New place

Two days ago we left our cushy digs up high on the mountain and moved down to our new temporary home, which is somewhat less high up on the mountain. Our last place was cush, for sure. Our host is rad and so are her pets, the cat and ducks. We'd gotten comfortable with them all but move on we must (before over staying our welcome).

Now instead of sharing a house with our host we are in the unrented guest cottage, swapping it for 10 hours or work a week. And somehow, we've moved even further up in the world. The cottage has 2 rooms-living/dining/kitchen and the bedroom. The main room is quite large and is windows on 2 3/4 of the walls. A couch, 2 single bed/couches, tv etc and a decent kitchen. King size bed (too soft though, not so happy-making for my back). The view down mountain is awesome. We're surrounded by fruit trees and the pool is 3 steps from the door. Our first morning here I picked a few tangerine type things and made juice. Grabbed a papaya that is about ripe. Went for a short jog and picked up an avocado from beside the car-crushed young ex-wild pig. After all this activity, I sat in the sun on the back deck and made scribbling entries into my journal. I've not taken any pics of the abobe yet, but did snap a couple of sunset through the papaya trees.

Beach exfoliation

A few days ago The C and I headed out to hang at a beach and do some reading, napping, floating in the ocean and maybe a little journal entering if the energy was to be found. Wanting new views we headed further north than Kua Bay (the only beach we'd been to on this trip) (http://www.hawaiiweb.com/Hawaii/html/beaches/kua_bay.html), a beach I mocked as it passed. A part of me regretted those words as soon as I uttered them.

Hapuna Beach State Park (http://www.hawaiiweb.com/Hawaii/html/beaches/hapuna_beach_state_park.html) is a beach with sands neither The C nor I nor had ever walked. How come? Well, it's popular. Quite popular. Just down the road is a lesser known beach that lacks the seas of humanity. On this day we found the parking lot at Hapuna mostly empty despite the clear skies. Blaming the lack of cars on the early hour (early for us. Not most people. It was after 9am) we congratulated ourselves on our luck, grabbed our towels, locked the car and commented on the wind. Above us palm trees swayed in the wind, an idyllic beach scene.

Within minutes of making the beach a new opinion on the emptyness of the beach surfaced. Maybe the wind was keeping people away? Not the wind so much as the skin-scrubbing sand getting blown in gales across the empty beach. Two pairs of rapidly disappearing footprints that led to a small secluded cove of sand showed our beach savvy. Once there we wrestled to get our blankets on the ground, making liberal use of our books and water bottles.

"What a beautiful beach! Aren't we lucky to have it so empty?"

No response from The C.

Putting sunscreen on couldn't have been harder if we'd first swum in the ocean and then rolled around in the sand. Somehow we covered up and then laid down to relax.

Just down the beach from us an older lady in pink bottoms and a black shirt hunched her way to the water, arm up over her head, jerking around every 10 seconds, at one point dropping to her knees and shielding her head with her arms. When she finally made it into the water she dove under, surfacing every 30 seconds for a gulp of air before ducking back under. I watched and giggled at her show while sand hit my lathered body and clung, forming a moss-like structure. By the time she fumbled her way out of the water a thin layer of sand covered me. The C had rolled over under her blanket asking why we'd not yet left.

The poor woman got not further than 20 feet from the water before getting stuck by the wind and sand. Her husband came to her rescue with a snorkel, mask and umbrella. She slumped to the ground, snorkel pointing skyward and he had to literally drag her up the beach to their chairs. When I tried to roll over and pull back The C's blanket to show her their antics, I found that I couldn't move.

"Hey, The C. Could you dig me out? I can't move."

Instead of helping me out she stood, cascading sand from her towel on top of me. She grabbed my bag and said she'd see me in the car.

There I lay. Stuck, but still giggly. As the sand crept up over my face I wondered at the dedication of the lifeguard who called out advice from his stand. Nuggets like: "Get up," and "go home!"

