What happened to September? (All kinds of FUN!)

 

Banana-Fana-Fo-Fana

Island boy with bananas

Big red flower and
baby banana blossom

One of the many things we enjoyed in our previous Big Island home in Leilani Estates (BL before lava) was growing our own fruits and vegies. We had solar, constant water supply, big freezer and a 2-month supply of food.  While not off-grid, we felt very pleased with accomplishing our original goal.

That was 2012-18, and a photo of "Banana Boy" with a fresh harvest.


Finding our new home in Ohia Estates in Volcano, we were delighted the previous owners also had bananas, and we've harvested three bunches in just the last year. The photos on this page were taken last week as we watched the blossom open, flower-lets open and teeny tiny bananas begin to form.

Like many things on the island, they grow in spirals, and the photos here show the original blood-red blossom. As the blossom opens (in a spiral fashion) small white flowers come on with tiny baby bananas that look almost like bean sprouts. If you have enough bananas to spare, the tender 'sprouts' can be used in a tasty salad.

You can even see the "spiral" as they ripen

As the  red blossom leaves spiral open, more "hands" of bananas are revealed. It's convenient that they ripen as they grow -- in a spiral, so you always have some green and yellow like the bunch on our kitchen counter.

I'm sorry not to have been more frequent with posts but I've been extremely excited about a group of interesting collages.  PROMISE: I'll soon post a few of themas well as some new art from PHIL.  Take Care! LUNEL

The "Haysmer Hale Herald" News

After a year of really BIG THINGS it is both comforting and normalizing to be finding joy in small and ordinary things, and to see them not small at all and life as  anything but ordinary. So a blog post about some simple but delightful occurrences in our week.

Birthdays and bananas - dogs and dedications and continuing to turn a house into our new home.

Lunel invited a group of girlfriends for a celebration -- and the cake!!! OMG. It was light fluffy sponge cake with many layers of whipped cream and lilikoi. We shared an outstanding dinner at the "Rim Restaurant" with window seats only a few feet from the edge of Kilauea Volcano. (Yeah, we know that might sound weird to some people, or the fact that we now live in a town called VOLCANO!)  We have always known we were living on "an edge" of a tiny island in the middle of the Pacific Ocean; we still love it here)

The dog-and-beach photo is one of our beloved Reba-Bo-Beba who is doing very well in her new home. (The trauma of our relocation and stress resulted in some sad dynamics between her our other corgi dogs.) She has been re-homed in Kona and we get periodic updates and are happy she is now doing well.

As for the dedication -- hopefully it is large enough for you to read; if not just click on the photo to enlarge it. A framed copy is hanging on the wall just as you walk into the art studio, dedicating the space to Phil's grandfather and Lunel's dad whose influence in our lives helped shape the people we are today.

AND LOOK GUYS -- we have bananas in our yard. The the flower of one of our many bananas looks totally alien. FYI: Bananas are not trees - technically the plant is an HERB, but the  banana is a fruit. We're lucky to have about 12 of them -- ranging from keiki (baby) size to this over 20' tall.


A nearly unbelievable set of circumstances and the involvement of many people lead us to our charming new home (Hale Le'a) for which we are grateful. It was hard to lose our home, 99% of all our possessions -- but finding this house which included buying all of the previous owners' normal home furnishings, meant essentially moving into someone else's fully-stocked home. It has taken many months, but we are feeling more settled and comfortable. The library and our art collection is gone which means we have been on the hunt for some haysmer-style art.

Part of the excitement these days is the conversion of this (photo) space into what will be a big lanai with a hot tub (where the light blue elliptic is.) We are envisionaries  - the transformation we created with our beautiful Luana home in Leilani Estates we can do again, albeit slower, with the help of our highly competent contractors.  We WILL post the after photos in a few weeks.

This week -- Hawaiian GEOMETRY!

We had a couple projects this week that turned out well for "first-timers" on both counts. After moving to Pahoa on the Big Island, we planted bananas -- seems everyone does. We just had our first harvest! It took us a while to figure out why this particular banana is so much greener and bigger than the others -- but we finally realized it is because it is only a few feet from our compost bins! 

Here's a photo of Puna Harvester Phil and another that illustrates how bananas (like many many plants on the island) grow in a spiral! Spirals are prevalent throughout nature and artistically used in ethnic, religion and mythology around the world to represent the universal pattern of growth and evolution. The spiral represents eternity and continuity, rebirth, and the eternal. 

So THERE's our SPIRALS... and now on to our CIRCLES and SQUARES

Phil wasn't the only one having fun with geometry. Lunel (with the help of our two corgi girls (Reba and Lani) undertook to create a cover for our hot tub. It was an idea that arrived (as many do) at 3am, so despite some of the details being a little unclear, it was drawn out first. We bought a 6 x 8 foot length of bamboo fencing. After tracing the circle on it, each bamboo piece had to be cut by hand. There was fabric left from making our beautiful swag ceiling in the lanai, to hem and use to weave across the bamboo. Last, the rough edges were sanded, it was rolled out onto the round hot tub.  Hmmmm...so are triangles next?