Susie’s secret garden: Building the entrance pond

The last post was so depressing that I wanted give you some Canary Candy. Here’s a timelapse series of photos on building our front entrance pond. We did this in December of 2007.

You can visit my YouTube channel to see my other vids, and also all the myriad favorites I’ve collected on YouTube on Multiple Chemical Sensitivity, organic gardening, pesticides, meditation, silly humor, etc, etc, etc. I found one last night with two cats talking to each other that is one big huge LOL.

Love you guys. Stay safe out there! xoxo

Beautiful Mauna Kea this week

Here is Mauna Kea blanketed in snow.

Link to beautiufully done video by Tim O. Bryan at Big Island Video News– give you a good idea of my island home, the beauty and the danger.

Officials watching Hawaii’s air quality tonight

Hilo Medical Center’s emergency department gearing up for holiday

I think this report on extra air testing and a prepared hospital is supposed to make people like me with respiratory problems feel safer, but it doesn’t! It just gets me more worried about what the night will bring.

Right now my neighbors are erecting tents for a big party. So my health over the next 12 hours depends solely on the weather: if it rains as forecasted, the firecracker maniacs will be deterred, and if the wind is blowing the smoke away from my house, then I might be okay no matter if it rains or not. Last year was very difficult. It’s not just problems with my breathing and how the toxic smoke makes me feel (sick), but my eyes become so horribly irritated that I can’t read or watch TV or do anything but sit here and endure it.

And no matter what the officials say, staying indoors with air filters does nothing to keep the toxic smoke from entering our homes. In Hawaii our homes are like sieves, they are not sealed in any way, shape or form. What is outside is inside, and inside our bodies.

No one wants to ring in the New Year with a trip to the emergency room.

But Hilo Medical Center’s emergency department staff is taking extra steps to prepare for a possible influx of people with respiratory conditions from smoke caused by fireworks, said Reggie Agliam, nursing supervisor for Hilo Medical Center.

The hospital is also ready for any burns or fireworks-related injuries that might occur, he added.

As far as increased emergency department activity on New Year’s, Agliam said, “last year wasn’t too bad,” but added the hospital would rather be safe than sorry.

The state Department of Health will be monitoring Hawaii’s clean air quality throughout the state during New Year’s Eve and comparing it with national ambient air quality standards. The heavy use of fireworks during the annual holiday celebration can significantly increase the amount of particulates in the air, especially on Oahu, according to the department.

“We are going to be measuring particles in the air. Smoke is made out of particles,” said Lisa Young, environmental health specialist for the Department of Health. The smoke caused by fireworks can aggravate conditions such as asthma, emphysema and chronic bronchitis.

Young said the same monitoring stations that test for vog on the Big Island are being used to record fireworks-related smoke levels. The department will be monitoring particles from smoke in Hilo, Kona, Pahala and Mountain View, Young said.

The department is encouraging the public, especially people with respiratory conditions, as well as young children and the elderly, to be properly informed and prepared for the upcoming New Year’s firework celebration.

According to the department, people who suffer from respiratory conditions may want to take certain precautionary measures during fireworks celebrations, including: staying indoors and closing windows and doors, avoiding people with colds and other lung infections, making sure air conditioners or air purifiers are working properly and filters are changed, avoiding smoking or second-hand smoke and washing hands often and thoroughly.

The department also recommends people make sure they have an adequate supply of medication on hand, as directed by a physician, and that people contact a physician if they need more medication or want to get clear instructions of what to do if health conditions suddenly worsen.

While the suggestions are intended for those with existing conditions, they are also useful for healthy people during high air pollution episodes, including times of high particulates dust, fireworks smoke and volcanic haze, according to the department.

Take care, dear canaries, wherever you are: Stay safe out there!

Link to story by Terri Henderson at The Hawaii Tribune-Herald

Photo by kolix

Morning sun on the entrance pond

The entrance pond was so beautiful this morning that I snapped a photo to share with you. The comets are getting so big!

Winter Solstice, a time to celebrate the Light

Today is Winter Solstice, the first day of winter, and following the longest night of the year, the time to celebrate coming back into the Light.

