July 4th

Life is different this year. The 4th is nothing like last year. And unlike parts of the mainland where they are heading to the beaches and large family gatherings like nothing is out of the ordinary (with many getting exposed to coronavirus), here in Ka'u the community is tending to be far more mindful. No big town parade. No BBQ set ups around town. No giant community celebration in the central park. No 2 day rodeo. No ball games.

People arriving for the event. 

But all's not dull here. Our community hosted a small safe event for the Fourth of July....an alternative to everyone heading to the beach. Using the farmers market grounds, OKK hosted a free event with music, free hotdogs & shave ice & watermelon. Yes, all free. A drive through was set up for those who wished to do grab & go, and dozens of folks did just that......playing it safe while getting goodies for themselves and the children. Others opted to use the grounds, taking advantage of the widely spaced tents, picnic tables, or bringing their own chairs for maximum spacing. Tent space and picnic tables were restricted to ohanas -- no social mingling among groups. Masks, hand sanitizing, and social distancing outside of ohana groups was enforced.  .....Sounds un-fun? Naw. It wasn't. People seemed to enjoy themselves. Listening to music. Watching hula. Kids playing games. Everyone munching on holiday food. And laughing at the parade.

Hunnay dancing hula for us to enjoy. 

Parade? Uh? Yes, you betcha! There was a decorated lawnmower parade on the grounds! What a hoot! Come on, what's the 4th without a parade? Naalehu kept up the annual tradition ....with a twist. The line of lawnmowers works its way around the grounds, keeping their distance. Folks clapped, took pictures, laughed and smiled a lot. Hey, Naalehu got their parade! 

Lawnmower parade 

The event was small, low key, but safe. The 200-250 who attended had a chance to be part of our town celebration, and the 50 or so who opted for grab & go also go to feel that they participated. The 4th of July is alive and well in my small town ----- just very different this year,

Just having some silly holiday fun. 

OKK Open Air Market

In the past 3 weeks, all my spare time has been devoted to a community service project. You see, I somehow got into the position of being made the market manager for our town's new "farmers market". By the way, since not all the vendors offer farm products, I'm calling this an open air market instead of farmers market, but it's basically the same thing.

The Ace Hardware, who previously allowed the market to set up on their grounds, withdrew the offer. Ace contacted the area's community service non-profit group, O'Ka'u Kakou (OKK for short), who decided to take the market. So the past several weeks has been a mad scramble to assign a manager, design the market, prepare the grounds, do the paperwork, make signs, etc. This turned out to be a lot of time and work. 

The end result made it all worth it. Opening day saw 28 vendors set up, more than the original market. The town's coffee truck was there. A local group provided music. Everyone told me that it felt like a festival and they loved it. 

There were a few glitches that were fixed as the day went on, and the first day revealed a few design flaws. Nothing serious. Just needs a bit of tweaking. 

Wanna try a cup of Ka'u coffee? 

The second day is rapidly approaching. 8 more vendors want to join the fun. I'm looking forward to day 2, and simply hope that it doesn't rain. If you're in the area, you really should stop by. You can enjoy browsing the booths...talking with craftsmen, farmers, artists...sampling the baked goods and lunch fare...getting a drink at the coffee truck. The market will be adding picnic tables, so please take a seat under the shade trees and enjoy the music. Maybe we can convince some more of our talented residents to come out and provide entertainment. Any interested jugglers, mimes, hula dancers, street actors, and others out there?

Numerous flavors of island honey. Free taste testing! 

One of our vegetables ladies. 

Jams made from local Ka'u fruits. 

Fresh baked breads, a local favorite. 

Local grown mushrooms. What a treat! 

What could be better than fresh squeezed orange juice from our own local oranges! 

Fresh Mexican food.

One of the local musicians. They were great! 

Rainbow - I Just Wanted to Share

Driving up to Volcano (it's the name of a village, and yes it's at the top of Kilaeua Volcano), we could see rain up ahead of us. But the sun was shining full tilt behind us. Hubby noticed that a rainbow was starting to appear. A few more miles and the rainbow became one of the top ten rainbows we've ever seen here in Hawaii. 

