Thursday, April 30, 2020... Memory Lane, Two Years ago at 2pm

low lying clouds scud

crimson pompoms swaying there

brisk tradewinds blowing

Perhaps not the best haiku, but the winds are indeed brisk, still-soft lime-green freshly unfurled pepeʻe (coiled fronds of hāpuʻu) flutter, and the air is a bit chill.  

Two years ago it was raining, or about to rain.  Though some start The Three Months when Pelehonuamea revisited Keahialaka at about 5p on May 3, 2018, I start counting at 2p, Monday, April 30, 2018.  

USGS Hawaiian Volcano Observatory Summary of 2018 Events

On April 27, 2018, I walked, as I very often did, from the Devastation Trail Parking Lot, along the closed-to-vehicles portion of Crater Rim Drive, to the September 1982 flow on the floor of Kaluapele, the caldera.  Who knew that that would be the last time?  Then, as now, lehua bloom.

If youʻve sharp eyes, perhaps you can spot the HVO and Jaggar Museum buildings on the far rim, just to the right of the right-most fume cloud emanating from Halemaʻumaʻu.

I had attended the Monday Morning Meeting at HVO that Monday, April 30, 2018.  I remember the tone being fairly serious and concerned, with staff discussing recent overflows of the crater inset on the floor of Halemaʻumaʻu, and the ongoing and very noticeable inflation of the floor of Puʻuʻōʻō.  Generally, inflation can be kind of abstract - recorded on instruments, but not particularly visible in the field. This instance was different.  One could see inflation happening, and a "Heads-up" was noted for all heading to the field in coming days.

At 2p that afternoon, in foggy rains, the floor of Puʻuʻōʻō collapsed.  Scientists werenʻt able to helicopter out there because of the weather, but were keenly tuned remotely to cameras and instruments.  

In VERY laymanʻs terms, turns out shallow reservoirs on Kīlauea had been inflating for quite some time, as evidenced by the aforementioned signs at Halemaʻumaʻu and at Puʻuʻōʻō.  The entire system was pressurized.  Then there was, the afternoon of April 30, a rupture.  The East Rift Zone suffered an aneurysm just downrift of Puʻuʻōʻō, and the breaking of internal structures allowed Pele to begin her travels so she could revisit former haunts.  While Pele was headed ma kai, Her pele was sinking out of sight at Halemaʻumaʻu.  It was as if a faucet had been turned on, and plumbing started to drain.  

Above, under a beautifully decorated sky, the last of Pelehonuamea can be seen sinking out of sight, this photo from Jaggar Museum on May 2, 2018.

News Media accounts of the happenings, both at Kaluapele and at Keahialaka drove me to distraction with their inaccuracies and overblown hyperbole.  Remember the flying cows and refrigerators?  So I started this little blog. The first post was on May 1, 2018.  Those first few are actually the content of emails I sent to friends to update them.  Thatʻs why some links donʻt apparently work as they should, or why attachments (See the attached...) are missing.  I started emailing on my hawaiiantel.net account.  I exceeded carrying capacity there in several days.  Then I migrated to gmail, and that lasted a week or so.  Then a fateful visit with friends after a Robert Cazimero May Day Concert in Waimea led me to CM who got the blog rolling.  And here we are.  So please forgive the elementary early posts.  Havenʻt had time or seen the need to change them.  Theyʻre all part of The Record methinks.

[[Oh...just in case...Kaluapele is the traditional name for the caldera (big crater formed by collapse) of Kīlauea.  The home of Pelehonuamea, Halemaʻumaʻu, is on the floor of Kaluapele.  Then, Keahialaka is the ahupuaʻa (traditional land division) in which is located the subdivision of Leilani Estates.]]

So.  The ground is shaking.  A lot.  And frequently.  And weʻre all wondering... 

On May 5, 2018, between 4p and 8p we had 19 earthquakes up here.  They were shallow, very sharp, pretty violent, and effing scary:

The ʻōlaʻi (earthquakes) listed above are depicted below.  All those orange dots in the center overlie a grey grid - the streets in Mauna Loa Estates, where I live.

I called TN who knows about these things...she said, Oh.  Those are probably structural adjustments, likely to buried caldera-bounding faults, because the summit is subsiding because magma is draining...  And she had to take another call.  And Iʻm wondering... And???  Will the adjustments stop???  Will the summit stop subsiding??? Ummmmm

And then on May 15, after a phone call with ZT, I speed (at a leisurely pace) up to the Golf Course, and took this at the Jade Ave intersection on the Highway.  WOW!!!  Did I turn around and really speed down to town?  Of course not...  This was the first BIG ash emission of a protracted series.

