Maui in May 2

Back home in Edmonds on my friendly laptop, I've updated the last post to include a couple photos that were referenced but didn't make it into publication. More internet gremlins at work. You can check the earlier post if you are interested.

In this post I'll concentrate on son's gardening efforts. When we were here two years ago, this fig tree was bedraggled and not bearing fruit. A little TLC has made a difference. A couple of the figs ripened during our stay so Iko had a treat.

There were a two papaya trees on the property when they bought it. He has planted several more papayas of three different flavors. I didn't know that papayas come in sexes. This one is a male. The one below is obviously a female. Son says that one male in the area is enough to fertilize many females.

Deer can be a problem for gardeners in the Maui Upcountry area. They come out of the nearby forested areas and into yards, especially during dry spells, looking for greenery. This garden is protected by a six-foot fence to keep hungry deer out. 

This shot looks SE with corn foreground right, lemongrass on the left. Tomatoes in the raised beds were about five feet high and bearing loads of tasty cherry tomatoes when we were here last June. They bear for about six months at a time.

Outside the fence you can see a couple papaya trees and bananas on the left. The big tree in the background is the Macadamia nut tree.

Looking NW, we see several new papaya trees, one old one (blending with the palm), bananas and Plumeria in the pots.

Pineapples in the early stage of growth. The photo below shows some others with young pineapples on them. Son says they will be ready to harvest in a year or less.

This is Lilikoi (passion fruit) growing on the inside of the garden fence. Deer especially like the leaves so fruits are sparse on the outside but you can see a couple here on the inside.

Three Dragonfruit trees (bushes, cacti?) growing in large pots. They are less than a year old but will be having fruits sometime soon.

It turns out that the deer also like citrus leaves. This lemon is protected by the fencing you see. Son also has a mandarin tree and orange tree. 

Mango trees normally grow into quite large trees. This is a semi-dwarf variety that is supposed to have the same quality fruit as the large ones. It also bears fruit at a younger age. I'll have to arrange a trip during mango season in the future.

This view looks pretty much south. Beyond the mango is the orange. On the right are the Dragonfruit cacti. The tree in the distance is the avocado. It now has small fruits that will ripen in November and December.

On the fenced in patio, there are succulents and these water gardens. As you may know, the water lilies go to bed when the sun sets and don't open again until the sun hits them in the daytime.

On one of my walking routes, I've admired the walls of this old building. It has been vacant for the last two years that we've been visiting Pukulani. The roof must leak and the wooden parts are sagging, but those walls are great.

We were scheduled to catch a redeye flight home Wednesday evening so we went to a late lunch in Kula, a town another thousand feet or so upslope from Pukalani. Kula Lodge Restaurant features a wood-fired pizza oven and good fresh food, much of which is locally sourced from the surrounding farms. The pizza wasn't all that good but the fresh greens and veggies were excellent.

In the valley below, Kahului is on the right, Kihei is off to the left and the West Maui mountains are in the background.

Our flight took off about 2230 and arrived in SeaTac about six hours later at 0700 local. Not much sleep was had by the weary travelers, but we're caught up now and looking forward to our next travels.

Maui in May

Last time we were in Maui was last June so we decided to go a little earlier this year. Last Thursday (5/12) we headed for the airport. 

As we boarded our plane at SeaTac, we bid adieu to Seattle's rain and cold. 

Maui greeted us with blue skies, warm temps and no rain! The kids picked us up at OGG and we headed to upcountry Maui. 

In their microclimate, the Macadamia tree starts dropping nuts in late September and continues through the winter. They saved a box for us to crack. 

The cracker works good once the operator learns the right amount of force to apply to the nut. It takes about 300 psi to crack the shell and the trick is to strike hard enough to crack the nut but not so hard as to smash the nut. 

After cracking the box full, we picked up another half box from the bounty remaining under the tree.

 In two sessions, Iko and I cracked over five pounds. As you can see there are many whole nuts but there's a good percentage of those ready to use in baked goods too. 

Saturday I walked up to the local Farmer's Market. Along the way I came across this fire hydrant that has been on Island time.

Some street art caught my eye. Near as I could tell, they were all used masks. Guess it's a comment on the times. 

My Sweetie sporting a freshly picked Plumeria flower.

Left my laptop home this time thinking that I'd post blog entries from my phone thereby saving the extra steps of transferring photos from phone to laptop. After writing most of the best post ever, somehow it disappeared into the never never land of computer gremlins. Now I'm going to break the observations up into shorter sections.