I just had to stop the truck and get out for a photo........me and about a dozen other tourists. This rainbow was spectacular. A complete double bow and far more evident than the photo I got. And the first bow was super vivid and intense, it just screamed it's colors. With only a cellphone camera, I couldn't get a decent picture. But it was one of those bows that wow you to the max. 

The entire rainbow was a vibrant color. 

A complete double bow! 

Bon Dance

Our local hongwangi put on a bon dance this year. We haven't had one in our town for a number of years, so it was delightful to see it come back. What's a bon dance, you ask? It's a coming together for an obon celebration, a Japanese Buddist event which honors one's ancestors. There are lots of ways to conduct obon activities, and one is through traditional dances. 

Dancers circle a central raised stand. Taiko drummers accompany the music. 

One of the taiko drummer.

I don't know any of the dance moves, but hubby and I enjoyed the music and watching the dancers. 
Many of the people really got into the celebration, creating and wearing headbands, carrying lanterns, and joining the dancers. Not all the dancing was traditional. Modern type Bon dances, and even Zumba, were on the roster. Such fun! Most of the dances were accompanied by taiko drummers, a real show unto themselves. 

People had the opportunity to create their own headbands. 

Happy and ready to join the celebration. 

Before the event wound down, there was a parade of lanterns. People participated to honor an ancestor, or as a remembrance to a special event or person, as a thank you or blessing, or simply as a sharing in spirit of this event. 

This year's bon dance was well attended. It's a local's event, but tourists would be welcome. It's a shame there weren't more tourists there. They missed out being part of the Hawaiian Japanese culture. So if you ever come to Hawaii (or Japan) during August, look for a bon dance to attend. It's worth the experience. 

4th of July

Took a break from the home hubbub to enjoy the holiday. Parade. Fireworks. Rodeo. And food----lots, actually too much.

My small town's not shabby....it can lead our parade with a cool banner. Hey, I love my little town, have you noticed? 

Naalehu - pa'u riders representing the island of Oahu. There's one of my friends on the right! 

Naalehu parade pa'u riders representing the island of Kauai. 

Naalehu parade flag bearer. 

Our parade this year was traditional......traditional by our standards. The town tow truck, the fire engine, the forest fire truck, the local kids' clubs, the civic club, the local church group, motorcycles, muscle cars, politicians, seniors' organization, Ka'u coffee queen & her court, and the pa'u riders representing each populated island. 

Maui festival...stilt walkers, game shows, food.......and ice cream! 

Boom! Fireworks show over Lahaina bay. Actually a good show worth seeing.  

Yes, we hopped over to Maui for the fireworks. One day was devoted to touring farms to acquire more local farming know-how and buying new taro varieties for our own farm. This trip had been scheduled for the weekend of the 20th, but we were able to move it up to the 4th in order to squeeze in some much appreciated R&R.  

Aikane Farm Tour

As part of the Ka'u Coffee festival, there was another farm tour. This time it was Aikane farm & ranch. I've never been to this farm although I've passed it dozens of times, so of course I signed up for it.

Aikane hosts both beef cattle and coffee. Not the biggest cattle ranch or coffee farm around, it is a very pretty place. And it probably has the friendliest beef cows I've seen on this island. Plus it grows a unique coffee. 

Let's explore that coffee. People around here refer to it as "Old Hawaiian". This particular coffee was brought Hawaii from Rio de Janeiro, Brazil back in the 1800s. Some of the descendent trees were planted in Ka'u. So it's not one of the common varieties the other coffee growers work with. If it has a varietal name, no one here knows it. It was simply planted as "coffee". Plain and simple.

The original planting by J.C. Searle are a few miles down the road from the present day Aikane Farm & Ranch. The family (his great granddaughter) retrieved coffee trees from the original farm and replanted them. And over the years the family has expanded the coffee plantings and now have a nice estate coffee farm going.

Looking down on one of the Aikane coffee orchards. 

Aikane offers farm tours, so if you happen to be visiting Big Island it might be worth your while to visit them. Just check out their website and give them a call before arriving.

