Like many of our friends and neighbors, we’ve begun to do a bit of vegetable gardening to lessen the strain of our ever-increasing food costs. I had attempted to do some square foot gardening a few years ago, but never really got off the ground with it. It now is more of a necessity than a luxury, I dusted off the tools and started the effort all over again.

All of the veggies started off with seeds planted and kept on our lānai. I had a pair of 2′ x 3′ plastic tubs that I had bought for my previous efforts, and following the instructions in Mel Bartholomew’s book (and additional information on his website), my wife and I started our little plot. Both of them are elevated with a couple of hollow tile blocks.  It didn’t take long for the seedlings to be of appropriate size to transplant. We also added a few 5 gallon pots for cucumbers because of the needs of their root system. They have produced about 10 cucumbers in just under a month after planting seeds. The tomatoes (regular and cherry), bell pepper, lettuce and spinach are also doing well, though no where near as well as the cucumbers.

I’ve also been taking better care of keeping the area under some of our fruit trees (tangelo, mango and avocado) weed free to encourage their production, and they’ve been doing much better as well. We’ve added some ipu (gourd) seedlings as well which we and perhaps my Hawaiian music students can use to make some ipu.

For some reason it seems like less work now that it used to be, even thought it is done more out of necessity. We’ve added some carrots and squash to the collection of seedlings growing on the lānai and they should be ready for transplanting soon. Watering is rarely an issue - we usually get some rain in the evenings or middle of the night. We’re anxiously awaiting our first fully home-grown salad.

OK, Scott, it’s your turn for a post.

I’ve left Florida to settle in Richmond Virginia which is REAL FAR from Hawaii.

The good news is the people. I keep stumbling into the most wonderful folks as I travel and now that I’m settled I hope to get to know some of them better. Here is a YouTube video by one of the bright lights from my time in St. Augustine: Katherine Archer.

PS: Aloha Doc, Wendy, Mari & Medina. I miss ya’ll.

I’ve just returned from a poncho-clad excursion to “go get more hurricane shit quick” with my sister - who is ALWAYS PREPARED’! I did manage to sneak a couple of six packs into the cart under all that silly water and food as we anointed my new floor mats with fresh Florida slime. Now I must move my car down the street and away from the huge oak trees just in case we have a gravity surge.

Last night was my first hurricane party. The ovens were turned off and the cook sent home, but the ladies at Kozmic Bluz stayed on duty until the lights began to flicker. Afterwards, clutching an umbrella to prevent it’s escape, I laughed and splashed through empty streets and puddles of delight reflecting on good times and new friends. It will be difficult though to explain the bar staff sewing cornhole bags while double-dipping sangria to occasional shouts of “Naked Chinese women!”

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Originally uploaded by Thomas Hawk

Today was a state holiday in Hawai‘i, but I was in the office trying to upgrade Leokī, our FirstClass server, along with our other techie. Everything seemed to go fine, took four hours or so to back up the post office (where all user and conference data is stored) and migrate it to a new Mac Pro. There we discovered that the administrator account was borked. After a few hours on the phone with a consultant we use on the mainland, we decided to go back to our backup of the system and try again next week after we figure out what is wrong with and fix the administrator account.

So when was the last time you wasted 12 hours working on a perfectly good holiday?

Been listening to old Jackson Browne hits too.

A few days ago I actually got up at sunrise, snuck my sister’s flaming peach beach cruiser out of the garage and biked up to the marinas along US1. On a previous early ride I’d noticed the golden mist that burns off as the sun comes up, and how the low light reveals such exceptional colours, so this was an expedition with a purpose. You see some results here, others may be posted soon.

Then last night, the black dog laid upon me, so rather than succumb to the gloom, I went walking out along the bay front at sunset with an iPod full of Buffett. On the opposite side of the day and the town the lights were equally stunning. I must get out there with a tripod and catch some photos there.

The more time I spend in St. Augustine, the more I come to love this town and the more obvious it becomes that this is not a good place to build a career that doesn’t involve waiting on tables, drunks or tourists. The nearest Apple store is in Jacksonville, a city only recommended by it’s proximity to St. Augustine and Georgia. So as soon as all the details are detailed and the pictures taken I must head north.

Last week scratched the one month mark on my self-inflicted exile in Florida. I’ve had a chance to spend time with my family and recover memories of the decades our folks lived out on Anastasia Island as well as the many visits I made alone and with my ex-wife, including our honeymoon 38 long years ago.

Being a vagrant though is different than coming here as a guest. I don’t have the luxury of tossing about money or renting a car so I’m living quite comfortably in the dinning room of my sister’s small house  in town and riding her old florescent pink bike each morning before the heat gets too bad.

The actual town of St. Augustine is just a few square miles of ancient brick streets, very old buildings and damp, overweight tourists. In those streets you see horse-drawn carriages and guys dressed like pirates. On the ocean front a 500-year old Spanish fort looms over anchored yachts and fishing boats while just a few miles down US1 Wal-Mart and Target lurk among the fast-food places and desperate car dealers. It’s a terminally laid-back contrast of old Florida and recessionary Mall-America.

There are more Obama signs here then there are McCain posters. That’s good.

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Originally uploaded by lylamerle

I thought we did a really good job of cleaning house and getting rid of a lot of things that we’d likely never use again before taking off for Aotearoa in January. We sold a lot of things in a garage sale, some went to the Salvation Army, and anything left over was taken to the dump.

Our perspective on clutter changed a bit after our experience in New Zealand. We only brought those things that we felt we needed to survive, and likewise we bought few things that would need to be sold or given away before we left. Our house remained relatively clutter-free for those six months.

