Bok Choy Boy Busted!

As you might guess, growing some vegetables in a rain forest can be a challenge; it is definitely NOT like growing things on the main land.  We are learning about gardening in Puna, where our average yearly rainfall is 120-140 inches per year

We have numerous books and are experimenting with what we can grow out in the sun/rain, and inside in our shade house.  Recently we discovered that some of our bok choy had been chomped off at the stems!  There are bugs and slugs that will do this overnight.

Imagine our surprise, however, when we found out that Dexter Dinkums Wigglesworth III was the culprit!  As many of our friends (and ohana guests) have discovered, Dexter is an omnivore.  He enjoys tidbits of papaya and banana even, pieces of apple as well as ends of the green beans, carrots, and especially the bottom white stem part of leafy greens.

Bok Choy Boy BUSTED!

What we didn't realize is that Dexter can sneak in under the flap of the shade house and have a little afternoon snack.  BUSTED!

(Guess you could say that short stubby dogs like short stubby vegetables.)
  

Quilt Done!

Yes, the quilt is done (check!) and what fun I had with the whole project.  Getting help from Phil and Dexter on the final layout proved to be very helpful.

Next, a trip to Hilo's AMAZING "Fabric Warehouse" on Wednesday (our regular weekly "Hilo Day") where the staff asked to please bring in the completed quilt so they could put it on their website....(who me!?)   But of course I will -- what LEO would pass up an opportunity like that.

I did have someone offer to help me, but I decided to just stick with my own admittedly limited skill-set on this project since I don't plan to make another quilt (but admire so much more all the quilters that I know!)   I spent two full days sewing all the pieces together and pressing it.  Then another two days went into sewing the front to the back and doing the machine-quilting.  Completing the sewing today made it a very focused week, but it is now hanging up and looks fantastic. 










In addition to the T-shirt squares, the quilt also contains six of my own images done in colored pencil, and four of those images have accompanying poems which were featured in a self-published calendar a few years ago.

The "sign" on the back says, "35 Years In T-Shirts - Spring 2014 - LUNEL"

If I get it posted on the website for Hilo's Fabric Warehouse, I will include a link.

Would a Wood Chuck Chuckle?

Phil continues to spend hours in his workshop making wonderful new pieces.  This "character" piece is entitled  -- "A Tear for the Love of the Aina."

There are many kinds of wood here on the Big Island -- the clock is made from Kamani wood.

And, he has already sold a clock and one of his "characters" and is meeting other artists while he does his gallery sitting on Wednesday at One Gallery in downtown Hilo.

42 Squares Later

This is just the LAYOUT of where the squares will go -- NOT THE COMPLETED QUILT!

 42 has always been one of my favorite numbers...don't know why really.  However, this quilt turned out to have 42 squares and each one has been embellished to the max -- just look at them!  Some are from T-shirts that are 35 years old, and some are from original colored pencil designs I did about 15 years ago (including four little poems.)  Now, the next step is to find the fabric that will served as the background.  Phil's good eye helped me arranged them -- and I love the important dark ones being in the middle.

Pineapples!

When we bought our property we found a few pineapples the owner had planted.  However, we relocated them to a better place in our mini-orchard where they have full sun. Over the year, we have saved many pineapple "tops" adding them to the pineapple patch.  We have had fun going out to pick our own several times this year.  Right now we have five that we will harvest soon.

We have about 18 plants growing at various stages of development.  To grow pineapples here, we simply save the top off the pineapple.  It can be immediately put into the ground, but we have found that our local mongoose will dig them up for munching.  So, we get them started in a one-gallon pot first in the shade house, and after a couple weeks, transplant the newly rooted plant into a new spot in the garden.

Lunel's Historic Quilt

Working in our spacious dedicated art studio.

In January I pulled out almost 30 T-shirts that moved with us to Hawaii.  The T-shirts range from 1980 - 2011 so it really represents a 30-year history of my life. Since our average temperature is 75, it's really too hot to wear them, so I decided to cut (most of*) them up into squares and make a quilt for myself.  (No, I have never made a quilt -- but it is so like me to just jump in and figure it all out as I go.)