My savior appeared in the guise of a blue heeler. At some point he'd run away from his owner, a leash dragging behind. The mound of sand that was me caught his attention as something needing marking. A quick fssss and sand pawing. The leash dragged across my mouth and somehow I glommed on hard enough for the now frightened dog to drag me up out of the sand.

After a quick dip in the ocean I fought my way upwind, passing the old lady and her husband forcing themselves to have a good time on their last day in Hawaii. Wind be damned.

Ten miles back down the highway the wind ended and the vog began.

My words didn't taste too bad because Kua Bay was sunny for a good two hours before the thunderstorm rolled in.

I'm still digging out sand.

More random pics

We've found a coffee shop to haunt on a semi-regular basis. The staff would know us if there wasn't someone new behind the counter every day. The little guy below, however, now recognizes us.

I don't have any good pictures of our beach yet, but here's a wave

Thanks to The C's diligence, we found Kaloko-Honokohau National Historic Park (http://www.nps.gov/kaho/index.htm). Unlike too many things we like, it's not far away. A short stroll across exposed lava fields (hot!), past petroglyphs and through a stand of trees brought us to a small harbor that is awesome! Sand is not in extreme abundance, but tide pools are. It might be our new fave spot, one we'll definitely return to for a sunset picnic. On the ocean front we saw a wrecked looking guy hanging out under some trees, a few birds, fish and a couple of sea turtles who appeared to have been stranded in larger tidal pools by the receding tide.

Mostly busted day

Yesterday was the big day: our first real adventure since getting here. The plan read like this:

Head out earlyish and drive north. Stop at the Waimea Coffee Company (http://www.waimeacoffeecompany.com/) for liquid sustenance before pushing on towards Hawi. In Hawi a right turn would take us out to Pololu Valley and a short hike down to a black sand beach. After an appropriate amount of beach time, significant browsing in my fave book shop on the island, Kohala Books. To top off the day, dinner at Sushi Rock (http://www.yelp.com/biz/sushi-rock-hawi) in Hawi before the drive home.

Driving out of Kona we congratulated ourselves on deciding to leave town, as the vog was pretty nasty. Unfortunately, the clouds descended and the rain began to fall as we neared Waimea. Unperturbed, I vowed a clearing of the gray once we'd climbed up and over the mountain north of Waimea. At the peak of the climb the sun did come out! On the backside, we descended back into the gray. The rain was coming down fairly heavy in Hawi but I drove towards Pololu Valley anyway. Since no break was forthcoming we stopped at the bookstore to content ourselves with hours of browsing instead. Out of the car, through the rain, and down the boardwalk under cover to....an art gallery? At first we thought we were in the wrong place, but nope. The book shop had closed!

Exasperation began to set in. I drove out towards the valley thanks to delusions caused by over-caffeination. Finally The C's sense won out and I turned the car around. Our last resort, sushi, was to salvage our day. Or so we'd hoped. Showing up at noon the wait until they opened at 4pm was too long.

We turned around and headed home, this time by way of the coast instead of the upper highway. Hoping against hope, we moved south looking for breaks in the increasingly gray skies. Tension seeped out the cracked windows, hauled away on the falling rain. The speakers we bought for the iPod tried vainly to crank out jolly tunes at a loud enough volume to hit our ears.

And then, there it was. A break in the clouds! Down to the beach we cruised, laying out for a couple of hours in the semi-sun on a not-so-crowded beach! Aahhh, out of the car, resting. On a beach 20 minutes from where we're staying.

At least I got to splash in the waves and get some sun before the rain chased us away.

We'll try again another time.

I fell down again

I thought I slept enough last night, but the way I felt this morning was an affront to that thought. Getting through breakfast was easy enough-The C made it and all I had to do was shovel it into my mouth. Coffee helped, but its effects seemed to have worn off by the time we made it to our work farm for the day (paying gig!). The C went inside to vacuum and I went out to pick up small wrist-sized tree cuttings to place them in piles. Odd note: all people we've worked with seem to think that only I can do the physical work. That The C can't, or should do the easy stuff. Odd, sure, especially since the people giving us work direction have been women. It's a matter of time until The C explodes.

