Inspiration and Expiration

Sunday was quite the day as it tends to be but alas I’m loosing connection (kindof) with techmology and I forgot to charge my phone to take pictures of all the cool and interesting things that I saw. So, to satisfy your booboo craving of the day, here he is in all his glory, snoring away. You might think that the snoring is caused by his vertical sleeping position, but really, I just turned the picture because it looked better this way. Still unclear as if he actually snores and what the cause might be. Notice my coconut ashtray…

I decided to go to the big farmers market that they have on Sundays near Pahoa called Mu’ku’u market and so after walking the 1.5 miles to the usual pick up point and after getting a ride to Pahoa with a guy who thought global warming was a conspiracy, I decided to walk the rest of the way the market. I knew it was on the same road and I knew it was kind of far but after encountering someone who wouldn’t believe in the facts if I had showed him the figures, I decided the walk would allow me to think a lot about the world and all it’s inhabitants and all the different opinions about the earth and other humans. Turns out it was 3.5 miles away. It was alright though, because it was a nice warm day with some clouds and I worked up an appetite for the delicious and eclectic food that they have at the market. I got a delicious vegan sandwich, because it was cheap and had loads of organic veggies and some kimchee with shrimp. I ran into a nice guy that I met a few weeks who lives near the beach and he offered me a ride there. So that was nice not to have to hitch.

Anyway, Sunday. Beach Day. Social Hour(s).

Since I have been going to the beach now every Sunday since I got here, the regulars are starting to recognize me and I’m making friends with people and then get to hang out with them the next week. My whole day is spent walking around from one group to another and hanging out with people I’ve already met and meeting new ones. And of course I go swimming, but also dance to the drum circle music or hula hoop with this incredibly beautiful woman who wears feathers in her hair, or swing on a tree swing, or play with children and puppies or climb stuff. Sunday is always such a fun day but I’m always super exhausted walking up the driveway, in the dark, later then I stay up most nights.

This past Sunday, this girl Allison and I climbed the sheer rock wall at the back of the beach using roots from a tree growing at the top near the road. It was so exhilarating and something that I have wanted to do since I saw someone do it the first day I was there.

The ocean did bang me up pretty good though. I got tossed in this HUGE wave and smacked my face on the bottom and then a rock hit my head too. Ouch. My jaw hurts and I have a little tender bump on the top of my head and I had a nasty headache, but I’m pretty much okay. I was pretty lucky though because a nice woman named Jenny offered to rebalance my energies (she does reiki and healing massage) and her hands were incredible, she really helped and I think I would be in more pain today had she not done what she did. Unclear.

Then, a nice guy named Froggy, who plays in the drum circle offered to give me a ride and his friend Joshua jumped in to. The three of us ended up hanging out for a couple of hours and had some really good conversation. We also laughed a lot too, which is always a lot of fun and especially with people you’re just meeting.

This post isn’t really going where I thought it was going to go and I have a lot more to say about everything, but I feel like if I make it too long, you won’t read it. Especially since I’m not really stating anything extremely creative or profound. That’s where the inspiration part comes in. Since starting this blog, I’ve gotten into reading other peoples blogs and some people write so eloquently their personal social commentaries, or worldy observations, or comical retorts to pop culture, or they have extremely creative photographs and blog formatting. Ugh. I am hoping that this will help to improve my writing and that one day, my stories will have you on the edge of your seat in suspense. Just you wait.

Perhaps if I had some freakin’ feedback. C’mon, how come most of my comments are from my mom? Not that I don’t love an appreciate her more than anything, but throw me a proverbial bone here.

Do most cats snore?

Because, I’m pretty sure mine does. Now, just to preface, we had a cat named Cato when I was younger, but since I tend to be rambunctious and that tendency was accentuated as a child, Cato endured a lot of excited harassment. Well, I learned my lesson after a few nasty scratches to the face, but since have not really been a “cat person”. I haven’t ever sought them out at peoples houses and I generally think that why would you have a cat when you could have a dog. However, as of recently, I would estimate around middle 2009, I have started to actually enjoy the company of felines and after living here and being adopted by booboo, I’m really starting to cross the threshold into catdom. For instance, yesterday, I went on a cat tour and spent 10 or 20 minutes with a bunch of different cats scratching them and hanging out. This is too much for me and I fear the resultant need for feline companionship.

I tried to catch booboo snoring…

There are so many cats here that I could take a picture of each one and have soooo many blog posts. But, alas, I think if this became a cat blog, less of you would read. So, I’ll try and resist this urge.

Okay, actually, this is Snuffy and he is extremely cute. I like to call him Shabby though- it  just fits better, I think.