We like to do a garden project on Winter Solstice, and this year we are building a new veggie garden! We have to fence it in so the chickens don’t make trouble, and this time around we are going to make raised beds to weather any flooding.

So, we started with the fence posts around the perimeter, and Friday we got some eucalyptus planks for the beds (a gift from a friend!). We worked until dark to make the first borders as you can see from the last photo.

Today we’ll level and set the borders, and if we have time, put up the fence. Then we’ll fill up the beds with media from the mulch pile, and start building up the soil inside the beds so they are ready for spring planting.

Come spring we should be harvesting a lot more of our own food!

Be well, dear flock, star warm and safe wherever you are on this Winter Solstice. xoxo

Sunbathing chickens

Chickens are incredibly industrious creatures, and get a lot done in a day. My girls forage, lay eggs (not in the winter), take dust baths, rest, maintain their pecking order, forage some more, gobble up some corn or oats before bed, and get themselves back in the coops before dark. They are sensible and practical in all they do and much better than I at time management.

One of the most endearing things they do is take a daily sun bath. I love watching them lay in the sun, flopped on their sides, wings fanned out. They always do it together, blissing out in the warmth. I find great peace in watching them.

Volcano Garden Arts

Volcano Garden Arts, photos and vid by moi, Susie.

On Sunday, I went south to Volcano Village for the annual art tour held on the weekend after Thanksgiving. Volcano is a beautiful little village, close to the active volcano, that over the years has grown into an incredible artist community. The annual art tour is set up so you can walk or drive to several homes in succession and view the artwork, visit with the artists, and purchase things if you like.

The weather was perfect, but the vog (volcanic emissions) was very bad, so my husband and I did a combination of walking and driving so I could catch by breath. It wasn’t the best environment for a person with Multiple Chemical Sensitivity, but I was willing to risk not feeling well because we have so much fun visiting people’s homes, enjoying the art and looking at the beautiful gardens.

Our favorite stop each year is at artist Ira Ono’s place, Volcano Garden Arts, where he has a large gallery filled with not only his fabulous creations but also many other local artists’ work. Ira (at left) is the most gracious host you could imagine, and it’s been fun watching him grow his business and his gardens over the years. He has a brand new art studio, a cafe, living quarters and B & B, and our favorite part: a beautiful garden filled with eclectic art of Asian to whimsy. Everywhere you look, there is something fun and beautiful to see.

I took almost 100 photos and made this video to share Volcano Art Gardens with you. The mask on the tree trunk at 1:33 is Ira’s work.

Thanks, Leslie, for inspiring me to make videos like this!

Link

A glimpse of my secret garden

The outside world is filled with toxic chemicals that are dangerous to me, but I have created my own private, safe universe in my garden. Come take a look at a few of my favorite things: Lucy, the alpha hen; limes; a mynah at the bird bath; Lydia and her daughter Jolie; an Indonesian ginger flower; Jolie looking for treats; and a water lily with comets. Ahhhhhhh. Where is your safe place?

A shot of fresh air: Sunset, the start of the day

In Hawaiian tradition, the day begins at sunset. Think about that for a minute. At the moment shown here in the photo, as the sun drops below the horizon and the dark seeps into the landscape, this moment is the beginning of the day, not the end.

This view is due north, out over the rooftop of my home. Our village of Ookala sits at the top of a 300-foot ocean cliff, as do most of the hamlets along the Hamakua Coast, giving residents a unique perspective of the water not common throughout the islands.

Putting the hens to bed

My first YouTube video! LOL.

This is my evening routine of putting the hens to bed after they’ve had their afternoon foraging in the garden and their dinner of corn and milo. On this evening, meet the Ever Regal Lydia, the Alpha Hen Lucy (already on the roost), the Dear Sweet Katie and the Always Fashionably Late Jolie. Jolie is always the last and she often waits so long that it’s too dark for her to see well enough to fly up to the top roost. So she often gets a little nudge.

At the risk of sounding like a Crazy Lady, I really love my hens. They are my garden buddies and I love them dearly. There’s nothing more relaxing than watching them perambulate around in the garden, scratching for bugs or sunbathing. When we do yard work, they are always close by, gobbling up all the stray bugs or worms we dig up.

