Family Exercise

It's been great for the past couple of weeks we've been able to work in our 1.5-2 mile walk every evening before supper. Well...we did skip last night (pouring rain) and the night before (we had taken an epic family bike ride...see below), but other than that we're back in our walking rhythm.
We've found that going left from our driveway is a nice walk...not a lot of barking dogs or car traffic.

 Stella loves these walks! She doesn't let us forget. It's really great for the kids to run and get out a lot of energy before we have our evening meal and wind down for the day. The boys told me that they were very happy we're walking again.

It's hard to see in this picture, but this is actually a very steep hill...right over an old lava tube.

 The halfway point for the 1.5mile walk is a huge Albizia tree. At the base of the tree is what you see below. Incredible, viney, lushness.

 Some exotic flowers along the way...

 The Albizia tree, a non-native invasive...could the same be said for our family...are we non-native invasives?

 The walk back. If we're up for another 1/2 mile then we walk to the next street and head back. The boys walk on ahead.

Our epic bike journey. We have not been riding our bikes lately and the boys were itching to go on a bike ride. Reeve's goal was to ride his 10 speed on a "real" road, with no gravel, exposed lava, or cinder. They have a friend that lives 5.3 miles from our house and they begged for me to call and see if it was okay for them to ride their bikes to his house. Not wanting them to feel like caged animals we said okay. We made sure they had helmets, water, and their safety vests. They went on ahead and we decided to follow them with Stella in the Burley (her coach ride). We are mauka (up mountain) of their friend's house. It was a lovely 5.3mile ride downhill to get there...lovely...beautiful vistas, bright blue ocean in the distance, wind blowing to cool us off as we glided makai (toward the sea). It took us 30 minutes to get there. We hung out and played at the park, and talked with their friend's mom.

 They were watching a cute little 14yr old dog that was the perfect size for Stella to walk

 and to hold.

After the playground we went back to their house to refill our water bottles and enjoyed eating some frozen blueberries. Then we decided we'd better head home. For me, it was grueling! All up, up, up...no nice gentle down at all. It took 1hr and 5minutes for me to make it back...I lagged behind the whole way home. My legs were like jelly when I got off my bike. I had a nice long shower and I was amazed at how energized I felt. The whole way I was dreading and thinking I would not have the energy to make dinner...not so! I felt great and had tons of energy to make a great meal. Exercise is good for me :)

Turkeys and Weeds

GobbleGobbleGobble...we were shocked to hear the sound of a Tom Turkey in our backyard. We knew there were turkeys on the island, but we've only seen them up in paniolo country up in Kamuela.

We had no idea they were in our neck of the woods. He's pretty well hidden in the bush...can you see him? He was huge!

Must be our week for wondering birds. In addition to the large Tom we had a stray black chicken walking up the driveway to our house. Mrs. Drake (one of our ducks) was staring her down while I tried to coax her to stay by throwing her some organic feed. She was chicken and ran into the woods. Mrs. Drake just stood, stupefied, and then our lovely red cardinal couple swooped down and had a feast.

Remember that ulu'he fern I said the boys and I are going to tackle this summer? Well here is a couple of pictures of it. It's great in some areas because it chokes out all other weeds, but right now it is choking out some food and plants that were previously planted.

It is very easy to weed. It is a short lived fern and fairly brittle. It takes a looooonnnng time to decompose, so we will pile it up and break it down to use for mulch.

Above: Our drake Jemima (named before we knew his sex)...um Jemima you better move before we start a fire :)

Above: The boys helped me find these pineapple plants which were completely buried in ulu'he. Below: Reeve weeded and found this coconut palm.

I do not have a before picture for the after picture below. I went to town with our weed wacker, now decked out with wire whips vs. the plastic ones. The plastic ones broke too easily. I went through 10ft of wire ones the other day...it was well worth it! Before the weeds were right up to the cabin...now there is a nice clearing. This is the cabin we lived in when we arrived last year. We lovingly call it the Aloha Cabin...the one we are living in now we call the Ohana Cabin. The overturned blue 600 gallon water tank in the background was our catchment. We're working on this cabin...needs a catchment and electric.

There are some nice banana trees around the Aloha Cabin.