Maui Part II

We start our drive on the epic Hana Highway with an amazing stop: Mama's Fish House, considered the best restaurant on the island and I can attest to the fact that it is amazing! I even got a lei with dinner (insert jokes here) and a beautiful black pearl dessert.


After an amazing meal of fresh fish and nice night at the Inn, we actually got on the road. While we were in Maui we had a number of people tell us how terrible the drive was but they never really said why. Our theory was that they did the drive, a very windy 100 miles roundtrip, in one day and yes that would be kind of terrible. But we had loads of time to stop on the way. Our first stop was Na‘ili‘ili-haele (4 Waterfalls Hike)-can you tell this is the entrance to the hike?


The first waterfall was pretty easy to get to, just a short hike through an incredible bamboo forest. Then we started climbing, up ropes and make shift ladders to the other waterfalls and pools, even a bit of swimming to make it to the fourth pool! And the adventure begins!



Next stop was at the Garden of Eden Botanical Arboretum, sounds a little presumptuous right? Actually, no not really. This place was amazinginly beautiful! There were so many plants and trees that we had never seen before and they were so impressive. And at least most of the trees bearing fruit stated wheather they were edible or not, so Keith and I would know what not eat off the ground.



After we got to the end of the road in Hana and got to our amazing rental house (more about that later) we did a great little hike in the Haleakala National Park in the area known as Seven Sacred Pools, but not really the hike they want you to do.


This trail wasn't very well marked and after a bit of trespassing across a taro farm we found what we were looking for. I really have no idea of the name of the waterfall and pool where we ended up, but I do know we were only people there and had a blast!



These next pictures do absolutely no justice to the Venus Pools. After going to this pool, Keith started seriously talking about moving to Maui. The hike to this pool was a little hairy, but completely worth it. This beautiful brackish pool is both warm and cold and it is crystal clear. The roaring ocean pounding just outside the pool, and all the rugged scenery surrounding the area is absolutely breathtaking.



While in Hana we stated at the only place to stay, according to me! The Hamoa Bay House. If you can't find me, that's where I'll be! With a tree full of ripe star fruit in the front yard, an amazing view of the beach and just generally being a wonderfully relaxing place, I just want to go back!



One of the best things about our time in De Young Maui Estate was happy hour! Yes, we actually drank from coconuts and it was delicious!


We're back to reality now and all I can hope is that this suntan can keep me warm all winter long!

Maui: In two parts

Let's start with the posh bit, shall we? Because really is there any other way to describe the Ritz-Carton Kapalua? I'd say no!

With amenities that include a golf cart ride down to the beach instead of walking 2 minutes (no I never did that!) and somehow almost all the staff knows your name (I came here to get away from everyone knowing me!), you know you're some where fancy.

What to do at a fancy resort? While Keith was spending his mornings getting updated on fun things like gastroenterology, infectious diseases I had very hard decisions to make-beach or pool or beach. We had two options for beaches. The D.T. Fleming beach was part of the resort but still open to the public and one would think it would be a little crowded, but NO! Until about 10am I had that beach almost all to myself!

But because we are in Maui, I did have a slightly better choice: the Oneloa Bay beach. It was almost exactly the same distance walk from the resort AND on a very popular walking route and somehow no one and I mean no one! is on this beach! Loved it! Oh and another perk of sitting on the beach all day in Maui-you can whale watch from the beach. Just sit there and look out and you'll see humpback whales jumping out the water. It was amazing.

And of course there's the pools at the resort that were surprisingly quiet even with kids running around...or maybe it was just that I had my ipod cranked up all the way ;-)

As a slight break from laying on the beach, one afternoon we went on a small adventure to the Olivine Pools-a series of tide pools that are deep enough to swim in but it's still a little freaky because a surf with massive waves that are crashing right behind you.



Let's go back to the whales! On our last day at the resort, before we took off to do some real (kind of) adventuring, we went on a whale watch with the Pacific Whale Foundation . We saw more whales than we saw when we went whale watching in Tonga, but in Tonga we got a lot closer! Still is was amazing to see multiple sets of mama and calf whales playing and jumping out of the water!


Now, lets get as far off the beaten path as we can, while still eating as much delicious food as possible!

Winter Farm Update

But is it really winter? Do you guys remember last winter? I don't think I'll ever forget last winter! Exactly one year ago we finally got water back after two weeks of frozen pipes. We had a bunch of snow, frigid temperatures and were living in a double wide that was so cold that it felt like a tent had to have better insulation. Today, the sun is shining, there's barely any snow and it's supposed to get up to the mid to high 30s, just like yesterday and the day before. On days like today it can get up to 65 degrees in the greenhouse, granted it still gets really cold at night, like 3 degrees cold!


We do have a few things growing in the greenhouse, albeit slowly. I just need days to be a little longer days full of sunshine and of course warmer temps would be lovely. I'm hoping that by mid-February we will be eating salad greens, kale, spinach, arugula and hopefully radishes from the greenhouse. It'll be a little longer wait for beets and ages still for leeks and broccoli.

And of course I'm planning for the spring! Last year by April I had tomatoes, green beans, and and a whole bunch of other stuff growing in the old greenhouse. I may have started things a little early this year, but I've already started peppers and eggplants. It has taken almost a month for them to even to sprout, but now almost too many of them have! I'm hoping to have them planted in containers by April (depending on weather of course!) in our little greenhouse and maybe by August we'll have an insane amount of 4-6 different kinds of peppers and eggplants.

A year ago we did not have chickens and I barely remember life without them! We are getting 6-7 eggs a day. We keep waiting for the day that it's going to be too cold and they are going to go on strike and in preparation we have been keeping a back stock of eggs. Our inventory keeps getting bigger (right now we're at 6 1/2 dozen!) and the hens just keep laying! Maybe it's because they're happy that they have a rooster again!