The girls are currently on vacay for the winter, not giving us any eggs, but for most of the year they give us the most delicious eggs you can imagine, and at four a day, every day, we have plenty to give away.

Link

Thanks to my good friend Dan for helping me upload the vid!

Banana bounty

We have tons of banana trees in our yard, so every week or so a bunch like this is ready for harvest. The thing about bananas is you go from zero to 100 in about 24 hours! One day they are all green and the next all yellow. If you don’t get them down off the tree quickly, the birds beat you to the bounty.

On harvest day, I always eat about 10 before we even get them into the house. It’s always fun to share with neighbors; hands from this bunch went out to about five households. The next day, one neighbor brought me banana muffins she’d made! I love that, trading and sharing abundance.

Lucky we live Hawaii!

Relaxing in the garden

Occasionally, I remember to STOP, sit, and enjoy the garden. Usually, my concept of leisure in the garden is an “active leisure,” where puttering around is the relaxation. But this evening I took the time to sit in the rocker on the front porch and chill. It was cloudy and overcast, so the colors aren’t too vibrant, but still, you get the idea.

As you regular visitors to The Canary Report can see, last weekend we ripped out the groundcover that surrounded the pond. It did look beautiful, but it was always galloping out of control and took more maintenance than I was willing to give it. So for now, the cement tiles holding up the terrace are visible, but we will soon remedy that with more well behaved plantings.

Snow on Mauna Kea

Mountaintop briefly dusted in snow for first time this season

I woke to a fresh chill to the air this morning, brought on by the first snow fall on Mauna Kea yesterday. Yes, it snows in Hawaii! Isn’t it beautiful?

This photo is taken by my good friend William Ing, photog at our local paper the Hawaii Tribune-Herald.

Whenever it snows up Mauna Kea, the night wind brings fresh, crisp air down the slope all the way to the sea. Even though it’s already melted, the air is crisp and clean today. You can imagine how much I love that!

Waking up to clean air is such a blessing, made even more special today because it’s my birthday. So not only do I feel grateful for clean air today, but also for making it to 52 years of age!

Yep, it’s a beautiful day.

How to clean chicken coops without chemicals

Yesterday was spent cleaning the chicken coops. We do it twice a year. It involves removing all the feed and water dishes, removing the floor panels, digging out the poop pit, and then scrubbing everything down top to bottom. Its a HUGE job and took all day. That’s me at left, scrubbing down the floor panels (inset of panels for better view; the wire panels are placed on the floor of the coops above the poop pit). It always feels fantastic to have enough energy and stamina to just crank it out non-stop, forgetting completely that I have chronic health problems.

Cleaning things is always a challenge for peeps with Multiple Chemical Sensitivity. We have bad reactions to commercial cleaning products made with synthetic chemicals, and for me, breathing any type of chemical disinfectant, even some natural, is basically breathing poison and causes an immediate “crash.”

But cleaning chicken coops has a protocol: you’re supposed to scrub everything down twice a year with a regular liquid soap to get rid of every single speck of poop and dirt, and then you come behind with a basic “nontoxic” liquid disinfectant made specifically for coops, which may be technically nontoxic for chickens, but would knock me on my ass. The reason why you’re supposed to disinfect everything is to nix any pathogen or toxin that may be present so you don’t lose your flock. Of course I don’t want to lose my flock! They are four of my best friends! (Pictured left to right, Katie, Jolie, Lucy and Lydia.)

So my solution is to keep them very clean and dry all year round. Yes, it takes more effort and care than most people want to give their chickens, but I enjoy it. The wire paneled floor in the coops allows all the poop to fall through into the poop pit away from the girls, and I make sure nothing gets stuck in the wire by checking and cleaning it every day. I don’t let the girls out of the coops into their run on rainy days; this eliminates any chance of having wet poopy messes that promote problems. Their food is kept clean and dry, their water changed and the dishes cleaned every day.