While all that was going on up here, down in Puna ma kai, Pele had her fires on full display.  A friend, Andrew Richard Hara, shared a few photos.  Lots are available through his website:  Andrew Hara Photographs

We know that 720 structures, mostly homes rented or owner-occupied, were burned as Pele made her way to the sea.

ARH 052518

And upon reaching the shore, she continued traveling underwater.  The photo below is the best I know of showing roiling ocean, as very hot sea water rises from an underwater flow.

ARH 062018

Below is a screenshot from USGS Professional Paper 1676:

GoLookGoogle:

Though life is, and always will be, full of distractions, we must not forget... [Please note that in the edition of the Pukui / Elbert Dictionary used to verify Hawaiian spellings for this Professional Paper, "Kupaianaha" was spelled incorrectly as Kūpaianaha.].

 And then thereʻs "Roil".  How do we say that in ʻolelo Hawaiʻi?  Hmmmm.  Lots of different ways, depending on whatʻs roiling, or the cause of said roiling:

Iʻm thinking either "naku" or "mōioio".  Any language folks want to wade in with a comment?

"Hā ka moana" is a phrase found in "He kau no Hiʻiaka", a chant for a younger sister of Pele describing a very similar series of eruptive events at Kaluapele and Keahialaka a few centuries ago. Itʻs posted in my blog.  "Hā" is to breathe or exhale..."Moana" is the ocean...  The ocean breathes.  And in the chant, "ocean" also means a lake of molten lava, as was found in Kaluapele.

ARH 062018

The photo above is detail rich, from the lua luaʻi (erupting crater) at the upper left, to the densedense plume of hydrochloric acid, steam, and bits of limu o Pele (thin shattered exploded shards of lava), the ʻilikai (surface of the ocean) steams driven ashore by onshore tradewinds, and the furrowed slope of Waiapele (known as Kapoho Cone by some) at the upper right.  We know that this photo was taken shortly after sunrise, because of the angle of the shadow of the steam plume, and too, the golden light on vegetated areas.  Itʻs all an amazement.

Just as these are even more amazing, and pūʻiwa-inducing... "Pūʻiwa", according to the 1865 Andrews Dictionary, is "a stupefaction on account of wonder".  Indeed!!!

The first photo below, see the upper "Crater Rim Drive" arrow?  It crosses a grey area, the September 1982 lava flow.  Just left of the arrow is the road, and if you look REAL good, you can see the little ʻōhiʻa tree I visited on April 27, 2018, second picture from the top of this post.

USGS HVO 040920

And even more stupefying, the floor of Halemaʻumaʻu (below) is now graced with a pond of water.  It first appeared in late-July 2019, and has been slowly expanding since, itʻs color likely due to chemicals, minerals, bacteria and what-la.

USGS HVO 042120

Our eye at Puna ma kai is still operational, and sits as it did atop Puʻuhonuaʻula.  This, this morning, with the drill rig at Puna Geothermal Venture at left, just to its right, on the horizon, is the hump of Kaliʻu, and immediately below it F8, with the big lava channel at right.  This from the USGS HVO PGcam.

And then, this on June 20, 2018.  Look familiar?  Different camera, different lens, but you get the idea...

And because I shall always adore them, but mostly because they are emblematic and a favorite of Pelehonuamea, and of Hawaiʻi nei, Iʻll end with these.  A JUST opening cluster of lehua, with tight pink petals and furry white coats.

The bloom is full, and we deeply appreciate their beauty and their symbolism...

Too, a PS:  

Webcams, Seismic, Deformation, and Photos and Video, can all be accessed at the USGS HVO page:  https://hvo.wr.usgs.gov/cams/  

Data for Kīlauea for the past year is at:  The Year in the Life of Kīlauea  GoLook!

As always, with aloha,

BobbyC
maniniowali@gmail.com

Sunday, April 26, 2020. random Sunday musings

The air is still chill, trades are off and on up here.  Cloudy more than not.  But when the sun comes out, warmth is nearly instantaneous.  You know, these things are a bit more challenging than at the beginning nearly two years ago.  Then, Iʻd wake, check websites to try figure out what was going on with Pelehonuamea, then sit and type for 3+ hours.  It was fairly regimented.  Now, as Iʻve said, thereʻs no sense of urgency to get The News out, so I have the luxury of more leisurely poking around, playing with topics, and trying to come up with at least semi-bright ideas.  The humbug is I get distracted.  Easily.  Holo there, then here, then farther over there...  Itʻs all good, though.  Keeps the brain working...

