February 2, 2026
What type of bird is this? It is about the size of a sparrow, and is mostly yellow. There is no visible difference between the male and the female, as far as I can tell, but the young are a dull yellow – almost a drab khaki color! I don’t think it is a canary! I have seen them around the island and I was glad when they first started to come to my feeder.
I tend to think of the birds at my feeder in terms of the old feudal system in Europe in the 1400’s.
The Northern Red Cardinal male with his dark red plumage and laid back almost standoffish behavior, I tend to equate to being the Baron or the Count- the top of the local class system. The female who is brown, is even more reserved and regal. She is the Baronness, or the Contessa! The Red Headed Cardinals are what I would call the Vicomte – one step below the Count, but above the commoner! The green Honeycreepers are the courtiers, the business owners, or the townspeople – the middle class. Then come the small green birds with the long sharp beaks who inhabit the hedge- the commoners – who rarely make an appearance at court or at the feeder.
The yellow birds, I have not been able to classify. They tend to rule the feeder when they are there. Even though they are not much larger than the smallest green birds, and are smaller than the Honeycreepers or the Red headed cardinals, they dominate the activity – pushing all else – even the Northern Red Cardinals – out of the feeder until they are done! Maybe they are the court jesters?
And maybe I have been reading too much of the works of Alexandre Dumas?!
I have been gathering up pallets where ever I can get them. I’m going to need quite a few for the 1x boards to be used as the diagonal siding on the house.
The pile under the house was all gone at one time – now I have another pile. Someone needs to spend some time disassembling them! I guess that “someone” will have to be me!
The old generator has been giving me trouble. Today, I needed to top off the solar system as it has been overcast for the past few days and the panels have not been able to generate enough watts. The old generator would not start. So, I got out the new one. I have had it for almost six months or so, and purchased it when the old one would not start. While I was waiting for the new one to arrive, I spent some time on the ignition system of this generator and got it to run. Maybe I need to spend more time on it once again!
After running the generator while I had breakfast, I went over to Ahi. I removed the forms from the column cap at the front west corner of the property.
Using the form material from the other cap, along with more of the same, I built forms for the column cap at the front east corner. With some sand and gravel from my pile in the road, along with some water and cement, I mixed up some concrete in the wheelbarrow to pour the cap on this column. This was not a large enough project to warrant dagging the concrete mixer and the generator over here.
Back at Holowai, the porch at the shed has deteriorated to the point where I might step through the flooring boards. This has been an ongoing issue – even during the last part of my earlier time here in December, but “don’t do today, what you can put off until tomorrow” has been a good motto – so far!
Well, I could not put it off any longer.
When I disassemble a pallet for the 1x boards to use on the roof, or as exterior siding, there are also the 2x supports. I use these as the floor boards on my shed porch as well as for other projects.
Now that the shed porch is repaired, I can pickup Alanah at Kona airport.
We leave Kona after doing some shopping. The vegetation along the highway opens up for just a short span after we have past Kealakekua Bay – the place where the natives killed Captain Cook – and we get a nice view of the sun reflecting off the ocean as it heads towards a sunset. Something we will not see because in ten or fifteen miles we round the corner of the island and leave the west facing shore for the shore facing south and east.
The next morning is a clear day. Hardly a cloud in the sky in the morning.
We head down to the ocean at Honuapo – just to say that we actually went to the ocean while we were in Hawaii.
A bit of maintenance and yard work is required on Holowai Road.
The lawn mower makes quick work of maintaining the grass on both sides of Holowai Road.
We set up the computer to watch a Wildcats basketball game. Unfortunately, the internet crapped out on us early in the second half!
The signs at Ahi are a bit faded, so I removed them to make it easier for Alanah to touch them up.
Setting them up on an easel made repainting the lettering easier.
They walked on, thinking of This and That, and by-and-by they came to an enchanted place on the very top of the Forest called Galleons Lap, which is sixty-something trees in a circle; and Christopher Robin knew that it was enchanted because nobody had ever been able to count whether it was sixty-three or sixty-four, not even when he tied a piece of string round each tree after he had counted it…Sitting there they could see the whole world spread out until it reached the sky, and whatever there was all the world over was with them in Galleons Lap.
The repainting and repairing of the frames was a bit more of a chore, but we got it done!
“What I like doing best is Nothing.”
“How do you do Nothing,” asked Pooh after he had wondered for a long time.
“Well, it’s when people call out at you just as you’re going off to do it, ‘What are you going to do, Christopher Robin?’ and you say, ‘Oh, Nothing,’ and then you go and do it.
It means just going along, listening to all the things you can’t hear, and not bothering.”
“Oh!” said Pooh.”
― A.A. Milne, Winnie-the-Pooh
After taking Alanah back to Kona for her return trip to Arizona, I set to work on the pile of branches near the chipper.
It is always surprising how much the pile reduces in size when it gets run through the chipper.
And the area is sporting a much cleaner look.
I build a bit of a rock wall above the area where the chipper is and stash the chipped material behind the wall to help level off this area.
The next project is to finish the floor in the shower. Using smooth, round rocks, I set them in mortar to create a sort-of flat surface. Once there are rocks all set in the floor, I will pour grout over it all to lock the rocks in place and fill in the voids between the rocks. This is a beginning – not a finish, as I will need to get more of these round smooth flat rocks to finish.
The signs get reinstalled at the Ahi property.
Some days are better than others:
Today was a good day. One of the items on my “to do” list for this trip was to grout the walls in the bathroom at Ahi. Today, I built forms for a concrete cap for the lower half of the walls at Ahi. As I grout the walls, I can pour this cap. Now, I need to find some anchor bolts to put into this concrete cap to bolt the upper frame part of the walls to the lower masonry part!
