better. They carried some heavy cedar beams to hold the potatoes back from my new herb garden.

We spent part of a day looking for rare coconuts to add to our gene bank and found some special varieties. Edwin happily found a coconut known for it’s texture and taste that he remembered from growing up on his south sea island.

One morning around coffee we all started brain Storming and sketching possible logos for Koali Niu. When the job is finalized I will be having some T shirts made up.

Right after the gang left on Sunday afternoon’s plane Connie my Wave Woman book editor and friend arrive for three days. We discussed a possible article about land here in Hana. Maybe I will just be writing about it here on my blog as I plan on being pretty busy with several projects below.

We are also in process of getting our 501 C3. We have our small board formed along with bylaws so that will all be happening very soon.

I finally finished my article with Robin Rohr for Mid Week’s Chasing the Light weekly article. It should appear first of the year. After it is published I will share it in my blog.

This week I had a zoom meeting with a documentary filmmaker about doing a film on Wave Woman. He just finished the Shape of Things about the brilliant surf board shaper Dick Brewer. My friend Jericho who started the women’s professional organization with Real Sunn and won three world titles is coming over and we are going to start work in January. I am really looking forward to this project….

It is now December 13, and I am still working on this. Blog. I wet to Oahu last weekend and never could never settle long enough to get this out. Although I never want to leave when the time comes It was a very busy and fun three days w ith lovely and special evenings included a Sunday night party with the Holo holo traveling group. Monday night my new friend Lani girl took me to one of my favorite places the Halekulani Hotel for sunset and Hawaiian music. Lani is a famous hula teacher and was called to dance by musician Doug Tolentino. It was a night to remember!