Tuesday, November 9, 2010

Absolutely stunningly beautiful day....

 My classroom has two skinny opaque windows, so I didn't get the full impact until I went out to pick up one of my kids from school.  The first thing that made the day beautiful was receiving a call from my oldest daughter that she was at her alma mater, and I could pick her up when I picked up the other two kids after sports.  I can work on my report cards instead of driving hither and yon!

Of course, I stopped here to talk about it, instead of getting right down to work.  I love reading student work (most of the time), but am not wild about report cards.  So final, and for some of the kids, not such a happy day.

The light has that hard-edged bright quality that means the first day of Kona winds.  If they continue, we'll get terrible vog (volcanic smoke and ash) which will cause our plants to turn brown and dead, but the first day or two of these winds means dry weather and bright blue skies.  I just know, even up by my house it has been dry, which is good news for the animals.  At this time of the year, it isn't likely for the Kona winds to stay - that will come later in the year, or early in January.  Then we have to worry about catchment tanks running low.

Even if I am not much of a gardener with everything either washing away in the rain (except collards and taro) or burning up in the vog, I do know that when it rains I store water, and when it is sunny, my photovoltaics are contributing mightily and the water will be super hot. We compost or recycle everything we can, and we really need to go to the rubbish station once every few months, so I know I am not contributing to limited landfill space on this island.  We can proud of at least that, even if producing food for our family is going a little slower than I wished.

I once told my father-in-law, who grew up on the sugar plantation (when we still had them), that I wanted to produce 60% of our food.  He just looked at me with that twinkle he used to get when someone younger amused him mightily and said, "Good luck!"  He was a good man.  When he was 70 years old, he was out there pounding nails to build our cabin, somedays all alone, when my husband and his brother were working.  I would sit there keeping infants and toddlers out of his way, fixing him sandwiches, and marveling at him.  I miss him.

2 comments:

Chai Chai said...

Figuring out what will grow and what you can actually use is half the battle, I know we will never be able to produce anywhere near the 60% goal you set for yourself.

I saw your post on Mocha, we love her dearly. I was surprised to see anyone digging back that far into my blog. Hope you like it, thanks for commenting.

NancyDe said...

I was curious about the ocicat! I was trying to describe her to my daughter; she was intrigued. She has always been a cat lover. I keep telling her cat Nani (which means "beautiful" in Hawaiian and "what" in Japanese) is defective. Not cuddly or amusing at all....and she tends to catch the B-52 type cockroaches and LET THEM GO in my house.