FSZ.10.28.2009

Wednesday, October 28, 2009
Dear Feed Store Zealots,
ALOHA! That means “Hello”, “Goodbye”, “Love”, “Breath/Breathe” and a whole lot of other really nice things.
So, Aloha, everyone.
It’s my first morning on the Island of Hawaii in the chain of islands that we know as “Hawaii”. The Coqui frogs are still chirping outside but they will soon go to sleep. Meanwhile, the crickets are non-stop and the mourning doves have just begun to coo-coo-ooo-ooo-ooo… The air is moist and warm, about 75 and holding. It has rained on and off since I arrived yesterday afternoon.
I should say a bit about the Coqui frogs. Coqui’s are a non-native invasive species accidentally imported to the Islands in what was probably a vegetation shipment from the Phillipines for one of the ‘Big Box’ hardware outlets on Hawaii. They are nocturnal, hence the dusk-till-dawn chirping, and have no enemies here. They thrive in warm, wet climates and have reproduced over the past 10 or so years like Eveready Bunnies. The sound they make altogether is a maddening cacophony: the first note is higher than the second, starting with a high ‘C’ and ending about a 5th or so higher: ko-KEE, ko-KEE. It is incessant and annoying until you learn to ignore it, and unfortunately is so close to the beginning notes of my cell’s ringtone that I keep reaching for the off button. No good: they just keep on thrumming.
Speaking of which, the charming whistle tune Verizon so cheerily provides as a ringtone is, in fact, the theme song for a commercial for medication purported to alleviate “Male erective dysfunction”. I’m sorry, but this just begs the question, why the need to qualify it as a “Male” dysfunction? Is there such a thing as “Female erectile dysfunction”? I mean, really. Where does the male ego stop? Why don’t they have a pill for “Male Inability to Do the Dishes”, or “Male Sensory Overload While Shopping”? (I can just see Mike’s face about now…) As if the occasional struggle to ‘perform on demand’ was the worst of the myriad male dysfunctions.
I have been challenged to get my son Matt’s garden back on track. The soil is freakin’ black with ground volcanic cinder, and in some places is downright clayey. Where clay came from on such new ground is a mystery to all. There is some sense that the soil is from the initial construction of the road system or construction of the random houses on this hillside. All the kids (my son, his financee’, and entourage) know is that the zucchini, tomatoes and summer squash grew enormously and then turned black and died before blooming.
Apparently, there is no quintessential guide to vegetable gardening in Hawaii, save an ancient tome written by an old Japanese lady in Honolulu. The microclimates on the Islands don’t lend themselves to one-stop gardening advice: Matt’s land is sloping, East face, rainforest, and cooler temperatures than many other locations (60’s-80’s). The sun rose at about 5:30 this morning and will go down at about 6:30. The days will shorten somewhat, but not the extremes we see in the higher latitudes. That whole tilted sphere in space thing.
Dude! I just squished a micro-cockroach that seems to have come out of my laptop… ew, gross!
The growing season for, ahem, herb, here is divined as ‘short’ and ‘long’. You can put some stuff in the ground and it will dawdle along for 6 months, and plant again for a 3-4 month cycle. Furthermore, if your plants stay in the ground, during the winter months they will die back, and then start growing again when the season turns. Imagine: a double growing season without winter kills! “‘Tis a consummation devoutly to be wish’d”…that’s Hamlet.
Now, Matt has chickens and a pig, so manure is not an issue. They say that things planted in pigshit did really well at first, but the black rot struck anyway. Someone told them to mulch their plants, but that seems silly in a rainforest, even counterproductive. Someone else told them to put shredded newspaper under their plantings to attract worms. Maybe. We are considering physical barriers, like moats, or copper strips around individuals or beds, or perhaps gypsum, which most bugs won’t cross. I plan on testing the soil in all areas: I think there is a shortage of potash and an overabundance of carbon. What we’ve decided to do is mix in more cinder in the clayey terraces to aid aeration and drainage. I’m concerned that this will increase the carbon levels. My strongest sense is to stick to what actually likes to grow here: tropical or Asian varieties like longbeans, Japanese eggplant instead of European, and Kabocha squash instead of zucchini.
One other issue that is distressing for this lover of dark, leafy greens: Rats. Another non-native invasive species, brought courtesy of the early European travelers, have a parasite called “Rat Lung Worm”. Kind of makes your butt pucker just thinking about it, huh? Well, if snails crawl across infected rats’ droppings they pick up the parasite. Then, the parasite’s eggs are excreted in the slime of the snails as they crawl through your garden. If humans unwittingly eat the slime that may have been left behind on, say, your lettuce or spinach, the parasite is transferred. The resulting infestation can do a number of things: you may have flu-like symptoms; you may sicken and die, or perhaps; as in the case of a local, formerly healthy, young surfer dude, end up paralyzed for life. Spinach=death. No wonder I can’t get these people to eat chard!
Other interesting notes: almost all of the milk, beef and eggs consumed on the Islands are imported. In a place where Bermuda grass is a major maintenance nuisance, of rolling hills perpetually misted and rained upon, of moderate temperatures and stable day length, cows and chickens are a rarity. Weird, huh. Fighting cocks are everywhere, illegality notwithstanding.
Driving through the upland suburbs of Hilo proper, we passed a pasture of about 2+ acres where 2 varieties of cattle fed on verdant silage. (Is that the proper term: silage? Or is silage processed feed?) Some were a rusty red with odd Asian-type faces, the others looked to be angus. They looked well-fed but at 5 pm, all were grazinggrazinggrazing: no chewing of cuds here. From what I have learned from Terry they may be short on feed, but I would say due to shortage of space, not grass. They Bermuda was about as healthy as it gets, definitely. There is a cow pasture next door and today I will investigate. By the way, no shortage of cowpies or rain or warm temperatures. Plenty of gleaning to be done here on a daily basis, I think.