A few things:

The County of Hawaiʻi sent out a...press release, paha, clarifying news of an expected infusion of FEMA funds to help with repairs to infrastructure (mainly roads), post-Pele-visiting Keahialaka in 2018.

Not sure if the above will be legible on your device.  If not, please visit:

Clarification on FEMA Funding 042620

Iʻll editorialize on this incoming days, as I have in the past.

And while thatʻs percolating, I suggest time-occupying reading, education, and self-edification, via two favorite sites:

Jan TenBruggencateʻs excellent Raising Islands Blog

Raising Islands

and 

The good folks at Honolulu Civil Beat 

Honolulu Civil Beat

Please support them how and when you can.  Both sites are extraordinarily honest and informative.

And please start considering, in a mind-wide-open sorta way, what "Re-Opening" means.  Or should mean.  At this point in our collective journey, I simply canʻt imagine going back to how things were.  And thatʻs just two or three months ago...  I seriously doubt that itʻll be "Presto-Change-o"  Ta daaaahhhh.  All good.  As far as I can tell, our economies are in ruins.  For many, personal finances have taken catastrophic hits, and The Government(s), all of them, seem ill-equipped to respond substantively to our dilemmas and predicaments.

How will The Future work and function?  Tourists coming back and filling our hotels and beaches to over-capacity?  Our catering to their every whim?  The Rat Race re-established?  Debt-ridden consumers consuming on the advice of social media "Influencers"?  Sure hope not.

We have opportunities to reimagine and create our society as a better place for all.  I pray that we donʻt blow it.  

in downtown Hilo, by Robyn Chance... I smile every time I see this...

Till next time, then...

As always, with aloha,

BobbyC
maniniowali@gmail.com

Saturday, April 25, 2020. A bit of a kerfuffle ensued...

Brrrr yesterday and last night.  Fickle weathers; a few days being lulled by soft breezes and warm sun, then... a front rolls through bringing chill air and ʻōhiʻa-swaying winds.  We are thankful for being here, no matter outside forces beyond our control.  Lehua bloom continues to increase.  Itʻs kinda fun, driving down and up the hill to nūnī PT, observing elevational influences on bloomings and unfurlings.  Ma kai, lehua are gangbusters, while here theyʻre maybe at 25%.  Same with pepeʻe hāpuʻu, the coiled up fresh fronds in the process of unfurling.  Thatʻll be a Topic-Coming-Soon, as the bright-greening of our rain forests evolve.  

In Hilo, thereʻs an extravagance of several of these:

Iʻm at a loss to accurately name or describe the color, other than perhaps peachy-salmon. Ish. We enjoy many shades of yellow in peoples yards, because lehua mamo, the yellow ones, are lots less common than reds.  But this... these in-between ones, in my view, are even more special.

Now... Kerfuffle:

According to dictionary.com, a kerfuffle is a noun used informally, of British origin:

a commotion or fuss, especially one caused by conflicting views

Attentive readers of TheNews may have heard/read that the works of Pelehonuamea in 2018 were apparently not caused by her, but rather were initiated by Lono-of-the-rains, and Kāne-of-the-groundwaters.  This newsflash by way of an unequivocal headline:

Note, dear readers, that is does not include qualifiers such as:  Perhaps, or May Have Been, etc.  Itʻs a flat-out Statement of Fact:  Extreme Rainfall Triggered...

Now you can likely imagine my consternation, headshakings, and mutterings... This little blog was started because I couldnʻt bear inaccurate reporting.  And no, Iʻm not a geophysicist, but I believe that I PayAttention.  And as I wode/waded through the very very dense scientificana of the paper, it didnʻt make sense.  Well...maybe a teeny tiny bit did:  weight of rainwater on flank of mauna Kīlauea mayhaps tilted the ma kai portion of the lower East Rift Zone toward the sea, opening the rift and making room for the dike/dyke... But...naahhh...

We get plenny rain.  All over, and not infrequently.  12", 24", 36" in 24 hours...yup.  Been here, seen (and heard) that.  Why just this year, the first 12 days of January, we had 30" up here.  But no eruption...