Back to my day........ It was most enjoyable. The day was like an all day party. Live music. Hula. Horses and calves to pet. A hayride through one of the cow pastures where we mobbed by friendly cattle begging for handouts.

Heading out on the hayride. Yup, our seats are hay bales, which the cattle tried to eat right out from under us when the haycubes ran out. 

Armed with buckets of haycubes, we all delighted in feeding the eager giant beasts as Merle called out each cow by name. I was totally surprised to see a bull among them, a bull so gentle that he patiently begged for his haycubes alongside his girls.

A dozen cows begged for haycubes and we gladly fed them. 

Ranch hands out on a brief demo of ranch life by rounding up a small herd, bringing them down to a corral, separating out 4 calves to work on. These calves were due for ear tagging, vaccination, castration, and branding. For just about everyone in the watching crowd, this was a first. Very few people nowadays know what goes in when raising livestock, so this demo was both shocking and informative for most.

The herd being collected for the demo. 

A local band, the best I've heard to date, entertained the crowd from 10 to 4. And Sammy Fo provided lovely hula.

The lovely and famous Sammy Fo. 

After the morning activities, Merle & Phil hosted a fantastic BBQ for everyone. There was far more on the tables than the large crowd could consume, and it was really tasty. BBQ ribs, pork belly, teri-sliced beef, chicken something, and more. Plenty of Portuguese rice, plain rice, mashed sweet potatoes, green mixed salad, Hawaiian style mac salad, and about 15 more dishes I was far too full to sample. And the table still went on, displaying multiple desserts that yours truly had no room for, since by then I was stuffed to my gills. Lots of choices of beverage, with famous Aikane coffee included.

Buffet table. 

This year was my first year attending the Aikane tour, but I surely won't be my last. I'll certainly be back for another visit.

Merle, our wonderful hostess and Aikane owner. 

Ka'u Valley Farm Tour

Went on a great farm tour yesterday -- Ka'u Valley Farm. Right in my own neck of the woods, how convenient. The tour was part of our local coffee festival. Normally the farm isn't open for tours. But seeing that the tour was in this year's roster of events, I signed up for it. Good decision on my part, I must say. 

Ka'u Valley Farm was originally part of the Hutchinson Sugar plantation system. But the sugar business died out here many years ago (in the 1990s), and since then the land has been used as cattle pasture. 3-4 years ago a new owner bought the whole thing (several thousand acres) and is now creating a diversified farm. So far the plan looks to be a good one for this area. 

Driving all over the place in an open farm utility vehicle was fun all by itself. Up hills, down gullys, through mud, over rocky dirt farm tracks, through pastures, past cows......wow, fun! The scenery was grand....vast open grassy pastures, ohia forest, coastline view, the ocean stretching all the way along the background. At the top of the farm one could see all the way from Volcanoes National Park and sunrise point to your left, down 85 miles of coast to South Point, then off in the distance to the sunset point to your right. What a panama. You felt you were on top of the world. Amazingly beautiful. 

Then there's the farm stuff. At the top where the farm has native forest, sits a large collection of  beehives to harvest nectar from the tract of yellow ohia trees. This is probably the only honey in the world that is predominantly yellow lehua honey. 

One of two bee colonies on the farm. 

Coming down in elevation, the land is being farmed with sweet potatoes for now. For now meaning that after two years the sweets will be moved to other areas and coffee and tea planted in its place. About 100 acres at a time will be in sweet potatoes. 

Sweet potato field. What a beautiful place to be hoeing sweets! 

Irrigation for the farm is not needed for some of the crops, but there is water available via the old sugar plantation tunnel system. 3 tunnels have been located and restored. All are located on the farm, private land, which makes them immensely valuable. Private water around here is worth gold! The farm is building a 4 million gallon capacity reservoir to store the water, making it available for the crops lower down the land. Crops will include coffee, tea, a variety of fruit and food trees, and vegetables. 

A view looking down on the nursery and some coffee & tea fields. 

After running all over the farm, we had a pleasant lunch break in open air pavilions with expansive views, while this year's Ka'u Coffee Queen entertained us with ukulele and singing. It was a nice touch. Another nice touch was the we got to plant our own coffee tree. Made us feel like we a part of this farming adventure. 

