Haysmers Fun in May 2024

 

Recycling the Forest

Haysmers Hangin' Out

Us at the bottom of Hilo's famous Botanical Gardens

Aloha to our blog followers.  Life is good!  We have just finished a couple weeks sharing the Big Island with dear friends from Humboldt County.  Of course we focused on the delights of the East side, enjoying favorite spots along the beloved Red Road and places around Pahoa and Puna.



While our guests were here we enjoyed some plant and bird identification, and realized, we don't know all the names of all the ferns in our yard.

A late afternoon visit up to Kilauea included galleries, lava tube and Jagger Museum where we got to see samples of the higher elevation fern that gives the inner crater its name.

Halema'uma'u, the inner active crater is named the House of Ferns, and the fern this name refers to is the Ama'u Fern (sadleria cyatheoides).

This has motivated us to identify all the ferns in our yard, which is not as easy as it sounds because some of our reference materials differ when it comes to the varieties/sizes of the Hapu'u ferns, of which we may have three.  It will be fun to figure it all out.

"The Week That Was"

End of week SEVEN!!  The week began with building the balcony, which the contractors did, however, our job was getting 2x4's for the railing stained and painting the support beams.  We have not yet begun to cut the stained and varnished guava branches - but that will come eventually.

Last week we changed our minds about using only big screens at the front (south facing) and decided to install windows and screens.  As we described earlier in the week, most of the work this week was electrical, but today, the "yellow submarine" (tub) got hauled upstairs and plumbing fixtures checked for the holes to be drilled.

It was really exciting to begin to really organize Phil's shop space below the apartment.  Just look at those nice tidy, organized shelves!  What's on the work table are quarter-round mouldings that will be going both on the outside of the building as well as those on the inside.  It is SO much easier to paint the wood BEFORE it gets put up around the windows.  Also, look at the size of that enormous beam!  That is the same beam we showed in our May 9th blog -- the very first week.  (It is 4" x 16" and is 24 feet long!!)  It is the main support beam for the whole upstairs.

Most of the work we did was for the apartment and shop, but we also found time to work on the garden area (we call the bromeliad hill ) which is just as you turn up the long driveway.

This week we cemented lava for a base to provide stability for our new Ganesh statue.  We are also in the process of painting and embellishing him. He is made out of cast concrete, and we plan to enrich his Rolly Rotundness with some color.  Here he has his first wash of light green.  Since it is too hot for lotus blossoms, he will be surrounded by pink and green bromeliads instead - and of course, shaded by a newly planted Hapu'u fern.  (Once we have finished the transformation we will send another picture - but it's fun to share the "before" as well as the "after.")