Back on February17th, I posted the beginning of the project, but since then I have painted, sewed, embroidered, drawn on, and bejeweled and embellished 36 squares and still have about 8 to complete.

Well of COURSE there would have to be a MOON!

\
Above is a picture of me that Walt and Jenny took during their visit last week.  Most of the squares are 8x8" but some I have cut into quarters to create some 4x4" squares.  Photo here shows twelve completed squares (most details you can't see well) -- and one of my favorites enlarged so you can see the detail.  Each one is a miniature work of art and I've had great fun doing all of them.  With the border added, I think it will be about 5x7 feet.

* I only have five T-shirts now, which are nice to wear on chilly mornings and evenings -- "chilly" in Hawaiian means about 65.

Bloomin' in Puna

We pick up all kinds of unusual plants at the local farmers' market.  A couple weeks ago, we saw these linear shaped bromeliad plants.  However, we no idea they would produce such interesting blooms -- and only a couple weeks after planting them. The flower comes up inside a pair of bright red pedals, then explodes into little flowers with yellow, pink, green and blue. 

Life in Puna --- Ahhhhh!

We've been having a grand time showing Walt and Jenny around our "country."  These Eureka CA friends are about the 13th visitors.  Some of our guests stayed for one or two nights and others stayed for a few weeks. Until you have been here, you can't really believe how really beautiful it is, (even though we don't have white sand beaches) or that is really does rain mostly at night, or that we really do live in a rain forest. 



Since reading Sam Low's book Hawaiiki Rising, and hearing Sam and Nainoa Thompson speak last year, we have been attending the "Wayfinding Talks" presented at the Imiloa Astronomy Center in Hilo.  Tomorrow we will attend the program presented by Pwo Navigator Kalepa Baybayan who will share how the ancient traditions of the Polynesian navigators are being practiced by the Polynesian Voyaging Society on their current worldwide voyage.

Kalepa has been sailing with all the major voyages of the Hokule'a and Honuakai and he is currently serving as Navigator in Residence at Imiloa Astronomy Center of Hawaii.  In 2007, Baybayan and four other Hawaiian men were initiated into the order of Pwo, a 2,000 year old society of traditional deep-sea navigators.  For more information on this outstanding cultural adventure, visit the link below.

 http://www.samlow.com/HawaiikiRising.htm

Congratulations Phil!

We posted a couple of photographs of Phil's new wood art in January.  Since then, he has been down in his spacious wood shop almost every day working.

Today he is taking ten pieces down to One Gallery, located on the bay front in Old Town Hilo.  One Gallery just moved from their location on Kilauea Street into a wonderful new space on Kamehameha Avenue near great shopping, museums and dining.  

We visited One Gallery on our trips in 2011 and 2012 and felt it would be a good place to show art.  Phil will also be doing gallery duty four hours a week, which he will thoroughly enjoy (without having to think about paying the bills, meeting payroll, or all the other duties associated with being a gallery owner.)

Pictured here are two directions he has been developing -- one a series of characters using wood scraps, and the other he is calling his "Volcano Moon" series.

In addition to these art pieces, he is also making clocks and weather stations using koa and other Hawaiian hardwoods.

 www.onegalleryhawaii.com


 

Waiting for Reba

"Dexter - Waiting for Ms. Reba"

Reba with belly of puppies

As you may have heard, we are adopting a little sister for Dexter.  Her name is REBA and she is 5 years old.  She has had several puppy litters and is ready to retire.  Her puppies are about four weeks old right now, so they need their mama for a few more weeks.  We are expecting to bring REBA home around the first of April.

Here are some pictures of  Ms. Reba.  You will notice her belly is full of puppies, taken before her latest delivery of five perfect pups.  You will also notice that she has a TAIL!!  That's because these breeders do not dock the tails.  She is a very sweet and pretty girl.

15 Languages

One of the reasons we love Hawaii is because of the diversity of cultures here.  Recently, on one of our recurring stops at Home Depot, we found this sign that illustrates the point graphically, and introduces the staff there who can assist customers in 15 different languages.

Morning Rituals

This is the view looking out the office area window.