When it comes time to do the twice-a-year cleaning, I only use liquid soap, specifically Palmolive unscented dish soap. It’s what I use on my dishes and it’s the only dish soap I can use without a reaction. I only scrub the floor panels with it though, and am as quick about it as possible! The inside of the coops, because I am so careful to keep things clean throughout the year, just gets scrubbed down with water and a lot of elbow grease.

I love it when I’m all done! All sparkly and comfy cozy for my girls. I love laying down the fresh hay and setting up their nests, all ready for winter when sometimes I can’t let them out for days at a time because of rain.

When you have MCS, you find creative ways to do things that do not involve chemicals. It might take more time, sure, but how do you think our great grandmothers kept their chickens? They didn’t have chemicals but rather used smart animal husbandry practices and took the time to do it right!

A shot of fresh air: My evening chores

The sky was particularly beautiful this evening as I did my chores: feed the chickens and let them back into their coops to sleep, water the garden, feed the fish and top off the pond water, check for ripe fruit and veggies (bananas, tomatoes, ulu), take down the laundry. In the southern sky was a perfect half moon against a darkening sky, and in the north, a cloud out over the ocean, reflecting the setting sun. Wow.

Here are some photos of tonight’s evening respite:

This evening’s walk

This is the park where I walk most evenings. We go at the very end of the day just as it gets dark. It’s a county park about a mile from my home–it’s an old baseball field chock full of history in our community from the days when sugar was king and every plantation community had a baseball team. The oldtimers tell some great stories!

My newest fascination is with the bats that join us in the evening just as it darkens too much to see well. How I wish I could catch them on film! They dart and flutter catching bugs way up high. They are my new favorite animal.

Anyway, here are three snaps: one of the park when we first arrived, then one toward the ocean (the direction we call makai), and one toward the mountain (mauka) as darkness fell. I should go get some photos in the full light one day so you can see how much prettier it is than these show!

Vog is coming my way on Sunday

Trade winds to ebb by Sunday evening; weekend may end amid vog

Great. The wind is going to bring the vog to Hamakua tomorrow. Well, it was a good break while it lasted.

For those of you who haven’t been following the local air drama, our vog situation here on The Big Island got very bad earlier this year when the volcano started spewing especially nasty, toxic chemicals, the worst in historical memory. This did not bode well for my health. Although I cannot prove a causal trigger, at the height of the toxic levels this past spring, my breathing became difficult in general and my multiple chemical sensitivity heightened to an absolutely exquisite level. It got so I couldn’t even go into Hilo for shopping and chores, and I started going north to Waimea.

So this next week may be difficult for me. I can hardly wait!

For those wondering when vog will return to East Hawaii, the smart money is on Sunday.

That’s because the National Weather Service is predicting that the normal northeasterly, or trade wind patterns, will dissipate sometime Sunday afternoon. That would give the vog from Kilauea volcano a path toward the Hilo area with little or no wind resistance.

“It’s not going to be a statewide Kona winds event,” said Derek Wroe, a NWS forecaster in Honolulu. “The winds are going to get light and variable, and when that happens … the vog is not going to just sit around the source around the Volcano area. And it is possible that possibly late Sunday afternoon and Sunday night into early Monday morning, that some of this vog may come down the mountain to Hilo.”

Areas likely to be affected, according to a statement from the state Department of Health, are Volcano village, middle and upper Puna, Hilo, Hamakua and South Kohala. The DOH advises residents and visitors to be prepared and aware of the surrounding air conditions, and how they may react to vog in the air.

“People who have been exposed to vog in the past, we’re asking to take precautions on their own,” said Bill Hanson, a county Civil Defense administrative officer. “If they feel they are being affected by vog or sulfur dioxide, they should limit their exposure by getting indoors, closing their doors, closing their windows. … However, if it gets to a point to where they need to seek medical attention or just get out of the area, that is also advisable.”

Advice includes not smoking and avoiding second-hand smoke, drinking plenty of fluids to avoid dehydration, and being prepared to evacuate, if necessary, including securing homes, businesses and property, preparing an evacuation kit, planning for the care of family pets and livestock, and familiarizing all family members of emergency plans.

[...]