As I may have mentioned out old, huge rooster started attacking people, so he had to go, if ya know what I mean. A friend brought a baby chick over that she was pretty sure was a rooster. I named him Gandalf the Grey in hopes that he would grow into the name. Then a few things happened that confused us. We got a few eggs that looked like the kind of eggs a hen lays when she is first starting out, then we got an incredibility small egg. It was that super small egg that convinced us that our rooster must actually be a hen....damn! We wanted a rooster to start incubating and raising chicks in the spring-where are we going to get a new rooster in the middle of winter!

Well, we were wrong. Our rooster we thought was a hen is a rooster. How to we know this? Even though he is still smaller then all of our hens, he's started doing things that only a rooster would do. No, he's not crowing yet, but lets say that I don't think we need to worry about having fertilized eggs to incubate this spring!


And then there's Fang II. He is ever present, constantly following me around while I'm outside and doing his best to slip inside. He's really good at getting inside and his Christmas present was a day and night napping in the house. Now he thinks that where's he's supposed to be and the constant scratching on the door is getting pretty annoying!


Inside we have a little arboretum going on! This was a great Christmas for trees! I got both a dwarf fig tree and a meyer lemon tree. They both look kind of sad right now, but I will nurse them to be amazing trees (I hope!)


I'm so glad Keith puts up with all of this! I can't wait for this spring and summer when we have veggies growing all over the place, not just little baby sprouts!

Merry Christmas!

Thinking about writing this, it felt like I was going to write one of those holiday newsletters that no one actually reads the whole way through-maybe that's how this always read. With days full of work and evenings full of getting ready for Christmas there just hasn't been time to write anything.

On Sunday December 5th, Keith got up early to go on his first hunting trip with his friends Nic and Ed. Keith was pretty certain that he was going to come home empty handed and looked at this trip as a learning experience. At least he looks good in camo!


Long story short, Keith came home with an elk! I'm sure if you haven't heard the story yet, Keith will be happy to tell you! I've heard it a number of times, but I know I still can't do it justice! Keith shot a 2 (ish) year old female elk at about 3 in afternoon. It was his first shot on his first hunting trip! It starts to get dark here at about 4 so Keith, Ed, and Nic worked fast in the dark and cold to butcher this huge animal (at least 500 lbs!). Keith brought it home in 5 different game bags that we hung in the shop in the garage.



So you can take your elk to be 'processed', but we know Keith won't let someone else do that! For the next week and half or so our kitchen was butchering central and our whole house smelled like meat!



Keith even hand ground all the meat! We got about 45 thick steaks, 30+ pounds of ground meat, and at least a dozen huge roasts-it's amazing and our freezer is a bit overwhelmed!


And BJ got a huge elk bone to munch on!


And that's that-we have over 200lbs of elk in the freezer and it is delicious!

This house lends itself to wanting to go crazy decorating for Christmas. This year we have the biggest Christmas tree I have ever seen and it was not easy to get in the house.


We cut this massive tree down from our backyard. It had been planted too closely to a couple other trees and a bush that were all slowly strangling each other the bigger they got. The tree didn't look that big outside-inside it looks huge.


We only had enough decorations for the top half of the tree-or a regular size tree-so it took some time to get it all trimmed. Finally, we got it done!



The greenhouse is going well, I'll write about it ad nauseum sometime soon!

Merry Christmas to everyone! Hope you are all having a wonderful holiday and that everything we shipped arrived on time! We'll be hanging out at home feasting on delicious prime rib, drinking too much wine, and eating way to many sweets.

A good old-fashioned greenhouse raising!

Over the past four weeks or so Keith and I have been focused on one thing and one thing only-getting this greenhouse up! We bought a kit from Oregon Valley Greenhouses. Saying it's a kit makes it sound so simple! It was really all the giant pieces of a 16 by 20 ft structure and some confusingly vague instructions. It took a while, but we finally got it all up!

We prepared a section in the pasture that gets an amazing amount of sun even in the winter and has kind of a sweet view!


BJ and Fang (now referred to as Ebony and Ivory) were helpful throughout the whole project. I'm pretty sure that Ivory/Fang is hoping to live in the greenhouse-that will not happen!





For the frist few days of working on the greenhouse were absolutely beautiful! Warm sunny days in the 60s and 70s were perfect for pouring concrete and framing the structure. Most of my job on these days was holding the metal posts level while Keith left for 20 minutes to mix concrete, that kind of sucked, but at least it was nice out!


Then winter descended with a vengeance! Snow, freezing temps and wind made hours of working outside less enjoyable, but thank goodness for smartwool and snow pants! This amount of snow this early in the fall was as a reminder as to why we are even building this greenhouse.



The part I was really worried about was pulling and the securing the plastic on to the frame. Through this whole project it was just Keith and I working together and I thought this was the time to get more that two pair of hands involved. Keith firmly believed we could do this together and I have to give it to him-he was right and we got it up with pretty much no problems at all! After that we just had to put the corrugated plastic ends on and we were good to go!



Today was the first day I had time to actually work in the greenhouse! I planted my little broccoli, cauliflower, lettuce, spinach, kale, arugula, endive, and leeks sprouts that I hope survive through the winter! I also planted seeds of beets, carrots, radishes, and even more lettuce. Please grow! But take my word that there is something really planted under there because this is what the inside of the greenhouse is going to look like pretty much all winter-rows double covered with frost protection fabric.


Today started out sunny and while I was out there working today the temperature got up to 75 degrees inside! But while I was in there the weather turned dark and stormy-at the moment we are having a mini blizzard!


I know I'm planing a little late in the fall/winter, but hopefully soon we'll have some veg!