My own namesake, a coffee tree. 

Everyone planting their trees. 

Next stop -- greenhouses. This is where they grow the young coffee and tea trees, plus an assortment of ornamentals for landscaping the farm. The aim is to not just make the farm functional, but also pleasing to the eye. One greenhouse is used for a hydroponic lettuce.

Hydroponic lettuce set up. 

The farm has already been selling lettuce and other assorted produce for months now. The nursery area is also the site for assorted produce production. I saw bananas, eggplant, papaya, lettuce, radish, peanut, sweet potato, tomatoes, carrots, cabbage, and cauliflower. We also got a demonstration of grafting procedures using hibiscus plants. The farm plans to conduct future grafting classes, and I intend to come back for them. 

Grafting demo

Future plans call for a visitor center, hoping to open by the end of the year. And of course expansion of fields of coffee, tea, and fruit trees. 

Vibrant Sunrise

Making coffee in the kitchen, I noticed that the light coming in through the windows was making everything weirdly colored. It almost had that look of pending hail that I saw while back in New Jersey. Can't be hail here, so what's going on?

I stepped outdoors to find the sky blazing with color. Wow!

Streaks of pink, orange, gold, yellow, and greenish yellow painted the clouds of the eastern and southeast sky, contrasting with the darker purplish blue sky behind. Our trees block most of the view, but the silhouette actually looked artistic.

What a grand way to start the day.   

Naalehu Holiday Parade

Night time holiday parade in town. Wow, how crazy, no? But boy, it was fun! 

Lots of families came out and lined the street. And to my surprise and delight, there were plenty of parade participants. 

And while the parade route was short, it was just long enough for everybody to get a front row seat. Ending up in our community park, everybody headed over there for free chili & rice  while plenty of children hit the playground. It was a special time for the children. I'm sure that playing in the playground at night plus seeing Santa Claus will be a fond memory for a long time. 

Plus the lite up trucks, tractors, fire engines, and ATVs were enough to excite even the child living inside the adults' hearts. 

Ya know, things like this make my small town something special. 

Veteran's Day

Our little town just had one super Veteran's Day celebration. Who'd believe it that a town so tiny could do such a grand thing! Wow. Ya know, while I thoroughly enjoyed our celebration, it couldn't help but feel that it was a dang shame that every other town in American couldn't be bothered to put on a celebration of its own. If little ol' Naalehu could do it, others surely could have had, too. 

A flag and a painted sheet tied up on the parks chain link fence.....inexpensive but effective. 

Information booths on one side of the ballpark.......nothing for sale, all the displays and info is free. Photos of many of the town's veterans. Stories about the vets. Free info phamphets and materials pertinent to our town and residents. 

Now get this.....free food! Yup. A free plate lunch, free drinks, free shave ice. It just can't get better than this. I'm so proud of my town and the group that put on this celebration for honoring our veterans! It was OKK - O Ka'u Kakou. Go look them up on the web. It's a great group. Every town should have one. Groups like this should be supported. 

While I was busy in the morning, I stopped in right at lunchtime and enjoyed the entertainment for the rest of the day. Did I mention free entertainment? Free! And not your teenage garage band and backyard wannabe musicians. No way. The Puna Taiko drummers preformed. The bands Shootz and Bottle of Blue. Mark Yamanaka (9 time Na Hoku Hanohano winner!) And 7 year old Rhyan Faith Anoi Demello gave a fantastic hula performance. This little girl is amazing. She recently won the singles completion at the E Malama Mau I Ka Hula Festival in Hilo. If you haven't seen her dance, you really should go look up the YouTube video of her winning the completion. It's amazing. And she's only 7 years old! 

I would have willing paid to attend this celebration, but it was all free. 

All veterans were honored regardless of where they lived. I saw plenty of tourists proudly wearing their veteran's tag. It was good to see something being done to honor those who sacrificed so much while serving their country. 

Thank you, OKK. If the group does this again, I'd like to offer to participate. It felt good to just be able to attend. Next year I'd like to offer rides for people who can't get there otherwise. I'd like to help in other ways.