In case I forgot to tell you somewhere along the lines, I have moved to Moloka'i to live with my grandparents. The journey through the last couple of months has been a lot of fun and very relaxing regardless of the fact that I'm more busy than I've been for a long while. Between farming, genealogy, working for free and taking classes, I'm surprised that my stress levels aren't hitting record numbers.
Since I'm famous for not keeping in contact, here's what I've been busy with:
#1 - Hydroponics-Wikipedia Link: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hydroponics
Our set up at home isn't quite like the picture shown in the article. We use a series of PVC pipes, small water basin and two water pumps run by a generator-and that's just for the tomatoes. And as soon as I find pictures that I took (or just take new ones) I will post them.
So far we have 4 pipes of beefsteak tomatoes and 4 pipes of lettuce-Anuenue and Manoa, both from UH seedlings. We've finally figured out the easiest way to get the roots through the bottom of the plastic-slotted cups that hold our seedlings. Mama cut the bottom center of the cup so the roots can just fall through and I don't have to hook them down with a paperclip hook. They look very nice!
We tried a water table of lettuce but with the height of the cone edges we used and water levels, including no spray to keep the sponge medium wet, they didn't turn out so good after a while. That and the windstorm we had early in the month destroyed a lot of our crop. Papa decided that the next batch of lettuce we try will be done in the same table but we'll cut the holes in the table top a little larger so we can use the same uniform cups as in the PVC pipes. Then instead of the lid resting on the perimeter of the table, we'll trim the edges to fit inside the table and insert blocks to keep it just above the water level, thus reducing the amount of water we put in (which will save us so much on nutrient mix and water!).
In the ground we have anuenue lettuce, romaine, spinach, radishes, broccoli, roma tomatoes, bush beans, palang beans, utong beans, soy beans, kai choi, choi sum, pak choi, beets, and eggplant. We may have more but I can't remember right now. They are all looking fabulous!
The first crop we harvested is the radishes but after all the water, space and selling price was calculated, we decided it wasn't worth the time or money because our home operation is so small.
#2 - Genealogy
My genealogical journey has been a lot of fun. It technically started a little over a year ago, January 2009. I was babysitting and my time had freed up enough to allow research and contacting people to find out about my family roots.
A lot of the information I have was already put together from various family members and with a little more digging and a 3 month subscription to Ancestry.com, I was able to find a whole lot more.
The thing that has been the most helpful though is family members that are willing to share information. Most of the people I've connected with and shared information with are people that I've never met before my January beginnings. It's been a bit frustrating because of transportation and communication means and then the fact that I'm a bit of a stranger-phobe makes it a little bit more difficult but my desire to find the deceased members of my family gives me courage to keep going and to make phone calls.
What I haven't been able to figure out so far is when people don't want to share information. Why wouldn't you want your family to know who the family is? I asked a friend of mine why people are like that and she said even the old timers in her family wanted others to go and study and learn who their family is. My argument circles back to the beginning: how can I do that when I don't know who my family is?
It's been a bit difficult because this is a world of faith and trust that the people we make contact with aren't weirdos or psychotic stalkers but other Hunters of Family Gone, who are struggling to find their own roots.
To me, it's not so much that I'm looking to find out who I am but more of a how did I come to be here? I get a kick out of doing all this research, it's like a real live/dead treasure hunt where everything you find is gold-there are no losers on this journey! And of course it helps that we've been instructed to find out who our ancestors are by the Prophets and Apostles of the Church. Genealogy is so important that ancestral lines are even written in the scriptures!
FINALE
So, that is what I've been keeping busy with lately. It's been nice to be outside, the weather has been fairly cool and I can only hope it stays like this all year round but I know it won't, unfortunately.
If anyone has suggestions for hydroponic farming or for genealogy (or a list of questions to ask our parents/grandparents/etc.) please let me know!
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