Our next two months will be spent on the Big Island of Hawaii, with the month of August on the Northwest side at Waikoloa Village, and September on the more remote southeast side at Pahoa. Our condo in Waikoloa Village is pretty nice I must say. Situated 900ft up the volcano and overlooking a golf course, with a glimpse of the ocean in the background. It is quite peaceful here – a nice welcome change from the street noises of Seattle.

Kohala Volcano-balcony view
Golf Course-balcony view
my new work environment

Right off the bat we noticed a lot of birds around the area. Since we were still on Seattle time, we were awake at the break of doom. Looking out the balcony, I noticed some rather large birds walking on the golf course. We didn’t quite understand what we saw until later that evening when these large birds appeared again. Wild turkeys – what?! Well that’s different. We also saw a number of other species. So much so that we decided to put out a plate of birdseed. Well, all these birds started to appear and it was clear they would start taking over the balcony, so I changed to a pie plate and moved it to the corner of the balcony so I could still enjoy working out there. Unbelievable the amount of bird seed they go through. I fill up the pie plate three times a day. Oh, they also like granola, lol!

In addition to seeing wild turkeys and Erckel’s spurfowl on the golf course, we had many different species of birds visit our makeshift feeder: Rosy-Faced Lovebird, Mele Kohola, Zebra doves, Myna, HawaiĘ»i creeper, Java rice birds, and of course my favorite, the red-crested Cardinal and the Northern Cardinal. Here’s a momma cardinal tending to her annoying teenager who can totally feed himself (I’ve seen him fly up and eat by himself several times), but wants momma to feed him.

Our first meals were “throw-downs” that took very little time to put together, but were still satisfying. They have a Costco here so I made a trip the first morning as well as the local grocery store.

First up was a quick veggie pasta with a chicken tomato sauce. I cut up some chicken strips and cooked them on the stove top in olive oil with onions and peppers. Added a heaping tablespoon of tomato paste and spices (cumin, greek seasoning, garlic powder, salt/pepper, red pepper flakes). I decided to go with garlic powder as the fresh garlics didn’t look so good here. Once the paste/spices were warmed through, I added diced tomatoes and tomato sauce. As soon as the pasta was done, I threw it in the sauce, and there you go. Served with salad and garlic toast.

Next up was just a pan seared chicken w/frozen mixed veggies and leftover horiatiki salata. Nothing fancy but satisfying. Chicken was pounded thin and seasoned with olive oil, salt/pepper, greek seasoning.

Since this is a 2 bedroom, 2 bath condo, I was able to set up in the 2nd bedroom which has its own smart TV, which allowed me to connect my surface pro to the TV to make it a second monitor. Two cameras – one I always use as an overhead shot and the second I move around to the side of the piano or at my face, depending on the situation.

For the month of September, we moved operations to the south eastern part of the island at Kehena Beach, which is just south of Pahoa. A stark contrast from where we were staying, Kehena Beach is very remote and much like living in the tropics. You can just tell that if you don’t maintain the landscape, the landscape (jungle) will take over. It’s amazingly lush and jungle like. We are staying at a stand alone house on a double lot. The house is a two bedroom (one bedroom was locked per owner) one bath house, with living/dining, full kitchen and a huge lanai with an outdoor bed.

Yes my friends, that is a queen sized bed outside on the lanai. This lanai is HUGE! On the other side of this photo are four lounge chairs with ottomans, and an outdoor dining table where we had our meals everyday.

So when I say we’re in the tropics, we are really in the tropics, with rain every day. Everyone in this area collects rain water as their prime source (no city water) so good thing it does rain. Our Airbnb had a 10,000 water tank so we were in good shape.

One of the things our host relayed to us was that wild pigs would most likely come visit us in the evenings to feast on the many fruit trees that were on the property. I was actually able to video one of them during daylight hours in our back yard.

My Set up was similar to the set up in Kona. The extra monitor was the “TV” for the master bedroom and worked quite well. The only issue was the abysmal internet speed. Only one person could be on a video call at a time, so when I was teaching, David could only do audio calls. I also had to totally shut down my onedrive because every time it tried to sync, the entire internet shut down. This was the most disappointing part of our stay. We managed though.

Hawaii
By Aug - Sep 2022