Hawaiian Vacation Part 1

I promised everyone pictures of the trip to Hawaii to see our son get married. I had never been to Hawaii before so it was very cool to get to go. Good job, Jesse and Satomi for choosing Hawaii for their wedding.

Here is Cy looking very satisfied with his convertible we rented for the trip. You have to rent a convertible when you go to Hawaii, right? We came a week early and stayed in Kailua, which is a beautiful bedroom community NE of Honolulu. If I was moving to Hawaii, I would move here in a heartbeat, I felt right at home immediately. We had a cozy studio exactly 1 block from the beach, so every morning of course we had to walk down to the beach. You would walk down the road where there were all these people running and walking their dogs, and there were little access pathways to the beach which is public between the million dollar homes on the beachfront. Something for everyone! Several mornings we saw the crews of the outrigger canoes going out for a run, and once we saw a couple getting their wedding photos.

Of course the first thing we do in Kailua after our walk and a hearty breakfast of pancakes with macadamia nut sauce, is check out the antiques stores. Yes, there are a few antiques stores on Oahu. Here we are in Heritage Antiques a font of traditional antiques. The owner is holding a pair of beautiful prints from the '30s.

Among my favorite things we found were these traditional poi bowls made of Koa wood.

Who knows how this carving of a buffalo landed up in Hawaii, wish it would have fitted in my suitcase.

Lots of stuff in this store. This is where we found the stone fruit, and well, a few vintage Tori Birch dresses for me.

More typical wares. Fun for your kitchen.

Next day the drizzle started, but we headed out to the Ahoha Stadium Flea Market anyway. Of course I had to buy a cute umbrella in a Hawaiian print. Here we just had to stop for a fresh coconut.

This is how they cut them open. How come they don't cut their hands off? Skill and talent I guess. After you drink the coconut water, they scrape out the soft coconut meat for you to eat.

Muumuus!

Rainy the next day so we decided on a field trip up to the North Shore to see the surfers.

A fun Mexican restaurant on the North Shore.

And we just had to stop at the best shaved ice place on the island. Here is the young man above making the icy treat.

Cy looks happy. Who cares if its raining.

Yes, rainy again. We drove to the east coast of the island, and during a letup in the rain, went to a beautiful botanical garden built in a volcanic crater not too far from Diamond Head. This side of the island is quite dry, so the plantings reflect that.

So pretty here.

 I think this was my favorite place. I wish I could remember the name. A small botanical garden on the south side of Kailua using native plants is being planted on a native Hawaiian spiritual place, it looks across the largest marsh on the island. So peaceful here.

We took advantage of a break in the weather, and took a drive out to an overlook where you can see whales. Well, maybe a stop for ice cream. Here is my green tea and coconut ice creams. Yummy!

Here is where you start your hike up the hills. Hope the rain holds off!

Here's the view part way up.

What a view huh?

Well get out your magnifying glass. There are whales out there. We saw a momma and baby and a single male. Well parts of them anyhow. Hey, a flipper is good!

Well, we couldn't leave Kailua without a visit to Pinky's Puupu bar. I had my first MaiTai and some Puupus (appetizers). Tomorrow we're off to Waikiki, where the wedding will be. Stay tuned for Part 2 of our trip.

Hauling Brush, or Why We're Not Getting More Done On The House!

Several people have asked me lately why I'm not showing more progress on the house. So I am showing you why. In the picture above you see the before. Look at all the broken off branches, the result of the October storm.

Here is the area right below those trees, broken wood all over the place. You can see where we have cut the branches off the firewood tree parts.

Above are two views of our road frontage, where we have hauled the brush for (hopefully!) the city to pick up. This is just the brush from the approximately 1 acre meadow next to the barn. Think of what remains to do on the other 7 acres. Yes, I am using this meadow now for an agility field for my fabulous Aussie Freckles, seen above. She is wondering why I am standing in the middle of the road, not playing with her.

 Above you can see Cy pulling down a "hanger", a broken off tree top of limb. Some of these are quite large, and called " widow makers". Hum, maybe having Cy do this work is not such a great idea.

 Here's the mess in the back of the meadow, fallen wood everywhere. We use the lawn tractor to haul the heavier branches up to the road.

 

You can see what a long fun process it is just to clear up. More work waits when we get to cut and split all the firewood. At least we won't be cold next winter!

October Snow Storm!

Here's what my house looked like the morning after the big storm.

Here's our road.

Here's the meadow and outhouse to the north.

Here's our beloved heritage apple tree, which covered our deck in flowers in May. R.I.P.

Look at the motorhome! We don't think there is any damage, but will need to wait for the snow to melt to do a good examination of the roof.