As I stumbled my way over the uneven rocky lava terrain, trees whacking me in the head and every third step sending me sprawling, I realized my tiredness. However, there was nothing to do but press on. So I picked up the sticks. My first load was cumbersome because of course I grabbed too many. Some tried to sneak out of my arms, others tried to grab standing trees or the rocky ground, all intent on making me trip and fall. Despite their best efforts I made it to the wall over which I was to toss them. Adjacent to the chest high wall was an easily scalable rock atop which I found myself. Thinking I'd make the short hop over to the wall and simplify depositing the sticks I leaped without foresight.

The wall onto which I jump was made of lava rock. Lots of lava rocks, ranging from baseball sized to almost torso sized. Nothing is used to hold the wall together except friction and gravity. Just before my foot touched down I thought of this, and wondered how stable it would be. In my mind I was sure all would be fine.

All was not fine. The wall gave immediately. My foot slid forward with the surface rocks while the rocks below caved and rumbled down. Somehow I landed on my back with only a bruised elbow and a few bruises on my shins and knees. One foot was under the rubble but not so badly that I needed to cut off my foot to escape. It was a mess, but it woke me up! I tried rebuilding the wall to cover my blunder, but to have made a great work out of it would have been too time consuming. It now stands, better than it did after I got to it, but not as good as before. Ah well.

The rest of the day went well. Some logs got split, more pruning, some planting and lots of sweating. My pants, which I'd sewn, again (third new split since getting here), held together. Now the other knee is sprouting a hole which will require more needlework over the breakfast table.

Did we get paid? Yupper. In cash and Kona coffee! Love it.

And finally, for the first time since we got here 2 weeks ago, I took a nap! It was glorious!

The cat caught a bird

The day started with a webinar on "Advocacy Strategies for Creating Livable Communities" (second webinar of the week. Really?) and is ending with beer, classical music and introspection. It's been a diverse day.

After my webinar ended my work averse body shambled into the yard in pants that were springing a third leak on the same leg. Before leaving home I grabbed my favorite jeans with a hole in them, up near the crotch. I patched them and that lasted a few days, but a new hole formed on the knee. Again the needle and thread went to work and my shoddy stitches held, but in less than a day another hole formed below the knee hole. Hmm. That hole was greatly enlarged today so we headed into town to find me a new pair. No appropriately sized (and priced) pair came to my attention so tomorrow I return to the field in the same pair. Tonight I'll patch the most recent hole, anticipating the hole beginning to form on the other knee. Much as I love these pants, Corey is going to have to go off on another clothing hunt soon. Tomorrow we work for money again. Thank goodness my work product won't get judged based on my appearance.

After lunch today, as we prepared to slog back out to work more, Candace shouted: "Oh no! Fiona [the cat] caught a bird!"

Fiona played the bird around a low table before proudly marching over with the tiny brown lump in her jaw. Horrified, Candace shouted again: "We have to get the bird from her! No! Bad Fiona!"

Into the bedroom we chased her, shutting the door behind us. . I grabbed my new staff and began prodding her out from under the bed. She was startled into letting the bird go, which flew into a window and dropped to the floor where Fiona grabbed her again. Candace (screaming all the while) grabbed Fiona and I opened the door to the patio. Again the bird flew free, and smacked into the closed half of the door. Fortunately, it moved left, found the opening and shot off into the trees. Poor Fiona cried and cried until we fed her some wet food. Content, she went back to sleep.

Ah, cats. Their ideas for what will impress people is further off than teenage boys trying to impress a girl (or am I giving too much credit to the teens?)

I need to be taking more pictures

Candace clearing the weeds out of the garden

A little stick bug friend. They've been popping out all over the place.