Spring is Springing

Today I wore shorts for the first time in about 5 months, and I live in Maui, Hawai’i! But, my home is up the side of Haleakala in Kula. It’s only about 2500 ft. but it gets down into the lower 40’s and I’m acclimated to a warmer climate. So, this entire winter season, when at home, I’m wearing sweatpants, sweatshirt and crocheted boots! Not feeling particularly attractive, but it’s cold. But, today I woke up and I didn’t feel freezing. I’m still wearing a long sleeve tee-shirt and my boots, but I’m wearing SHORTS!

Keeping the feet nice and toasty

Another sign of a coming Spring is the glorious sight of a few Jacaranda blossoms in my driveway. Of course, I immediately looked up to see if the tree was finally blooming, but alas, not yet. I think the few flowers on the ground were those that thought maybe it was time, but when the temperature dipped, realized it was still a little too chilly. Come March the tree will be covered in purple bliss.

And, for my favorite Spring sign…Spring training for the San Francisco Giants is underway. The regular season will start is just a couple of weeks and I’ll be able to follow my team to, hopefully, another championship season.

The Dynasty

I’m sooooo looking forward to the flowers, the trees blooming, the bats crackin’.

Kilauea in Fabric

Occasionally when I am wandering through the aisles of the fabric store, especially when a new shipment comes in, I will spot a Hawaiian fabric that catches my eye and tells me its story. So, last week when looking for yellow gingham I came across a print that immediately took me back to the Big Island and our very active volcano.

Kilauea had been erupting non-stop since 1987. There are periods of time when the lava flow is just a trickle and doesn’t put anyone in harm’s way and there are those times when it threatens and then carries through with that threat by inundating a district or now, threatening the town of Pahoa on the East coast of the Island of Hawai’i. As it travels through the upland forests (Waokele) it can be a flaming yellow and red hot molten lava burning the forest in swaths of destruction or it can branch off into rivulets of lava circling around with a path through the trees and once again joining the main stream further down the slope. This leads to an area of untouched forest of ferns and foliage that flourish as an island. These verdant islands in the middle of a flow are called a kipuka. Once the particular flow slows or stops it cools, the lava changes colors from a burnt orange to a solid black.

And so, this hula pa’u tells the story of the kipuka..the flow changing from molten yellow, orange, red, through the cooling stage to black with the flowers, ferns, foliage remaining untouched.