Alanah has sent me pictures of the tomatoes we have planted in the gardens in Arizona.
These were some old roma tomatoes that had gone “squishy” in the bottom drawer of the refrigerator, so I planted the entire tomato in garden in the backyard.
There seem to be quite a few larger roma tomatoes growing here.
In a pot at the front door, there are tomato plants. We aren.t sure what type of tomatoes these are. They might be hold overs from the smaller yellow gourd shaped tomatoes that keep voluntarily coming up from three years ago.
Meanwhile, back in Hawaii, I watch as the adult yellow birds do a bit of “parenting”.
The yellow bird parents actually have three chicks they are raising. The young birds continue to squalk and flutter their wings, begging to be fed – all the while standing in the middle of the feeder with lots of food at their feet. The parents are teaching the young to fend for themselves by refusing to feed them. A bit of tough love!
I check my email, and find a message from the USGS – Episode 43 has begun!
February 15, 2026
I get in the truck and make the hour long trip to the caldera in the park.
The best drive-in-movie I’ve ever been to!
Grouting the walls at the Ahi bathroom, and pouring the cap will be a bit larger project than mixing concrete for the corner column cap, so I hauled the generator and the mixer over to Ahi. I set these up on the road next to my sand/gravel pile. I could only put a small amount of mixed concrete in the wheelbarrow at a time. The weight in the wheelbarrow tends to make it want to roll too fast going down the driveway – faster than I can control it – unless I reduce the amount for each trip. Also, once I get to the bottom of the driveway, I then have to push it up hill to the bathroom. This will require lots of trips, but I would never be able to push a full wheelbarrow up the hill!
I have built a short rock wall at both sides of the back wall of the bathroom at Ahi to be able to pile up rock and debris behind the bathroom wall. I want to level this area off for a water storage tank. Leveling this area is one of those items on my “to do” list!
Also – not on the list – I am pouring a front porch for the bathroom entry! Another reason for having the mixer over at Ahi.
I am also building a rock wall to support a front porch at the Holowai house! I stack up rocks 6″ apart and will fill the void with concrete when I bring the mixer back from Ahi.
The scraps from installing the 1x boards on the house roof are piled behind this rock wall – just to have someplace to contain them.
February 17, 2026
In peparation for making some doors for the upper section of the house, I used the table saw to cut a notch out of the edge of some 2 x 4;s. As I was making my last cut, the saw motor overheated and quit! I think that the capacitor has given out. Too much overloading, too much prolonged use, and perhaps not enough constant electrical power. I may have to buy a new motor. Maybe I can buy just a capacitor???
Another project for another day – searching the internet for repair parts for the table saw!
Something easier – changing the oil in the truck!
Yesterday I poured the other two sections of the porch floor for the bathroom at Ahi! I think I will leave the forms on for a few days to protect the edges until they dry a bit more!
But I can begin the framing of the upper portion by cutting and drilling the wall plates! I have some of the brown treated wood for subterranian use (supposed to be treated to resist rot) for this!
February 18, 2026
The upper frame portion of the bathroom walls are taking shape.
The branches of the trees above the bathroom are going to be in the way of the roof. I use my power tools to cut through these branches and remove them.
I drag them away from the bathroom and cut them into smaller pieces. Then I pile them up next to the driveway. They will rot and fill in this low area.
A fruit stand in town has some bananas. I haven’t had any for a while, so I picked up a hand of bananas, They are a bit green now, but in a week . . . ?
The town of Captain Cook is between Kona and Na’alehu. The town extends up the hill from Kealakekua Bay, and past the highway some 2,000 feet above the bay. At one side of the bay, there is a monument – erected on the spot where the natives killed Captain Cook. Along the highway, some 2,000 feet above the bay, there is another obelisk – similar, but smaller than the one on the shore of the bay. The inscriptions on this monument are in Japanese, or Chinese – I don’t know which, as I don’t read either!
This monument is in a small park on the grounds of a buddhist enclosure. They might be totally unrelated to Captain Cook.
We have had a bit of rain the past few days, some of which has collected in the wheelbarrow.
With the overhead branches removed, I have been able to move forward with building the roof over the bathroom. The porch area will be an integral part of the roof, and will have two posts from a large tree trunk that I salvaged when the neighbors were clearing their property!
The framing is easily seen from Ahi Road, but yet it is still partially obscured by the large trees on the edge of the hill.
The roof framing is more visible from down in the property than from up on the road.
The overhang section of the roof continues unchanged across the one side of the bathroom- the side closest to the property line – and this extends to cover the porch.
In order to position the post and beam that is on the side of the porch away from the property line, I needed to remove the upper section of the outhouse. I have not removed the entire outhouse yet as I am using it as a place to store my tools out of the rain. I have cutoff the rafter tails on the overhang on the “long” side of this structure and installed the 2 x 6 fascia board. I need to do the same to the opposite “short” side that is nearest to the shower.
As I was positioning myself to start cutting the rafter tails on the shower side of the bathroom roof, I caught something strange over the shower. There, on a large branch are two fully grown Jackson Chameleons – a male and a female. The male is the lighter colored one – the one with the horns. The darker green one is the female.
It appeared like the male was trying to mate with her, but she was sayng, “Not now! There is a human over there . . . and he is watching us”
I assume the male didn’t care as he kept approaching her, and she kept rebuffing him.
Finally, she turned and walked away, down the branch, leaving him there with a look on his face as if to say, “What did I do” Where are you going? Did I say something wrong?”
And so, February draws to a close!
TTFN
TropicalCastaway 