Allogenic Dance

UPDATED 7/20/2020 Please Read Governor Ige's Tenth Supplementary Emergency Proclamation The mandatory 14 Day Quarantine for anyone arriving from out of state is still in place.  The pre-travel testing option has been postponed. Requirements to wear masks in public are extended.  If you are in a building and/or less than 6 feet apart, wear a mask. For more information on Hawaii's COVID-19 response please see  https://hawaiicovid19.com/ As some of you may know, I was a chemical hygiene and safety officer as part of my collateral duties in a laboratory-based former work life.  I have taken PPE (personal protective equipment) training, including face masks and respirators, for roughly half my life.  I have mostly avoided using these things by designing the work environment and protocols to avoid the risk in the first place. As many of you know, I also sew. And I am still an Essential Worker, of the civil service variety.  My work brings me in potential contact ...

6 Years on 0.6 acres In Maryland I progressed through the history of gardening ideas from the Victory gardens of my grandparents, in something of a revival today with several twists, through organic, to polyculture, and intensive rotational companion planted urban farming on an acre.  Arriving at permaculture (growing perennial and woody plants for food to reduce resource requirements and soil disturbance) and the related edible landscaping (intermixing edibles throughout the entire landscape) by way of xeriscaping (focusing on native or ecologically appropriate plants to reduce water, pesticide and fertilizer applications).  Finally arriving at regenerative agriculture and the idea of improving or creating a soil ecology that supports the plants with such diversity and biological activity there is not room for disease or pests.  This had spawned the need for garden planning software that incorporated basic facts about fruits, vegetables, and other...

Updated July 8, 2019 for 2019 hurricane season As an island chain in the center of the Pacific Ocean, 5000 miles from anything, Hawaii is understandably concerned about sustainability, resiliency, and independence in the face of disasters.  And the potential disasters are many: cyclone, tsunami, earthquake, volcanic eruption, landslide, nuclear missile impact... Hawaii Hazards Awareness and Resilience Program (HHARP) I lived or worked in every state on the East Coast.  I've visited every state in the union except North Dakota.  I have never encountered a State sponsored neighborhood Disaster Preparedness Team before, nor a statewide training program.  Hawaii has 2 statewide training programs.  The first is HHARP.  This is the training and planning process every neighborhood Disaster Preparedness Team (DPT) goes through.  Most DPTs are on Oahu, we have the highest concentration of people and state and federal resources that would have to be mobi...

"Anything you stick in the ground grows..."  Updated 12/01/2020 Not quite in my backyard.  The soil is very mineral rich but, particularly in my part of Oahu due to the long history of plantation agriculture prior to large scale residential development, often lacking an organic layer.  Which makes water retention and root growth difficult.  However, many things will grow if you start them in some nice potting soil in a pot, and then plant them out with the full pot of potting soil once they are established.  There is the wonderful ability to plant out your expired / used produce to make more.  Much much much more. Coconut, Cocos nucifera Monkey's Bellow's Beach Coconut Bellows Beach is East facing and lots of interesting things, and tons of plastic, wash up when the winds and tides are high.  Monkey always brings treasures home for his collection and Monday sharing at school.  One day he managed to sneak a coconut the size of my head into ou...

We have a family tradition, begun our second year in our Maryland house, of buying a live landscaping tree/large shrub as our Christmas Tree to plant out after the holidays.  The first year in the Maryland House my trusty Norfolk Island pine, my live Christmas tree for 6 years, was decorated with ornaments, tinsel and presents.  Then it croaked in a sudden violent shedding of all needles as soon as we returned from Christmas at my parents.  So the following year we got a real tree and moved it  outside wrapped in a sheet in a sheltered and warmish location while we visited the grandparents.  We eventually accumulated a spruce, japanese maple, mountain laurel, deodor cedar, and a white pine.  And then we moved leaving our odd little specimen forest behind.  Now of course on Oahu we are surrounded by Cook and Norfolk Island Pines grown to heights that would never fit in our house. In 2020 the live Christmas tree was a mele kalikimaka banana.  Which...

Updated 6/14/2018 2:27pm HST, originally published 6/9/2018 I intended the next post to be about searching for a home on Oahu.  But the media is obsessed with Kilauea.  Ignore the news media.  Except they keep making us sound like we are all going to die... Folks on Hawaii Island are having a hard time.  If you haven't heard, Kilauea on Hawaii continues to erupt, the most recent eruption actually began in 1983, the location of the fissures and the flow are somewhat new.  One fissure is fountaining lava, which produces Pele's hair (lovely wafting glass filaments that are murder on human tissue) and gases, and lava.  Once the lava flow hits the ocean it produces  laze , which is very dangerous to anyone in the immediate vicinity.  Therefore  Hawaii County Civil Defense  is keeping everyone out of the immediate vicinity. But Kilauea is not Mt. St. Helens, people.  Mt. St. Helens is part of the Ring of Fire, with a different amoun...

USGS Hawaii Science Center After 15 years as a water resources specialist / aquatic ecologist with a federal agency on the East Coast of the United States, my family and I moved to the island of Oahu in the State of Hawaii in December.  We still cannot believe we are here, but it is not as alien as everyone warned it would be.  For me it is a mashup of southern Florida, San Diego and Costa Rica. I now live 4  USDA hardiness zones south of any growing zone I've ever tried (I grew up in 8a, Oahu is 12a) and know nothing of palm physiology or volcanic island ecology really.  I have no idea what the plants are I see everywhere, what is native, where the non-natives originated... I have never lived, worked or studied a volcanic area.  And besides island biogeography, not much experience with an isolated island chain.  So where do I start? When in doubt, I start with the United States Geological Survey.  They do so much more than geology....