Monday, December 29, 2008

Off to our next adventure

Our plans have changed a little bit... Once we started researching an adventure to Kauai (the prices are a lot more and after we were socked in with horizontal driving rain for three days here on Maui and Kauai won't be any better during this winter raining season) and once we realized our flight situation (not being able to leave the Hawaiian Islands for two weeks - one more week than we planned) we decided to skip Kauai and head to the summer side of the world.  We are heading to Sydney on Tuesday!  We start our traveling at 12:00 am tonight by flying to San Francisco and then spending a day walking around like zombies until our 10:30 pm flight to Sydney.  We have a car rented for when we arrive at 8:00 am on the 1st so we can head north and recover from jetlag while lying on some Australian beaches.  We're excited for a new chapter in our travel journal and look forward to sharing more about our trip with you.  We're not sure what our computer situation will be on this portion of our journey.  We have been very fortunate to be able to borrow our friends' computers while staying at Hale Akua and now we're back to writing from our little Ipod touch screen!  

Merry Christmas

So Christmas wasn't what I am used to.  There was no snow, no family, no church, but there WAS snorkeling, me telling Matt the Christmas story on a walk while picking strawberry guavas, eating a brunch with our extended Maui family, 80 degree weather and singing Christmas carols as we watched the sunset.  The photos is of Jenstar, Kelsey and me singing Christmas carols after we snorkeled.  The snorkeling was fun once we all figured out which borrowed equipment fit us best.  Some of us swam with turtles - what beautiful creatures - and we all enjoyed the meditative act that breathing underwater is!  I was homesick for familiar traditions around Christmas but I think Matt and I improvised quite well for our first Christmas together as a married duo!
  

Tuesday, December 23, 2008

Our neighbor...

it only took me 8tries to get this photo... worth it... pretty amazing creature... according to enature.com, it is a Silver Argiope. Here is the description: 


Family: Araneidae, Orb Weavers view all from this family

Description Male 1/8-1/4" (4-5 mm), female 1/2-5/8" (12-16 mm). Silvery short hair on upper surface of female's cephalothorax and 1st abdominal segment. Most of abdomen black to brownish yellow with silver spots. Underneath also black to yellow-brown. Legs blackish brown to yellow with 2 pale bands and black hair.

Food Insects.

Web Spiraling orb with zigzag cross strands forming X-shaped mark at center, measuring to 32" (81 cm) across.

Life Cycle Female rests head down at center of orb web. Main spiral of sticky strands begins just beyond reach of outstretched legs. In autumn female attaches sac containing several hundred eggs to a leaf or branch just beyond orb web and dies. Spiderlings soon hatch and disperse, each spinning a new web every night after eating the old web. Spiderlings overwinter and resume spinning in spring. Few females survive to maturity, but many males survive, eventually spinning little orb webs in outlying parts of the webs made by prospective mates. The male twitches the web of female to learn when it is safe to approach. Male is often eaten by female.

Habitat Fields and gardens.

Range Southern Florida to southern California.

Discussion Primarily a spider found in tropical regions of the New World, this species is able to survive frost only when very young and seldom is found in the North.


Well there is a little bit about our neighbor... cool spider, eh?

pretty rocks

These are some rock pools, sans water (the most improtant part of a pool... rats.) So I took a picture because I think it is so cool how the rocks carve away a pool by the power of the swirling water. 

Bamboo-yah!

We got a ride with the property manager here, Shiva up to the bamboo forest that is 3.7 miles away... too much info so far, well that's how I tell the story, sorry. Back to my story... We hiked around in a bee-yoo-tiful bamboo forest. Well after exiting the bamboo forest we got to a series of waterfalls... and when the trail ends, you swim. really... the trail ends and to go to the next waterfall you must swim and climb up a waterfall and then you are at a really, really tall waterfall... no waterproof camera so no pics. then you jump off the waterfall you just climbed and then you swim and then you hike down and around some lesser waterfalls using sketchy ropes, and such and then you are on the road and you hitch hike home... done.

Guac Galore

All the avocados that you could want...no more paying $2 for one, just walk out your door, take your fruit picker, and yank one off the tree!  We often have too much guacamole and not enough chips.