Its such a mess in CT. There are trees and limbs down everywhere. I don't think we have 1 tree without damage. Especially the oaks, they still had their leaves so they are all damaged. We will have a years work to clean it up. No power, they are saying maybe 2 more weeks! No internet or cable. We have a good wood stove, so we're toasty here, but no water. There's no power in town, so you spend a lot of time driving around looking for a gas station that has power and has gas, then you can wait in line. The PO is open, but no power for the scales so you can ship. Costco was sort of open, the whole store running on a giant generator, if you can believe it. The city plowed the snow, and came and is cutting and pulling the downed limbs that are in the road. There is a shelter for heat and showers at the Middle School. So we'll get along, but boy it is an eye opener. Who knew how vulnerable our society is.

House Progress "The New Room" Part 2

OK, OK I admit progress has been slow. Traveling, making a living, all conflict with working on the old house. However, things are moving along. Here are some pics from last March. This is the SW corner of the room with the floors insulated and down, and the washer and dryer and well pump installed.

 Here is the same corner today. We've begun to enclose the appliances with some great 18th feather edge paneling we found. Too short to use on a wall, its great for this project. The only hold up now is to find pintles that will fit these great turnip ended old hinges. Did I ever show you the wonderful old 18th C windows we put in? Aren't they fine? OK the white paint has to go. I wish you could see all the bubbles in the glass, we've been saving this glass for a long time for something just like this.

Here is the SE corner of the room, with Cy's new TV. We stabilized the wall behind the TV with some left over wood so we could wall mount. This too will be enclosed with the paneling.

Here is the NE corner, still in March, sheet rock and insulation and wiring done, ready for some mud.

This is in April. We hired the foam guys to come in and spray closed cell insulation on the ceiling, so we could be warm and still see our old beams. Here they are covering the beams to protect from the foam.

How's this for a great picture? The guy is in process of spraying foam. Man, I'm getting out of here, its really smelly!

Almost done!

Starting the clean up. They are using wire brushes and claw hammers to release the duct tape covering the beams which protected them from the spray.

Looking cozy? Should be a nice warm winter this year.

Fast forward to August. Since the foam must be covered by fire code, we choose to hand plaster it, rather than put up sheetrock. There was really no way to fasten the sheetrock without hiding the beams. So we spent a long painful summer working on our ceiling. Because the foam left hills and valleys, and is not by nature smooth, I used a teeny tiny trowel to put up the plaster, working along with the grain of the foam and going in between the beams. Here you see Cy putting the final touches on the long sanding process, all hand work, no sanding blocks would work here.

And of course what do you have to do after you sand a lot of plaster? Vacuum it up of course. I am now deliriously happy, because the next step is putting up lots of masking tape and buying paint. Yeah!

Onsite Auction in Rhode Island

Oh, what fun we had. This is my favorite type of auction, which sadly does not happen much anymore, at least out here in New England.

This particular auction was at a 1691 house, see above,  named the Josiah Crane house, a lovely gambrel roof house with beautiful property. I love the fenced in flower garden in front.

This is the giant tent they set up in front of the barn. They started the auction here with the nice smalls and better furniture, like the highboy. After the exciting bidding on the more expensive things, they started a "walk around" to auction off the stuff that was arranged around the outside of the barn, iron charcoal making implements, odd chairs, drying racks, all kinds of obscure farming bits.

Apparently they found a lot of great old stuff up in the barn, and in the outbuildings. This wonderful old wagon was in parts up in the barn. It sold, of course.

After the barn stuff we all walked around to the outbuildings. Here is the Colonial era schoolhouse, with all kinds of wicker piled outside.

Sadly, here is the inside of the school house. There was an antique loom piled in the corner to the left, which I of course bought and hauled out, with risk to life and limb. Well, actually the nice son of the owner hauled it out for me. All we had to do was try and fit it all in the van, unload it, spread it out on the driveway and get out the bug spray. The powder post beetles that had destroyed the back wall had made a start on the loom, or at least I was worried they might have.

Every old farm needs an outhouse! The nice Coke machine in front sold of course

Here's something I've never seen in New England before, a corn crib.

If you look underneath, you can see rough granite pillars that hold up the crib, for air circulation, or so I was told by local people. And the holes in the side are for the same reason.

Here is the old stone blacksmith shop. All the old iron and plows and stuff inside were sold.

What a great day we had. And if you're looking for a property in New England, and maybe Rhode Island would work, here is the realtor's info, Andy Schilke 401-793-6399. The property includes all the beautiful buildings I've shown, as well as 40 acres and is on the Beaver River.