On the Internet:

Hawaii County Civil Defense, http://co.hawaii.hi.us/cd/index.htm;

Hawaii Department of Health, http://hawaii.gov/health; governor’s Web site on vog, http://hawaii.gov/gov/vog;

USGS Hawaiian Volcano Observatory, http://hvo.wr.usgs.gov/

Link

Link to photo: The Volcanic haze settled in over East Hawaii on May 15, 2008, by Perceptions Unlimited on Flickr

Related posts on The Canary Report:

Volcanic gas invading island

Vog and health problems

Living in a haze

There’s a toad in the front pond!

OMG! I just went out for a night time stroll in my garden and look what I found in the front pond! A toad! Bufo marinus to be exact. I tried to import toad pollywogs about a year ago but the comets (goldfish) ate them all. And look! One came to me! Isn’t it beautiful? Nestled in the mosaic plant (btw, for you regular readers, the mosaic plant rosettes close up like this at night and then open fully during the day).

My girlfriend in Hilo has two ponds and she has oodles and oodles of toads, but there aren’t too many here in Ookala, at least not in my neighborhood. The toads need the water to breed. Not sure where it came from, it’s been so dry all summer.

I’m so excited!

A special treat: Hawaiian Hoary Bats!

We took a walk this evening at Ookala Park– a large, flat park about a mile up the road with the ocean on one side and green grassy cow pastures on the other–, and as it got dark, we had a special treat: Two beautiful Hawaiian Hoary Bats circling way up high overhead.

I got so excited because although I’ve lived in Hawai‘i since the age of six, I’ve only seen Hawaiian bats a couple of times, and never here on The Big Island. They were so beautiful (sorry, I didn’t have my camera), their dark bat silhouette against the darkening sky.

I’m so glad I went on the walk– I almost didn’t go because I wasn’t feeling so hot today. But my husband always tells me: When you don’t want to walk is when you need it most. So I said, “Let’s go take a walk!” I fed the chickens and off we went.

You never know when life is going to give you a special treat.

This photo and description are from the Honolulu Zoo website.

Hawaiian Hoary Bat

DISTRIBUTION and HABITAT:

The Hawaiian Hoary Bat (Lasiurus cinereus semotus) is a member of the Family Vespertilionidae (Common or Vesper bats). It is described as a subspecies of the North American Hoary Bat. Hoary means frosted, and refers to the white tips of the body hairs.

Native Hawaiians named the bat Opeapea, referring to the bats half-taro leaf, canoe sail, cross, or radially spoked outline.

Bats are still commonly seen on the islands of Hawaii, Kauai, and Maui, but are rarely seen on Oahu. The bat is considered to be Hawaii’s only native land mammal. There is fossil evidence of at least one other Hawaiian bat species. Several failed attempts at deliberate introduction of non-native bat species have been reported.

BEHAVIOR:

Usually considered solitary, Hawaiian bats are assumed to roost in trees and have only rarely been seen exiting lava tubes, leaving cracks in rock walls, or hanging from man made structures. They are found in both wet and dry areas, and from sea level to 13,000 ft.

Link to more info and photos.

Power in numbers

I haven’t spent as much time as I’d like in the garden this past week, I keep getting pulled away to other tasks: my day job, my community work, dinner guests, other parts of my life. But I always have to find at least a few minutes every morning and every evening to check all the ponds, feed the fish, and same for the chickens, collect eggs, let the hens out of their coops and then put them to bed.

You’d be surprised how sociable the fish are– well of course it’s all about food, but still, they are friendly and curious and interactive, so it’s always fun to pay them a visit. Last week, I took a batch of small comets out of a smaller pond on the front lanai and put them in with the larger fish in the larger outside entrance pond (pictured here), making a total of 20+ comets of all sizes now put in together. With the addition of more fish, something magical happened: they started to school, moving together as one unit–when a few move off in one direction, all the others follow. I’m fascinated by this new development. When they were less in numbers, single fish were off to themselves in both ponds and there was a lot of just hanging around. But now, all together, they band together, interact with what looks like great joy, no one ever left alone or left behind.

Yup, there’s some power and awesome energy in numbers.

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