And the part about "lack of precursory summit inflation"???  Of COURSE had inflation:  the active lua on the floor of Halemaʻumaʻu overflowed several times, and when it did, the rim of that lua increased in height, requiring even more pressure for the magma column to rise and overflow.  And...the floor of Puʻuʻōʻō was rising/inflating so fast scientists curtailed in-the-crater field work.  

OK.  Take a breath, Bob...  Letʻs see what the good folks at the Hawaiian Volcano Observatory (HVO) have to say.  Following is text of their 042320 Volcano Watch article, and accompanying graphic, and a link to the actual piece.  Read.  Learn.  Enjoy.

Plot of ground motion as recorded by a GPS station at Kīlauea's summit (red) and the Pu‘u ‘Ō‘ō vent (blue) for the 8 months leading up to the 2018 eruption. Note the sharp increase indicating pressurization beginning in March. Image shows an aerial view of Halema‘uma‘u crater and the actively overflowing lava lake on April 23, 2018. USGS Photo.

Volcano Watch 042320  Increasing magma pressure most likely culprit in triggering the 2018 Kīlauea eruption.  Please note the "most likely" part.  I learned decades ago to couch phrases with care.  Visitors often asked "When will the eruption end?".  Iʻd answer, sometimes to their consternation, "When it ends".  Then Iʻd explain whims and vagaries, etc.

So.  GoRead:

I have a pdf of the kerfuffle-causing article, and will happily email to you, because I couldnʻt find it online yet...

And The Other Side:

Nature Journal Paper Dismissed

and in SCIENCE Magazine

Iʻll be summarizing my thoughts about The Three Months, the after-effects, etc., in a post next week Thursday, April 30, the second anniversary of the onset of events.

And before I go, I HAD to share this.  Thanks, gh for the laughs.  Now if the current occupant of Hale Kea were a rational, sentient, ept (as opposed to inept) being, I might quibble, but I hope Iʻd have the grace and courtesy to be respectful of that persons decisions.  Now??? Not so much.  And if any of you, dear, dear readers, plan to vote for him in the Fall, I beg, beseech, adjure, entreat, implore, call upon, and exhort you:  Donʻt Do That!!!  We, all of us, must absolutely vote.  BUT NOT FOR HIM!!!

Click on this link and Sing Along!!! :   VOTE HIM AWAY!

Iʻve been consciously trying (and mostly succeeding, methinks) to keep politics out of this blog.  Let the above bit be the sum total of my ventings.

OK?  Iʻm headed outside to the sun.  Please be well...

As always, with aloha,

BobbyC

maniniowali@gmail.com

Monday, April 20, 2020... Summerish weather is here!

It feels SOOOO good!  Skies of blue, sun-warmed skin, ahhhh.  I know, I know, I going bachi...I said it out loud, and probably going rain, but so it goes...between seasons weathers are invariably suddenly changeable, nevertheless I am Extremely Grateful for the sun.

So.  Writing yesterday was fraught.  I saw icons instead of pictures on previous posts and didnʻt know why.  I imagined that the ethereal internetty gremlins at Kukuiʻohiwai decided to sojourn at Kawaiʻapapane, and my mood darkened.  But with the rising sun this morning, I thought:  OH!  Call arh!  Heʻll know.  And sure enough, problem was solved in short order.  It had to do with my inattentiveness to where/how/when/on what photos were acquired and transmitted.  I can pay attention outside, but...electronica??? What a challenge!  So.  If you observed icons, GoLook again...with my apologies...

The Title yesterday:  "Life is but a dream" popped into my head:  Row, row, row your boat... And during the self-inflicted drama-filled writing, I forgot...

These times seem to have a dream-like quality.  As if weʻre living in the 50s or 60s:  no traffic, no tourists, people talking about and planting gardens, cooking, spending time with family, etc.  Lives are slower.  And the weekend past brought us an extravaganza of song on TV stations.  Among the artists, Mick Jaggar and The Stones:

You canʻt always get what you want

But if you try sometimes you just might find

You get what you need

And too, Sunday night on 60 Minutes, at the end, John Dickerson talked about qualities of people and their lives post-Depression, in the 1940s:  Thrift, Resilience, Deferred Gratification.  Then we forgot...

