Pink Lemonade

We all know the old saying about making lemonade with “lemons” – here in Puna we take that a step further, using the invasive guava trees to make “pink” lemonade.  You will sometimes see locals alongside the roads picking both pink and yellow guava – from the top heavy branches.  Only problem is that everything here tends to grow to t-a-l-l so fast, you can’t easily reach them. 

Believe it or not, our dogs LOVE the guavas – but then again, they also love carrots, bok choy and cabbage!  We have several guava trees along the driveway, so walking down to get the mail, it’s always a dash between me and the three corgi dogs to see who can get to the newly fallen ripe ones first.  I always let them have a few.

When we first moved in a couple years ago, I decided to try an experiment with one of the too-tall-trees and cut it off 12 inches from the ground to see what would happen.  Lucky me!  It has grown into a guava “bush” instead, only 5 feet tall with branches loaded with pink guava.  Now that I know that works, I’ll do the same with the rest of them.

Finally!! The Guava Railing Goes Up

You may remember this picture of Phil from late May when we first decided (at our contractor's suggestion) that we add a balcony to the upstairs ohana.  Phil took on the laborious challenge of cutting young wild guava trees (which are a weed like dandelion in California) for the railing.  First he had to strip all the bark off, trimming off small branches.  Then the sticks had to dry before LOTS of sanding.  They were stained twice, then coated with an outside weatherproofing and stored under the house for almost three months.


This weekend, Phil cut them to size and began to attach them to the railing.  Pretty cute huh!  We think we will be putting artwork in the center square and are considering several options.

"It Takes a Team"

Here's a photo of our contractors (Rob left and Jordan right) dueling it out on their ladders with nail guns to see who will run out of ammunition the fastest!

This view is inside the stairwell the separates our main house from the ohana - so it is really private for our guests.  The walls on either side at the top will be framed in, but the clerestory window at the top, as well as two windows in the front side will bring light into this area.

Today we took delivery of the final windows and Phil is off to replace a compressor (for the nail gun) that blew out yesterday -- and some additional rolls of electrical wiring.  Considering the wiring includes both the 700+ square feet of living space upstairs, AND Phil's enormous shop downstairs -- it is a lot of wiring.

Also on the agenda for the day, Lunel is beginning to stain the upright posts for the railing on the balcony and get the final spar varnish finish on all the guava rungs.



Dexter, as always is awaiting the noon lunch break so he can lick out all the bowls. 

The myna bird couple who live in the birdhouse right by the new deck seem contended to let us all do our work - with only an occasional warning squack or squabble to let us know that "that is close enough, thank you very much."

Ohana Door

This week we did whatever would help our contractors.  Last week we painted all the 4x8' sheets of siding.  Since the contractors got all the siding got up that we had painted, this week we painting all the 3" trim that goes around the windows  (you can see it around the downstairs windows.)  We also filled the nail holes in the siding and did touch up painting.

Phil spent a lot of time sanding, staining and finishing a beautiful wood door that will open onto the upstairs balcony. (You can see the hole for it ...but you will have to imagine the balcony that will go between the two windows.)  In the picture you will also see the guava tree branches that Phil has stained - those will be the railings around the balcony -- and they match the door beautifully! 

Although we orginally were going to use a double french door, we found it took up too much space on the little balcony, so we decided to use a single wood one instead. 

Here's a picture of Phil inside his spacious (2 car garage size) shop doing the final sanding on the door...with Dexter helping of course.  While working on the door he had a psychic "hit" from his childhood.  He remembered that his grandparents had doors like this in the house they lived in  right across the street from where Phil grew up as a boy. His grandfather build several houses in his home town of Charlotte, Michigan.

Anniversary Guava Passion!

Today is our 27th anniversary and we are celebrating with "guava passion" - and what does that mean?

One of the many ubiquitous plants growing in the Puna district are wild guava trees that grow so thick you can't even walk through a patch.  We decided to make good use of them as raw materials for projects.

Here's Phil with some guava trees from our property that he has striped bark from and sanded.  Some we will be using along the front of the new addition -- as a railing.

Since we have two passion vines of Liliqois, we have built a fence for them to grow on using a dead ohia tree at one end (that also serves as our clothesline.)  Phil is attaching a stripped guava tree for the top railing.

Also, see that BIG tree in the background?  That is one of the invasive albezia trees that have invested Puna.  One of our first project on the property was to have several of them removed due to their tendency to fall over in heavy rains and wind.

It is not uncommon to have 2-3 brief power outages during the week because a tree -- somewhere along the lines -- has fallen across the road.  The one you see here is growing on the acre next to us (no threat to us.)  We enjoy it because it reminds us of the beautiful large acacia tree that grew in our yard in Eureka.

Liliquoi is one of the most loved favors in Hawaii and is used in desserts of all kinds as well as juices.  This is a picture showing the two kinds we have -- one of which has blossoms just in time for our anniversary!  Yum! -- liliquoi cheese cake!!