Like most people we have our rituals, those quiet intimate, patterns you fall into comfortably after some 27 years together.  In the morning when we get up, Phil always makes coffee and I take my cup over to the mini-office area facing at huge double window overlooking our south-facing yard.

It's kind of a multi-tasking ritual.  Phil, coffee and remote in hand, flips through the news channels (politely muting the commercials.)  And I, while half listening to the news, scan the emails with one eye while my other is watching the ever changing and amazing view of my own front yard.

Like some opening prayer, I slide the window open full to drink in the fresh rain scented air and listen to a virtual choir of many different kinds of birds.  Crickets may still be chirping along with a few lingering coqui frogs.  Throughout the year, different things are blooming -- this month it is the Nun's Cap wild orchids that I've planted in a large bed around the Ohia trees -- that are also in bloom.

There is a sacred awareness of the earth and all who inhabit here, and each day brings new discoveries.  Today's delight was an enormous absolutely perfect spiderweb backlit by the low sun angle at 8am.  So of course I trade coffee and computer for camera as I traipse out to get the best angle I can -- not easy to do in wet, waist-high stag fern.

After getting it into photo shop for a better look, I realized how much it reminds me of the broken automobile glass I am using for my current art series entitled "Journey."

Rainbow Memories

When Phil was a little boy, he often spent time at his grandma's house (Mabel Scott) where he would take his afternoon naps on her big bed. As he fell asleep, he remembers watching rainbows dancing around the room. A number of years ago, Phil's mom graciously gifted us with the very same lamp that Phil remembers and a leaded cut glass window from the same old family home in Charlotte, Michigan.


For many years this beautiful old lamp (now wired for electricity) hung in our library in Eureka, California, where an east facing window reproduced the same results.

This lamp was one of the many treasures we carefully packed for our relocation to Hawaii.  It has taken a while to determine just where it should go in our Hawaiian hale, but its time has come.  We have asked our contractor to install electrical wiring in our beautiful stairwell -- where much of our art will be displayed.

On January 11th I posted a blog about how the light moves through our house, passing from one corner to another at different times of the year.  At THIS time of year, as we approach the Spring Equinox, the sun is coming directly through the east windows where it hits prisms hanging in the window -- splashing rainbows through the whole open floor plan of our house.

Wickedly Wonderful Wild Wise Women!

When ever you move from a place you have lived for many years, the hardest part is leaving your friends behind.  And, while emails, phone calls and letters are always welcomed, there is just no substitute for a REAL hug from your girl friend.

Recently I have been adopted by a group of women who have been gathering for many years every week.  As I have gotten to know them and they me, somehow it feels as though we have been friends for a long time.  Why is that?

I think it is because no matter your age, women have a kinship -- a bond of experience that serves to unite them and helps them build rich, lasting relationships.  Helena brought a card with her for all of us to sign for her mom, Anita, who is having brain surgery very soon.  Although several people left, a few of the remaining women bunched together to take a photo to send to her with our love and prayers.

When we started talking about our moms, mothers-in-law, grandmothers and sisters, it was as though our women-web spread out wider and wider.  So, we are sending out love to all of our KUPUNA.  And that includes MY mother-in-law, Margaret spending a chilly winter in Charlotte, Michigan!   ALOHA!

Tiny Mushrooms

Overnight, very
whitely, discreetly,
very quietly
our toes, our noses
take hold on the loam
acquire the air....

(Excerpt from Sylvia Plath's
poem "Mushrooms)

Last week our ohana guests noticed a batch of very tiny white mushrooms on a tree trunk along the driveway near the forest side of our property.  They took a photo of them growing along the east side of the tree trunk.

A couple days later, they all appeared to migrate over to the opposite side of the same tree trunk, but the new batch was a silver grey color.  None of them measured even 1/2 inch, and most were much smaller.

  

T-Shirt Quilt

Leaving Humboldt County and relocating to Hawaii meant a drastic change in wardrobes for both of us.  Like many people, I have a rather embarrassingly large pile of T-shirts.... some dating back 35 years now.