Work this week was pretty good, a couple of the grafts that I tried actually worked! The big project I worked on was constructing and installing irrigation lines for some new troughs that we also prepped the soil for and planted keikis in at the end of the week. This is the first time in about 3 years that all three bays of the greenhouse have had plants in them and is an accomplishment and a step towards making this a profitable business. Speaking of which, Becky told me that when the middle bay starts producing in a couple weeks, she’s going to start giving me a stipend. Michael told me that she has never offered that to a WWOOFer before. I know that I wasn’t too worried, but it’s really nice that she likes me and I’m glad because her life has been really stressful lately and I want to help make it easier. 

Here are the newly planted keikis in the foreground (notice the excellent craftsmanship on the black irrigation tubing), the teenaged tomatoes in bay 2 in the middle ground and then way in the back, you can sort of see the oldest crop, which is on it’s final legs of production. That crop was producing 50 lbs a day at it’s prime with an average of about 20lbs a day for about a month. Pretty cool.

Alright, well it’s Sunday, which means it’s beach day. But first, I think I’m going to go to this thing called E-dance. It’s club dancing to techno and house music and the like at 10:30am to get your endorphins up every Sunday morning. I have some friends who’ll be there, so I think I’m going to attempt to meet them.

Although I miss the changing leaves and fall and layering, I so love the fact that it’s the middle of October and I can still go to the beach.

Sissy Hankshaw’s thumbs.

I have really been getting used to living here, which is awesome, but it means that I’m also getting used to all the crazy/funny/strange things that happen to me day to day but I forget that they might be significant enough for you to want to know.

I’ve been reading this great book,Even Cowgirls get the Blues by Tom Robbins and it is really resonating with me. Not only is there a lot of intelligent liberal hippy philosophy but the main character has enlarged thumbs that were made for hitchhiking. She, therefore, makes that her life’s passion and it has really been inspiring for my hitch hiking adventures.I think that it’s one of my favorite things about living here. I usually have to walk about 1.5 miles down the driveway and to an intersection before I can get a ride, but the other day I walked about 3 miles before I got a ride and on Monday for some reason my hitching was off and I was having terrible luck getting a ride and ended walking about 4 miles. Anyway, my new favorite method of travel is in the back of someone's pickup looking at the coast and the trees and everything with a 360 degree perspective. It’s really incredible. This is the intersection in Pohoiki (by the hot ponds) that I stood at for awhile the other day waiting for a ride…

This was on Monday I think, when I went into town and hung out with some of my new friends, Richie- a cute gay boy from Southern California and Sam- the cutest boy from London who keeps a totally raw diet and is extremely interesting. Then, the three of us caught a ride ( we put the good karma out there by singing to the cars…) to the tide pools, which are a little bit farther north from the hot ponds. You have to go through this development to get to the tide pools, which is kind of weird, but they were incredible and the snorkeling there was a million times better then at the hot ponds. There are so many cool fish and corals growing on the bottom and the water was so clear. It was beautiful and Sam shared fresh macadamia nuts with us, that we had to crack open with a rock.  

Hanging out with them has been the highlight of my week so far. After the tide pools, while we were waiting to get a ride we got coconuts out of a tree and had a good time cracking them open. I really really love living in an environment that is conducive to eating from the side of the road. Then we went to the ponds so that I could do my laps and the plan was to meet up with Michael so he could give me a ride back to the farm, but we got there after he left so that’s when I had to hitch and had such bad luck. Anyway, I saw this on my way back to the farm and it’s pretty much the only piece of graffiti that I’ve seen on the island. I like it.

 

I’ve pretty much lost most concept of time or dates. It’s interesting and sort of unnecessary, but I do always make it to the beach on Sundays. Sometimes Saturdays too, but this past week I got there really early and it was raining. So, I went to the back of the beach where the cliffs begin to stay dry. Well these rocks just scream “Climb Me!” and so I did. Here, I’m sitting on a ledge about 20 ft up. The view of the ocean was incredible and I really enjoyed it up there and stayed for a long time. The beach on Sundays is so much fun, people are just everywhere smoking and drinking and hanging out with each other. I meet new people every week and it’s really nice to come back and see familiar faces. My favorite beach guy is OCN (unclear how to spell his name, it’s Celtic but it sounds like the letters O-C-N) who is from Poland and has long silver hair. He has the kindest eyes and we always have a good time talking together.

These two pictures are from last Saturday on the cliffs by the beach. This guy Skyler and I hung out all day and ended up here near the beach. I really can’t get over how incredible it is to live this close to the coast and to be so near to water. I’m so close in fact that at night I can hear the waves crashing against the coast about 1 mile away. Cool.