JD: 60 Minutes, 041920    BAM!!!  Thatʻs what it was like growing up in 1950ʻs Honokaʻa and many many other places.  So very unlike today.  I wonʻt go into it, because it can be a downer, and because though I REALLY hope that our society will catch the hint, get it together, and become way better, PessimisticBob thinks weʻll eventually get back to how was.  

If that happens, going back to how was, the Hulihia weʻre collectively experiencing will be for naught.  Long-time readers may recall that word from 2 years ago, referring to the incremental billion-cubic-yard collapse at Kaluapele, and the billion cubic yards of pele erupted in Keahialaka.

huli.hia

Pas/imp. of huli 1, 2; overturned; a complete change, overthrow; turned upside down. Chants about Pele with verses beginning with the word “hulihia” are referred to as hulihia. See prayer, kualakai 2. Hulihia ka mauna, wela i ke ahi (PH 204, 225), mountain overturned, hot with fire. Hulihia Kī-lau-ea, pō i ka uahi (PH 197), Kī-lau-ea [Volcano] is overturned, darkened by smoke. Kaua hulihia, revolutionary war. (PNP fulisia.)

Like that.  A complete, catastrophic change.  Pele can do that, but now as weʻre experiencing, so can mere mortals.

Go plant a garden, or tend to one overgrown.  Save your money.  Ask:  Need?  Want?  Be Kind.

Letʻs do a waihoʻoluʻu maʻo hau hele finale:

Kinda both kāpulu (untidy or messy) and cool at the same time.  Yellow = boiled pua maʻo hau hele.  To get the greygreen, add wood ash.  Now Iʻm pretty sure I have enough pua in the freezer, thanks to generous ld, I want to dye a kīhei (a garment worn over one shoulder and tied there in a knot) as above.  And a big goal is to procure pua Hibiscus brackenridgei subsp. molokaiana to get that vibrant dark bluegreen.  Someday...

Someday soon I hope to get back to The Mauna and visit our endemic

ʻāhinahina, the silversword.  This photo shared by tkt.  ʻĀhinahina is closely related to kūpaoa, that tiny-flowered fragrant gem I shared a blog or two ago.

And another by tkt, this one was a bigbigbig WOW!!!  Itʻs impossible to be redder I think:

Liko lehua, the young red leaves are favored by some when fashioning lei wili.  Fastening them to a base of...dried banana stem sheath, or lāʻī (ti leaves), or braided fern, by winding a string of ʻili hau (hau fiber) or other fiber...

And last, the fading glory of our lehua ʻalani.  I took this today while on my golf course walk.

The photo posted previously of the full bloom was taken on April 12. This one is full of fallen stamens, but the fatter redder pistils still stand...

OK then.  Stay tuned.  Iʻll move on from plants, to topics to be determined.  Suggestions are welcome.  And to make life a bit easier, if you, family, or friends want to receive an email when I post a new blog, simply "Follow by Email"  as on the following screenshot:

Type in your email address and click Submit...

As always, with aloha and gratitude,

BobbyC

maniniowali@gmail.com

Sunday, April 19, 2020. Life is but a dream...

Hmmmm... Still havenʻt managed to get on a schedule, regular or otherwise, for these scribblings.  The weathers have been mostly fine, judging by the percentages of blue skies we enjoy, and the abundance of singing ʻapapane.  Iʻve been sunning outside, warming the body and soul, building up Vitamin D, while enjoying the rustle of lau ʻōlapa in breezes, both moaʻe (tradewinds) and kona (those from the south).  Itʻs a month of variable weather, seemingly mirroring the variability of our lives these days.  

And as part of a still-to-be-established routine, I exercise knee/leg, and walk at the golf course when I can.  While there, at the contact between Maunaloa and Kīlauea, we enjoy expansive views, sky decorated by varied clouds, and the plantings residents care for or, in some cases, let run wild.  One of the latter is honeysuckle.  

One thing I appreciate is how the flowers change color as they age.  Still sweet, they turn from white to yellow.  Much like puakenikeni, the "10 cent flower", as seen below on agroforestry.net, the white just-opened, keeping company with yesterdays golden one.

If left to their own devices, honeysuckle vines are perfectly capable of spreading and climbing, through grasses and up faya trees.  Their wafted scent often surprises, and evokes memories of a trellis at home many decades ago.  Gramma Camara loved flowers in the yard, and honeysuckle was one.  We took a cutting and started our own, along with a cutting of a bleeding heart vine she nurtured.