As we sorted out and divested ourselves of so many things, somehow the idea of disposing of  all these treasured reminders of by-gone years proved to be too difficult.  So, I packed them all up and they moved with us...with the idea that I would cut up the oldest ones to make myself a quilt.  Now my stack of T-shirts only numbers 6-7 -- and is more in keeping with the climate here.

Today, I began to sort through them all, cutting out squares (many not shown) and using iron-on fusing to prepare them for embellishment for the quilt squares.  My life in T-shirts and many remarkable memories!

Valentine Ohia-Lehua

Happy Valentines Day! 

We remember last year's February too, when all the Lehua blossoms on the Ohia trees around our property were in full bloom. 

The rain showers today covered every blossom and leaf with jewelry, so outside I went with the waterproof camera to try and catch a little of the magic.

Phil knew the perfect approach to celebrate with gifts of a coconut scented orchid (yes, it does smell like coconut) a tomato plant for the garden, and a art tour and lunch in Hilo. 

In other RED news, a couple days ago I caught this shot from our kitchen window.  The flowering plant, a gift from a friend.  The bird was one we found newly dead on the ground when we first moved in.  I have preserved birds for many years, and decided to enjoy the beauty of this honey creeper for a little longer.

There's a FULL MOON tonight and we have planned a trip down to the warm ponds at Ahalanui Park for a moon-lit swim as the concluding step in a lovely Valentines Day.   ALOHA!!!

Down On the Farm

Here's what we do to our guests at Luana Ohana -- makem hana! so, dai dig da holes in da lava ya! 

Visiting guests (now good friends) Zane and Cat from Indiana.  One day they said, "If there's some project you need done, just let us know -- we'd love to help."

We got out the o'o bar, pick axe, shovel, load of compost to plant the latest addition -- a lovely fan leafed "Peach Palm"-

Native to Amazonia, the peach palm fruit was scattered widely by Amerindians throughout the region, where it served as a source of wood for construction and as material for bows, arrows and spears. The peach palm fruit also provided indigenous peoples of the region with flour, palm heart, and cooked fruit flesh rich in vitamins A and C. Paleo-botanical records indicate that the peach palm fruit was being cultivated in Costa Rica as early as 2300 B.C., and when Spanish explorers arrived in Costa Rica in the early 1500s, the peach palm fruit was essential for the sustenance of the indigenous peoples of the Caribbean region. (Nature Landings Magazine)
 Photo by jhalasey

Phil on Philippine Rattan!

"Oh, Dexter.....Where's REBA?"

Now is this just too cool!

A couple months ago we ran across on odd little shop across from the fabric store in Hilo where we saw two really cute sets of rattan.  One was white and had 3 pieces, but the other was natural and had 6 pieces (2 already upstairs.)

We finally bit the bullet because the price was about 70% OFF -- and it makes the ohana really cute.  We dumped the old teal loveseat that was our three corgis favorite spot for 10 years -- it really was time; no matter how many times we did upholstery cleaning on it -- it was still "doggie."

Wicker vs. Rattan. Wicker and rattan are not the same, though the terms are often confused.  Wicker is made from a variety of materials, including rattan. Raw rattan is a vine-like species of palm native to tropical regions of Africa, Asia and Australia that is processed into a number of products including furniture. The plant’s skin is peeled away for use as weaving material, and the solid core is used to make different types of furniture, including rattan wicker furniture.

Back to Art

I am so excited to be in our spacious, light, airy art studio!  The land has been a wonderful and exhausting pallet, but it has been a year since I have dedicated large chunks of time to exploring my own art.

For months now, I have been working on several designs, believing that they would translate into the shattered glass technique I was successfully exploring before our relocation from Humboldt County to the district of Puna on the Big Island.

These are close-ups from two of the series that will give you a taste of the dynamic colors and shapes.

I have also included a page from my art journal so you can see the general shape and direction of this series that, for now I am calling the "Journey" series.  That's what they seem to feel like to me.

(At this time I am working with only the six on the left side.)

There are three pairs.  In my mind I have working titles, but they may simply be numbered Journey #1-6
so viewers are left to their own creativity and curiosity.

....ship to shore
....womb to world
....cell to star gate


(Admittedly, these are my long-loved conceptual favorites -- not always easy to translate into metaphoric image, but always a fun challenge.)