It didn’t take us very long after we returned to East Hawai‘i that we realized how much clutter was still left around the house. Mālia had stored two boxes of clothes and miscellaneous items that she was going to unpack when we returned. She sorted through them and we ended up giving away the good stuff to the Salvation Army and throwing away almost everything else. Marie and I have also been going through the house and getting rid of a lot of things, and hopefully we’ll be able to maintain a clutter-free existence for a while. There are still a few boxes to go through to get there, though.

It’s getting lonely in here.

I’ve been pleasantly trapped in St. Augustine for over a month now. Here are some important lessons from that experience:

• First: the damage is accumulative and second; there’s no known cure.
• Florida can soften the the pain of a broken heart and soothe your loneliness under starry skies and soft beaches. Florida can also suck out your brains, leave you in a trailer on the intercoastal and wash your body up under the pier where even the snakes won’t eat your liver.
• If you want to make it down here, either own a liquor store or a trailer park.
• St. Augustine is probably the best city in the state. Like Sarasota and Key West, it’s worn and comfortable like a beloved old pickup truck that won’t start. You can wander around nearly any neighborhood without too much concern. Most of the other cities such as Miami, Orlando and Jacksonville just plain suck. Don’t even bother to tell me otherwise.
• Due to global warming and divine justice, most of this flat, damp state will eventually be underwater again leaving the resulting swamp to the gators, manatees, Seminoles and fishermen. Until then it’s a great place to peacefully atrophy while the rest of the world rushes headlong to Armageddon.
• The tap water here tastes like a fart but the seafood is spectacular.
• Everything has already rusted out, gone moldy or turned green.
• Most of the materials used in construction are in transition from decay to decomposition except for coquina which is a soft stone composed of compressed sea creatures from which the Spanish built forts. These forts are still standing after 500 years.
• Too bad trailers can’t be made from coquina.
• Florida gave us both Jimmy Buffett and George Bush. Life is not fair.

Laid Back

I’m now attending two figure study classes each week, it’s a better investment than Starbucks and significantly improves my chops - like jamming all weekend for guitarists, but instead of sore fingers your arms and eyes end up crossed.

Last night’s class was at the “St. Augustine Art Association - SAAA” which was quite well equipped, and very upscale but the model, a dancer, had no discernible muscles, so every pose was all arms and legs. I kept attaching her hands wrong as it was hard to tell where her bones and muscles were. By contrast tonight’s class is held at at local contemporary gallery, run by artists themselves and it features models with more personality and physical definition. They also play better music and let you bring your own libations. There are even young people with tattoos involved.

Fortunately all this happens right in the centre of this quaint old town, so I can walk both ways. No one here even notices an old hippy with a grey goatee and iPod wandering the streets with a drawing board and an Olivia Cruises backpack full of pencils.

It’s great to be getting back in shape both artistically and physically, though I make up for it in pizzas and good ales.

As a cultural vagabond, this cartoon made me think.

KEOLA ASKS: How did you deal with the pasty withdrawl?

SCOTT REPLIES: After a few weeks in Virginia the craving got so bad that I made up a small batch of steak pastys to subsequent raves and applause from the northern ohana. Personally though, don’t think my crust was up to the standards of the Portreath Bakery. Mine is made from scratch with lots of butter. It’s work but the results are usually worth the effort.

There are two reasons why I haven’t made pastys here in Florida:

1st: I’d have to clean my sister’s oven. The job of cleaning the oven is the kuleana of my teenage vegetarian niece and as such appears to have slid down her priority list to just below being fish-whipped with a live tuna.

2econd: The mere thought of having an oven on for a couple of friggin’ hours gives me heat stroke. Perhaps now that the darling child will be off to camp for a week I can bring raw meat into the house without causing a crisis. Then with enough good ale I could clean the oven myself, knead up a huge batch of dough, chop the innards and produce a pile of the Cornish national food for the sis and me. If the result is good enough we may even take one to Mom who was always my reference for great Pastys.

I sure hope they sell turnips here.

After being back in the states for more than a month I still look the wrong way crossing streets and say “cheers” to everyone, too often also doing “shaka” with my hand. Anyone seeing me would think I was spastic rather than just culturally confused.

It seems that there are some parts of cultures you want to keep, like not tipping or eating with your fork upside-down, and other parts are best forgotten such as British food or Hawaiian business practices.

So I’ve settled into being “trans-cultural.” It’s hopeless to resist. Grits and two-scoops rice with a pint of ale and hot wings please. So what if everyone else is baffled, I know what I’m talking about. Rly!

While it seemed half of the civilized words was standing in line in order to purchase a new iPhone yesterday, we opted for a much less expensive albeit less technologically advanced option. Kenneth uses and highly recommended MobiPCS. I investigated their plans and for less money than one iPhone all-you-can-eat voice and text plan, we now have three lines - one for my wife, my daughter and myself. We have unlimited local and national calls and unlimited texts within the US. We got the Motorola E815’s for myself and my wife (at left), and a Motorola Razr for Mālia. The one limitation that I’ve encountered with Mobi’s service is that it cannot use short codes, so I’ve had problems setting up the phone to send SMS to Twitter, and Jaiku’s activation code has not arrived after several hour of waiting. I’m hoping this is something that Mobi can fix but am not getting my hopes up.

We did not get web access for the phones as they are not 3G capable. As I spend most of my days and nights in front of a computer anyway, I really don’t feel the overwhelming need to interrupt my travel time with email and other distractions. Maybe someday, but with Ph.d. research and writing coming up, it’s probably just one more distraction that I don’t need at this point. I did get to fondle a new iPhone that a colleague had bought for his girlfriend and it is a sexy machine.