And talk about color-changing!  Thereʻs yesterday-today-and-tomorrow, from Australian plants online:  

 Some may recognize this, seen in older gardens, mostly in cooler ma uka areas.  Itʻs a tallish shrub-hedge, with dark violet flowers fading to white.  Smell good too...

But the best...The Best encountered on a street at the golf course (remember... we were walking there...) is this:

A lehua ʻalani, an orange lehua, with kukuna ʻulaʻula (reddish pistils) and pōuleule melemele (yellow stamens)...a marvel.  This young ʻōhiʻa grown from seed by a friend with the greenest of thumbs.  She told me that its parent was acquired at Amy Greenwell Ethnobotanical Garden, and Iʻm guessing that staff there found it in the wild somewhere.  Gotta pay attention when weʻre wondering the woods.

Yes.  Lots about flowers.  Theyʻre beautiful, can be evocatively fragrant, and what a wonder full distraction.

When I wrote and pictured hibiscus, I showed maʻo hau hele, our endemic state flower, bright lemon-colored blooms on a big shrub.  The one from this island has pure yellow flowers, while one on Maui has a maroon heart.  The following from Forest and Kim Starr:

And below is a previously shared photo from friend Lisa, with kapa she dyed using the flowers.  

So.  Iʻve been playing with waihoʻoluʻu (dyes) too with a lot of good-natured guidance from Lisa.  Except using our maʻo hau hele, and the result has been a greener tone:

I used muslin to test.  Gather and cook wilted flowers for 10 or 15 minutes.  For the yellow, I wet the muslin and soaked it in the yellow flower liquid...

And then the greenish, I added fireplace ash:

The result was immediately obvious.  Stirred and cooked for not too long, then put in washed and dried muslin, lomi-ed it briefly, squeezed and hung on the line.  Like indigo dye, the greenish slightly oxidized when exposed to air, and turned bluish.  The magics of chemistries.  Iʻm thinking that my color is greener because our flowers lack the maroon center.  It seems to be, so the theory goes, all because of various anthocyanins, chemicals responsible for red or blue colors in plants.  Hmmm...  Lisa suggested I try hau flowers... stay tuned for info about that. 
Lots of combinations and permutations to consider and experiment with.

OK?  Itʻs a spectacular day up here, so Iʻm cutting this short and heading outside.

As always, be well...

With aloha,

BobbyC

maniniowali@gmail.com

April 12, 2020. Easter Sunday and Huamoa Kalakoa

The day dawned clear and chill here at Keaʻau ma uka, heralded by loud Kentucky cardinals.  No breeze to speak of, rainbowed raindrop prisms hang suspended from fronds of hāpuʻu pulu.  The sky is a soft pastel blue, thinly veiled by high high clouds.  After the cardinals, ʻapapane chorus dominates morning playlist in otherwise ear-ringing stillness.  Rather than a stroll to Keanakākoʻi to watch as the rising sun pinkened Maunaloa, today we watched changing skycolors from the kitchen window.

And, because I track seasons using house-interior-as-sundial (good thing was clear this morning!):

the left-hand edge of the window shadow still has a few feet to go (to the left) before reaching Ka māuikiʻikiʻi o ke kauwela (summer solstice).  

The mostly-quiet encourages us to muse and remember other Easter mornings, in our family, dressed up more than usual for church, anticipating one of the few holiday meals of the year.   And yes, SentimentalBob is marking this day with food...Vinha Dʻalhos with roasted potatoes, macaroni pimento salad, a little casserole of mashed orange sweet potatoes with crushed pineapple and cinnamon, and...canned asparagus!  No idea how that last made it to our table.  In the old days they were fat spears of white, and now theyʻre long, slender, and green.  Traditions.  Traditions keep us centered and connected.  Especially now.  Something to focus on...foods, morning walks, like that.  

Before, we used to dye eggs.  I remember those packages of Rit or Paas dye, vinegar, etc.  But now...again, thanks to Lisa and her talents, using all natural dyes, and playing with immersion times and concentrations...

HUAMOA  KALAKOA 

(hua=egg or fruit, moa = chicken; kalakoa = variegated)

Above, Left to Right, then Top to Bottom:

ʻalaea, ʻōlena with lime, ʻōlena with baking soda, ʻalaea

ʻōlena, maʻo, maʻo, mauve petunia

red begonia, ʻukiʻuki, maʻo hau hele, pōpolo

ʻAlaea = red clay, ʻōlena = turmeric, maʻo = Hawaiian cotton, ʻukiʻuki = blue-fruited lily, maʻo hau hele = endemic yellow hibiscus, pōpolo = tomato-related endemic shrub with dark dark purple little fruits.