Catching a wave

Matt and me catching a wave or two.  I managed not to get rocked and rolled during this adventure however I did manage to get dropped off the wave and the board was gone from underneath me and I was boogie-ing on the sand with my bare skin.  Matt usually comes out unscathed.  

Gingerville

Today we saw a lot of ginger!  It was estimated that we harvested 500 pounds of really nice, really tasty, really dirty ginger.  The ginger is dug up, the stems are cut off, the root is separated, washed and laid out to dry.  Matt and I were on the washing crew which meant we got really dirty and really wet...just how we like it.

Sunday, December 14, 2008

Our friends and fellow farmer's blogs

Jenstar is our best friend. She is a fellow farmer, my (Matt's) running buddy... and just relly, really cool. Nuf said. Check out her blog for some rad pics of all of us and whats going on here: www.whatsnextjenstar.blogspot.com
Thomas & Rose left Maui. Stinks for them. And even more for us. We miss them alot, and wish they were here. They have some cool pictures on their blog that they took when they were here. Check it out: www.thomasandrose.blogspot.com

Word.
Oh, yeah and this is a picture of the waterfall a 2 minute walk from where we live... we jump in the pools and swim at the top of it, we don't jump off of it.


Thursday, December 11, 2008

So Our good friend Alexis Carter loves really intelligent jokes that can't be told on the computer as well as they can in person... cause they all depend on the inflection of your voice... but sure enough, I was able to use her wonderful joke the other AM at our morning farm meeting... where we exchanged farmer jokes before heading off into the field... don't worry, it didn't include farmers getting lonely and sheep getting... uh, nevermind, there's children around! But my point is, ask Alexis to tell you the joke and then this poster that we saw 24 hours later will crack you up... here is the website that relates to the poster:

www.myspace.com/brownchickenbrowncowstringband

Enjoy!--matt

Tuesday, December 2, 2008

Big waves

When the waves look this big in Paia, Jaws in happening just down the coastline.  Jaws is a 50-70ft wave that people surf.  We have yet to see this but are excited to see this wild phenomenon.

Hale Akula (Volcano)

These are all taken from the crater on Maui.  We went twice - once to see the sunset/full moon rise and another time to hike.  Jenstar and Matt pose as the hip hikers that they are.  A view from above as we are hiking into the crater.  Matt and Jess pose as the moon rises.

Da' View

Ain't 1/2 bad from the hot tub, hammock, and lounge chairs. How you like them apples?!?!

Grace garden: the largest of the gardens!

This is the largest of the gardens. The tomatoes are on the right, Italian and American parsley in the middle, beets and eggplant to the left... Oh and in case you were wondering... that's right it's the tropics and those are some huge (!!!!) Royal palms in the back. Beautiful majestic trees!

3 weeks in Paradise so far...

        Hello friends!  We are finally here to blog and we're sorry that it has taken us awhile to sit down and write - it is harder than we thought to keep up on the blog.  To start, we are in Maui on the northern side of the island, near the town of Haiku in a region called Huelo.  We heard that the winter months on the north side get really huge, really awesome surfing waves so we look forward to seeing this phenomenon. (Look for us at the Triple-Crown surf championships...I'm sure we'll have the skills by the end of our stay.)  Along with the big waves comes the rainy season but it hasn't been as bad as we thought.  It rains on and off throughout the days and nights but we have also had glorious sunny days, and you need a balance of both to make the veggies grow. Besides the rain is a good cool off as the day and the work heats up.

Hale Akua Garden Farm is where we call home for the time being.  There were 13 WWOOFers when we started and that has dwindled down to 7, with some leaving for the next chapter of their life and some coming to start a chapter here. The number will continue to ebb and flow during the 7 weeks that we're here.  All of our food is provided, there is a salt water pool, a couple of hot tubs, a sauna, in season fruits ( right now that is bananas, oranges, avocados, and tangalos), beautiful 9 acre property with views of the ocean and the rest of Maui to explore.  We have to pinch ourselves because it is a little bit of a dream world we're living in at the moment.  We have met some wonderful people here as we expected because we all are here for similar reasons so it is easy to find a kindred spirit in the bunch.  We have our own room but share common spaces like the kitchen and a gathering/yoga room.  Both of us have had to readjust to the communal living but there is growth in a challenge! It's different enough being married and then you add in the whole living in a bigger community with shared space and responsibilities... eek!

