 |
| Ron's front yard |
Aloha! It’s been almost
three months now of living on the Big Island, and a lot has happened. We’ve
moved from our temporary rental space that had all the luxuries: wifi, running
water, electricity; to next door at our friend Ron’s place. He’s letting us
stay here while he’s on the mainland for a couple of months. Now we’ve gotten a
step closer to more primitive living. We have electricity, but we don’t have
running water, which is kind of good because we’ve been bathing with rainwater caught
from the roof and gutter, and our skin has started looking better already. It
rains here almost every day, so there’s no shortage of fresh rainwater.
 |
| Ron's backyard |
 |
| our shower area |
And we
don’t have plumbing any longer, so we have made a “Lovely Loo,” which is basically
a wooden box with a toilet seat on top, and a 5-gallon plastic bucket to catch
all the “stuff.” We’re mulching it with leftover newspaper and paper trash, and
have a double lid to contain any smells.
We take all of the compost
that we’re creating here at Ron’s to our land and put it in the compost bin we
built out of, you guessed it, pallets! Once the bin is full, which is
constantly mulched with fresh leaves and brush, we will allow the compost to
sit undisturbed for one year. The biological organisms will heat the pile with
their activity, and any bad bacteria will be destroyed in the process, leaving
us, in the end, with rich, black composted soil, real black gold. And we are
going to need it because our entire property is only covered with two inches of
soil, and under that is lava rock. We also put together a video of our new
electric-free clothes washing system we call the Twist-n-Shake. ;-) (We might note that it doesn’t twist or shake,
but it sounded cute, so it stuck)
So we’re doing great and
have everything we need. We’ve purchased our land, and have been working on it
diligently for six weeks now. We’ve made a compost bin, and we fenced in a
garden area and started growing pumpkins, lima beans, cherry tomatoes,
tomatillos, kale, beets, celery, carrots, Brazilian spinach, white pineapple,
coconut trees, and a dwarf apple banana tree. There is a platform area with a
tarp over it for getting out of the rain. And most recently, we began laying
cinder on our walking trail and widening it a bit to make it totally
user-friendly. Cinder is similar to crushed stone, but made from volcanic rock.
It is lighter in weight than gravel and has a bluish-black tone to it.
 |
| our garden under construction |
We also hired a contractor
who, with the help of his backhoe, created a nice parking area at the front of
the land for us (pictures to come). This will come in handy for the work truck
we purchased. We found a ’99 Chevy Silverado we named Ginger, with fairly low miles and a v-6 engine. We know, we didn’t
want to get a vehicle if we could help it, but we needed it to get the work and
hauling completed. We must admit though, although it sure is nice getting
places quickly that would otherwise take hours, we’ve benefitted so much from
riding our bikes: great exercise, slower natural pace, zero carbon emissions to
say the least.
 |
| Ginger the truck |
Before we bought Ginger, we
also got our first taste of hitchhiking, both individually and together. We were
a little nervous at first, but seeing so many folks, young, old and in between,
hitching rides like it was the local custom, we felt somewhat eased and
emboldened. And wouldn’t you know it, our first experiences were wonderful. On
Jack’s second time hitching in one day, he was picked up by a nice, generous
guy around his age who seemed like he didn’t have a care in the world. A few
days later, we hitched a ride together from a sweet woman who lived nearby. She
began to talk story, telling us about the book she’s writing, as well as her
plans to move back to Texas for a short while.
Thanksgiving Day on the Big
Island was a real hoot. We had dinner with several of the neighbors. Venus made
her famous cooked greens and Jack put together a beautiful flower arrangement
for the hosts’ table from flowers in Ron’s yard. The food was abundant and
delicious. The company was jovial and warm, and we stayed after all others left
and watched a funny movie with our hosts, Neil and Laura.
So, now that the first
holiday of the season is complete, it’s time to get back to work. Up to now,
we’ve been delving our way into the lot, discovering all kinds of nooks and
special places hidden away by years of unfettered natural processes. Because
the land is so difficult to access with its extraordinary abundance of dense
plant life, we have decided to build a first cabin at about 200 feet back from
the road, in a beautiful area filled with hapu’u ferns, ohia and guava trees.
The location contains what must be a 200-year-old ohia tree that we absolutely love
and around which we will be building.
 |
| Venus & Ron |
The cabin will be approximately
200 sq. ft. It will be screened in and will have a simple tarp roof. We’ll also
be building a separate toolshed and bathhouse that will house the Lovely Loo,
along with a shower area. We aren’t
really sure how long it will take us to build these structures, because
everything seems to be taking much longer than either of us could have
imagined. As soon as we lay down crushed
cinder throughout portions of the cleared living area, we will be camping out until
the structures are finished.
On the weekends when we’re
not working, we’ve been heading down to Kehena Beach near Kalapana. It’s
clothing optional with a very mellow, open-minded crowd and a weekly drum
circle every Sunday afternoon. We’ve also been enjoying just staying at home
and recuperating from all the physical labor. With all of the lush beauty here
on the island, it’s quite easy to slip into a meditative state, and we often do
as we watch the waves crash onto the beautiful black sand, or gaze at the deep
black sky encrusted with countless gleaming stars, or just sit around the
backyard here at Ron’s while the birds sing and go about living their lives.
Well, that’s about it for
now, we will post more as soon as we can with lots of pictures! Happy Holidays
to you all!! xoxo
 |
| Ron's Cabin |
 |
| Mr. Gnome says "Aloha!" |