As for Avocado ‘farming’: Matt laughed out loud when I suggested the idea. Everyone, and I mean everyone, has at least one avocado tree in their yard. They grow like weeds, along with mango, papaya, banana and plumeria. Now, rambutan, a fabulously odd-looking lychee relative is grown on plantations for export at a premium. The trees are like mulberries, which are also raised for local consumption, and the fruits are about 2” in length and protected by a tough, red skin with curly, non-painful spikes protruding all around. The skin is easily split and peeled with a fingernail, exposing a moist white flesh surrounding a grape-sized pit. They last forever in the fridge and are fascinating and beloved by children, Middle Easterners and Asians. Now stop it you guys! Great to carry on picnics to the beach for a thirst quenching, low sugar snack. Most of the fruits we’re used to, like apples and peaches, are mealy and tasteless, as well as expensive, by the time they get here.
Well, it hasn’t rained for at least an hour now, so it’s making up for lost time. The rain floats in sometimes, while at other it just pours monsoon-style. Still, the rain and the air hover at 75 degrees, making it one long tepid shower.
Here come the pounding feet of my grandson Adam, 4. He calls me ‘Auntie’, the nickname given to any post-pubescent woman on the Islands. When I introduced myself as ‘Tutu’, which means grandmother, he looked around and asked, “Where is Tutu”, his maternal grandmother who lives on Kauai. I’ve been away too long. For now he calls me auntie, but soon hopefully he will remember that I am Tutu Sky, Grandmother Sky, my favorite nickname. Little Maya, nicknamed Choo-chee (no one knows why, but then there’s Genghis…) is 2 and full of beans. She wouldn’t look at me for the longest time, but gave a big squeeze and kiss at bedtime.
I have a little alcove in the upstairs of the a-frame while Matt completes the room addition. Jungle light filters in through the windows facing west and east. Today we will finish taping and then paint the new room, and hopefully Matt and all will be able to move in there within a few days. He has taught himself to build on a scale that is impressive given his lack of experience, money and time. The addition juts out to the north from the angled wall that slopes away to the south. The upstairs is a large room with windows and a loft, with a nice-sized bathroom filling the gap. He plans on placing colored river stones on the floor of the shower, and beautiful blue and green tiles on the walls. It will be his/my first tile job. Hooboy!
Jobs are scarce, menial and low-pay. Everyone is working the system: Matt is making $65/hr installing solar panels, and is still eligible for the bulk of his unemployment. Dawn has unemployment, works under the table for a tax accountant (how friggin ironic!), gets WIC allotments and a childcare subsidy. The childcare subsidy goes to her sister, who lives here under the radar, and who is also on unemployment. I will look for jobs, but bartending and administration assistant look to be the only viable option for now. I will look at subbing, but they are already furloughing teachers every other Friday and sending kids home to deal with the budget crisis. Meanwhile, tourism is down, and will peak again during the holidays. Until then, everyone seems to be holding their breath.
Dawn said last night, much as she hates to admit it, that what the Islands need is a major hurricane to bring in Federal Disaster funds. What is this country coming to when people actually hope for disaster? What happens when we’ve run out of money for unemployment, welfare, food stamps, medicare, education, and bail-outs? Will we leave Afghanistan and bring home 100,000 troops? To do what, exactly?
In thinking about what is going on around us, I wonder how we will all find our ways? I read an interesting little book on the plane: The Mercy, by Toni Morrison. She’s a black woman who wrote The Color Purple, and Beloved. This story focuses on four different women in the tobacco and sugar plantations during the 1700’s. Each woman was trapped, enslaved, literally and otherwise, by the social and economic conditions of the times. Even the white woman, a mail order bride from the Netherlands, became a slave when her husband died of small pox and prevailing law made her very widowhood illegal: she was neither able to inherit her husband’s wealth or property. Nor was it socially, morally or acceptable under the religious leadership of the colony for her to remarry.
Her 3 slave girls were neither her property nor were they able to be freed. The 2 indentured handymen, whom the husband had actually paid in small coin, were now owing more years of servitude as the cash payments did not shorten their contracts.
All in the end suffered financial and physical ruin. All wandered a strange and forbidding landscape of intermittent lawlessness and oppressive European laws and mores. Survival came down to outwitting disease, starvation, violence and death. Love was not a concept allowed for any other than God, whichever God you chose or was appointed. None could escape their fate.
Today we have new laws, new mores, new ideas and technologies. But for each of us, outwitting death and destruction is still our unavoidable fate.
The point of the story is this: we can be forced into slavery, we can accept slavery, we can even choose to enslave ourselves. How we deal with any of these choices defines us free- thinking and –feeling human beings. Many of us are angry with our government, employers, the economics or our times, or are fearful of what is to come in such uncertainty. It is in how we defeat these circumstances that we define and create a possibility of personal freedom. If we fight wrongly, we risk enslaving ourselves, whether to the law or our own psychology. If we fight well, righteously, then, perhaps, we may free not only ourselves but those who follow.
All in all, I am content to be here, and look forward to what comes next. I have no idea what that is, but I know that in the moments of choosing that arise every day, I choose enslavement or freedom. I hope I choose well.
Love and hugs to all, especially my dear friends with whom I have enjoyed hours of debate and amiable companionship,

Celeste