We work 6 hours a day doing various tasks.  Our goal is to grow vegetables to be sold at resturants, local grocery stores, and for the neighbors.  The soil is very clumply as there is a lot of volcanic ash in it.  I at first thought the soil was high in clay (as I have seen on the mainland) and the possibility of there being volcanic ash didn't even cross my mind...I should have taken a moment to remember how Maui was formed!  Since the soil is clumpy we have to "fluff and crumble" which is a tedious yet meditative task of breaking up the soil into finer pieces so the little sprouts have a chance to break through and survive.  It has been a learning curve to be able to walk out into the gardens and write a list of what needs to be done.  A skill that I did not feel that comfort with at first but now has become second nature.  We need to "tuck" the plants so they wont get sunburned or so the stalks won't break.  (ex. the green beans grow fast and shoot out of the soil so there isn't a lot of support around them so  when the wind blows they are more likely to break unless we tuck soil around them.)  Other tasks are to make compost piles and tend to them, plant, harvest, weed, thin and transplant sprouts.

       We have been here on the island for two weekends and we have spent that time exploring parts of the island.  The first weekend we rented a car with three other wwoofers and headed east.  Our first stop was the rainbow eucalyptus trees.  The bark peels off different colors. My theory is that when the bark is drying, it changes colors and since the bark is in different stages of drying, it makes a rainbow.  The next stop was the red sand beach where there was an alcove that was protected by rock spires which created a wavey playground.  I, jess, was particularly happy for this stop because if I had to stay in the car much longer I was going to throw up.  The road around the island is called Hana Highway and it gets really bad in certain spots.  Heading east to Hana is one of those spots.  Hana is only 30 miles from us but it took us 2 hours because the roads were so bad.  They were very narrow and gnarly hairpin turns.  I usually don't get car sick but now I have a new found empathy for those who regularly get motion sickness.  There was the Seven Sacred Pools stop that included a four mile hike to the first waterfall that dropped three stories into a little pool and then we followed the rest of the six pools down to the ocean through a bamboo forest.  We camped that night  by the ocean and played on another beach the next day.  I however was reminded that the ocean is strong.  We were body surfing and I was dumped off the wave and tossed around.  I hit the bottom of the ocean floor and got a skinned chin.  I had to take a break from the waves and then Matt helped me get over my fear of the ocean.  I figured that I couldn't be afraid seeing that we are going to be around it for the next six months!  Since bananas are in season, there are a lot of road-side stands that are selling "The Best Banana Bread" so we have to take samples along the way as well as marrinated coconut and macadamea nut nibbles. 

         We had the car for one more weekend and so we headed west with another couple.  The "Highway", one lane in some parts, was particulary bad heading west as well.  This time I was driving so my stomach contents were fine!  We got to play on some swinging bridges on a hike to a good swimming hole with a good jumping in spot and yellow ginger and guava growing the whole way to the swimming hole. We camped at a beach along the highway... (really loud!), and played alot! We went to Maui brewing company and got some local brews... great beer! After that we went to the tourist trap, I mean town of Lahaina... a really ramped up touristy Luau was getting over just as we got into town at a place that does a "Luau show" for folks. We snuck in as people were leaving, and got to eat all the leftover (non-nibbled) desserts on the table, and get some Leis. We got psyched up on pretending to be tourists to the maximum, and ended up stopping at a hotel and walking around looking for free stuff/activities we could get ourselves into... we took notes and the next day took advantage of the pool, their beach, their bathrooms, outdoor showers, and continental breakfast. Woohoo! Rose and Thomas our fellow conspirators, were up for anything, so we went to check out the Olivine pools, which are these salt water pools in the rocks on the edge of the ocean. The pools were awesome... deep enough to jump into from rocks next to them and with fish up to a foot long in them. The ocean crashing on the rocks all around... crazy stuff. Rose is an archeologist and so we went to this place that had petroglyphs... pretty awesome to see artwork that old. We rounded off the weekend with another swim at our new favorite beach: Baldwin. THe waves are perfect for boogie boarding! We body surfed a bit and got tossed around a bit more. The beach is where folks here hang out on the weekends... it's like one big block party in the parking lot and on the beach... complete with beer, horseshoes, people pumping music out of their cars... the whole deal... such a fun scene to witness. Enough for now...matt&jess