You can kind of see in the picture above the small steps that you have to climb to get up from this spot we were hanging out in. Cool. But totally dangerous, it’s kind of crazy how vulnerable one really in by being in or near the water. Two days ago, when we went to the store at Kaimu Bay ( near Kalapana, where the cafe is),there were all these emergency vehicles around including a boat. Apparently, a local surfer got swept out to see. I read in the paper today that they still haven’t found the body. Pretty sad, but one thing I’ve realized is that the ocean is not very forgiving here and you have to be smart about getting into the water. Note taken.

Alright, that seems good for now. I’ll try and be more frequent and less long.

Bear Flag

Okay, something exciting happened this morning. Becky was taking a walk around the property with this guy Carl who sells her shit from Bali and stayed over last night (he brought all kinds of dessert and ice cream, which is such a treat). Anyway, she found a dozen pot plants not 20 ft off one of the trails and she was like WTF? and obviously ripped them out. They weren't hers and she could get in some deep shit for that (Green Harvest flies around on the regular) so she's pissed. We think that we know who it was, a guy named Arthur who was working here and lives up there and he's a Rastafarian of the sort of evangelical type, which ultimately got him fired. It's a long story, but still, the audacity of someone to grow on someone else's property.

The ponds have been real cold the last few days. It's been amazingly refreshing and I am totally getting into swimming everyday. I almost don't want to get a job so I can keep this routine... (ugh. I need a job...) Back to the ponds, because even writing about them relaxes me, it's been high tide in the early afternoons when we get there ( I really like knowing the tides and watching them, I check them in the paper everyday) and so the water is really high and pretty cold. The other day, when I jumped in I was the only person in the ponds for like 5 minutes. Oh, the little joys...

As a preventative measure, Becky decided to set up a tent in the greenhouse and make a mannequin wearing an afro. (I'll take a picture of this set up tomorrow...) But, when she was making the get up this morning, we put the wig on Mavis..

Alright, it's almost time for me to go to bed. I've got a little bit of reading to do in a really good book and then it's time to snuggle up in my sleeping bag with my little boo boo (omg, I'm becoming a cat person... I'm not sure if I'm happy about this- no, you're right, I am.) Here he is for scale... 

 Yep, definitely becoming a cat person. Here's one of Darcy eating an avocado. I couldn't get over it so I had to take a picture.

Tomorrow at work I'm going to rig up some irrigation lines with hosing a spaghetti wire (small plastic tubing I cut off a big roll today that will be attached to emitters and spray water at the base of every 2 plants). Then, I think that Becky and I are going to do some grafting. We're going to mix and match root stalks and plant stalks of a few different varieties that we planted a few weeks ago. It's going to be a pretty interesting experiment. I'm also about to watch this video on grafting tomato plants, if you're really really interested and trying to put something off...

Oh, and this is Bear Flag, in case you were wondering. Delicious, plus it's marketing totally worked on me.

 Umm, a different cat just vommitted next me... Cats = -1.

Getting to know you....

Ugh, I am seriously lacking in the regular posting department. I think I figured out why though; I'm finally getting familiar with the farm and with work and with living in this area. It's nice to know some of the roads around here and the names of the towns and it's good to have people to hang out with at the beach.

Things are going well, nothing too crazy has been happening, but perhaps I'm just getting used to some of the more ridiculous aspects of working on a farm and living in a small community. I really like it though. I'm pretty glad that I'm not going to bars all the time and doing stuff like that. I love being outside all the time and now that it's getting cold on the east coast, I am seriously reveling in these hi-80's days.

It's been raining here the last few days! The catchments are slowly filling up and hopefully this is the beginning of the rainy season... It's been pretty glorious hearing the rain on my tin roof and boo boo really appreciates having a roof to sleep under. Boo still hasn't gotten over the biting thing yet but I think he's just persnickety about how he likes to be touched. Understandable.

I've been reading a lot of fiction, which has been good and entertaining seeing as we didn't have electricity for a few days. I'm reading Even Cowgirls Get The Blues by Tom Robbins. Obviously, Michael gave it to me and apparently it's a hippy stable book. Pretty entertaining so far and I'd really like to meet someone like Bonanza Jellybean.

Umm, what else? The fridge broke, so we had to get a new smaller one. The fridge is powered by the generator but only gets charged for 5 or 6 hours a day making things go bad real fast. I also learned that salt and the tropics don't get along.

Alright, alright, I'll do something here soon that's exciting and I'll post pictures or tell you about it or something.