Apologies for the decreased frequency of blogging - no Internet where I am staying and dismal cell service even. Additionally, I have developed a routine that keeps me busy but isn't especially new or particularly interesting. Sunday to Honopu Trail was what seems to be the weekly hike.
Monday-Wednesday-Friday I'm working in the Allerton Garden, doing whatever the gardeners happen to be doing that day. This week we weeded on Monday (not especially fun, but the area needed cleaning up. Tuesday I made arrangements for my stay here into March - the current plan is to return March 8 - and did laundry and such.
This week there is special preparation collecting and preparing materials for a hale construction project at the end of the month. A hale is a Hawaiian building which is being built in the McBryde and also one in the Limahuli garden - I believe there are no hale anywhere on Kauai today. Already they have built a rock foundation and erected a wooden skeleton.
Wednesday we de-barked a bunch of wood they had cut and stripped of branches on Tuesday. The wood is young ironwood pine which grows quite straight and tapes from a good three inch diameter at the base to a tip like a fishing pole. The first few I used a scythe to strip the bark in a rather tedious but easy process. The George showed me how to do the job with a hammer which works surprisingly well. Apparently in old times that's how they did it, striking the bark with a short piece of wood that makes the bark split and separate from the base wood quite cleanly. The stripped wood is taken down the the beach where it will be washed by waves in salt water a few days -- this protects the wood from bug infestation.
Thursday (instead of Friday this week) I helped cut palm leaves for the thatched roof of the hale. Specifically, they use fan palms that are dried naturally and hanging down. They can be tricky to cut down when the tree is tall. They needed well over a thousand of them so we were scouring the garden everywhere to find material that we piled up by the cart-load in front of the nursery. Tomorrow they will tie these into bundles of five in preparation for the construction of the roof later in the month.
A couple of friends were interested in learning to make bread so Friday I am preparing some starter and dough to show them how it's done on Saturday, and will probably bake some as well. Hike Sunday and there goes the week.
These days I make simple breakfast each morning at the house (fruit, yogurt, eggs), pack sandwiches for the garden, and some kind of snack evenings for dinner. Hardly eat out much at all lately.
Next week my wife visits so it will be more of a tourist week but I'm looking forward to it.
Following week is hale construction and then back to the usually weekly pattern I expect.
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