Election Distraction

What's under there?

When we moved into our new home in Volcano town on the Big Island of Hawaii, there was no access to the back property line -- until we began to clear out accumulated debris and weeds. After spending weeks on this project, we began to ask ourselves just what WAS under all there.  Apparently when the forest was cleared to build this house, a lot of raw material (LAVA) was simply pushed back and piled up. Over the decades since, debris, soil and weeds just piled up deeper and deeper.  Here's a couple of in-process photos -- keep your eyes on the two very large chunks.

Oh! That's what's under there stones shaped
like Hawaii and California!

During the last week of the election we decided we needed a distraction, so began to work on beautifying the outflow from our 10,000 gallon water tank, like we had done with our home in Leilani Estates prior to the lava flow in 2018.  We began by removing the existing sod and digging out at large hole. We managed to do some ourselves, but allowed our young strong yard guy to finish it down to 16" where he found a layer of pahoehoe lava (Pa HoyHoy) -- a solid continuous shelf that runs under our property -- after all the whole island is made of lava!

All of the beautiful stones we used came from along that back property line area. We had help from a friend to place two very special ones on the far left side of our waterfall feature, now completed just before winter rains hit. 

These photos show progress we managed ourselves artfully using the o'o bar and sturdy dolly to move and relocate heavy lava stones. The final two can be seen in the photo above, one shaped like California (on the right) and one like Hawaii. After thorough cleaning, both were moved into place by a good friend and neighbor.

Plantings will feature a color pallet of purple, yellow and lime green. The  amount of overflow rain water that comes out during the winter is huge -- so no fish, probably no water lilies either. 

After cleaning -- "California" and "Hawaii" lava stones were placed at far LEFT.

Oh dear!  So, we thought it was done...then more beautiful lava chunks were found, again, along the newly reclaimed back property.  Notice the addition to the RIGHT side...now we ARE done !