Amazing...

Oh.  And since weʻre being celebratory, I was persuaded to post these.  Lei kokiʻo (again, cultivated yard flowers) we fashioned for a friends wedding last summer:

And Lisa wanted to see this one again:

Though kokiʻo doesnʻt have a scent according to my nose, pīkake most certainly does, and is a favorite!  Those ivory buds of jasmine (above) from treesflowers.com, were a favorite of Kaʻiulani, who appreciated peacocks (pīkake); flowers sharing the name.

The joys of scented flowers, perfumes wafting from early morning dew-laden blooms, or carried on warm evening breezes.  Ephemeral delights... Please note, that my olfactory organs do not recognize pakalana, apparently because of a genetic defect.

I was visiting Ilima one time at Popo and Tūtūʻs house up Wilhelmina Rise.  Popo had a trellis of pakalana by the side of the carport, and the flowers were in bloom.  Ilima was picking, smelling, enjoying them, and so I picked, smelled and...nothing!  I told her I had always thought that the colors and shape of the flowers were the reason they were favored, not thinking that "Chinese violets" should be a clue that they smelled good.

ahhhh Pakalana

hawaiianleistand.org

While weʻre on the topic of scented blooms, just as I was falling asleep last night, this popped into my head, written by Gordon Beecher and Johnny Nobel, one of those classic hapa-haole songs:

  A Song of Old Hawaii

Besides my addiction to tiare and itʻs scented monoi coconut oil, other favorites follow, in no particular order; all with extremely pleasing fragrances.  All are native or endemic.

Hōlei: a tiny flower, related to plumeria, also with a milky sap.  A now-extinct species used to grow in Kīpukapuaulu.  This is a Maui species planted in Kīpukapuaulu.

Photo by Alan Cressler

Below, for an idea of scale:

Kupaoa: tiny flowers, very delicate, kinda musky scent, formerly used to perfume kapa.

Photo by Alan Cressler

Maile:  also related to plumeria, itʻs milky sap carries the fragrance, and is released when the young stems are stripped off (ʻuʻu) their woody cores. 

Photo by Forest and Kim Starr

Pua maile:  similar to pua hōlei if you look closely.  Maile flowers are also tiny and easy to miss in the tangle of vines.

Photo from Wikipedia

Palapalai: a fern growing in dappled shade with a woodsy scent, used to honor the elemental Laka on the kuahu (hula altar) and worn by hula kahiko dancers.  

Photo by Alan Cressler

Puapilo (or maiapilo):  our endemic caper.  Very delicate flowers open in the evening, and fade to mauve the following morning.

Photo by Bob

And we canʻt forget a couple of favorite imports.

ʻAwapuhi keʻokeʻo (white ginger):  buds are picked at the stage above and manually opened before sewing into fragile lei.

Photo by Bob

And last, but certainly not least, freesia.  These have been grown in Hawaiʻi nei for a long time, especially in cooler, drier regions ma uka, like Waimea, where they are fashioned into cherished and rare Spring lei.  Chinese lilies, as they are locally known, are still scenting the breezes on the lānai at Kukuiʻohiwai.  For you, HK:

OK then.  The sun shines, the loft warms, and I must exercise and walk.  Then cook the vinha dʻalhos.  This time, pork:  Make marinade in a pot: 2 parts vinegar, 1 part water.  A palmful of salt.  Stir to dissolve salt.  Add:  Several chopped nīoi (Hawaiian chilla peppa).  A small head of garlic crushed and peeled.  Add fist-sized (or a little smaller) chunks of pork butt.  Soak for two days on a shady kitchen counter.  Stir a couple times a day.  No need be in the ice box.  Vinegar and garlic kills the pilau stuff.  Add red potato and bring to boil, then simmer for half hour.  Skim scum.  Drain meat and potato.  Put on baking sheet or pan and roast for 40 minutes or longer, depending on how dry you want the meat.  Mmmmm.  

NOTE:  this is the plantation-style vinha dʻalhos I grew up with.  No fancy spices, wine, or what-la:  Neva have!  So as we are experiencing now, you make do with what you get...

Please:  Stay Well, and appreciate all the good we DO have...

As always, with warmest aloha,

BobbyC

maniniowali@gmail.com