Maui Film Festival and the Celestial Cinema

The annual Maui Film Festival is held in June and it's a marvelous event.

(promotional photo)

It all starts in a grassy parking lot about 2 miles from the venue. Here we are parked with our niece Julia who spent 2 weeks with us, waiting for the shuttle bus ride to the 
"Celestial Cinema"

Part of the experience is to arrive early and line up for the shuttle.

Buses staged for starting time. First one rolls at 6:15. The show starts at 8:00

 The venue is a golf course located on the south shore of Maui in the Wailea/Makena area. It's known as the Gold course and there are 3 other full size golf courses in this immediate area. After getting through the ticket lines, it's up the hill onto the fairway which becomes the Cinema each evening during the 8 day event. After claiming some territory on the grass with beach chairs and blankets, it's time for a walk up the hill on the golf course for beautiful sunset views - the main reason to be early birds!

 From the top of the fairway looking southwest. The uninhabited island of Kahoolawe is seen in the distance.

 Sunset is upon us. You can see the amphitheater shaped area beginning to fill with people in front of the 30 foot by 50 foot screen. This huge screen is put up and taken down each day. Golf course by day, Celestial Cinema by night.

Maui sunsets are famous and plentiful.

As dusk comes, the crowd grows.

It's just about show time and people are still arriving and settling.

A rather dapper movie goer all dressed up for a big night out!

Under the stars, with gentle warm breezes flowing, a fifty foot screen with awesome sound and friendly people - it all adds up to home theater at it's best - Maui Style!

The Eastern Sky - Morning and Evening

A couple nice pictures of the sky from our back yard

Taken just before sunrise in early March

Taken 5/22/11 just before sunset

Chicken Chronicles

It's been 3 months now since we got our baby chicks. Here's the story:

Presenting the "Coop-de-Ville"

Tracy found the plans for this palacial poultry pad online. Complete parts list and step by step directions that we found to be nearly perfect. Another name for this type of design is "Chicken Tractor." Named so probably because it is made to roll around your yard both fertilizing it and giving the chickens fresh stuff to peck at. Pictures were taken before completion (no screening yet, along with other details). We pick it up at one end and roll it around like a wheelbarrow and seem to move it about every 3 or 4 days.
We were very fortunate to have guests right at the time we had the plans and had finished acquiring most of the materials. John & Susie McLeod from Seattle. John likes to stay busy, so he took a look at the plans and said, "let's do it!" We had a blast and really appreciated John's leading roll in the creation. John insisted on top quality including pre-painting all the wood with 2 coats of primer and 2 more coats of the finish paint, both gluing and screwing all pieces and we fastidiously adhered to the old rule, "measure twice, cut once." Big thanks to John for the quality work and inspiration!


But is wasn't all work and no play for John:

Here he is taking a well deserved break on the back patio.

(He's gonna hate us for this)

With the "coop" completed it was time for some babies:

Four little girls came home on Feb. 23rd. They are a day or two old here. They spent the first few weeks on the covered, screened-in lanai (porch) in a box with a heat lamp.

After a couple of weeks they were briefly introduced to their new home outdoors. This went on daily for the next while, spending a little more time outside each day.

A couple weeks later they were spending the whole day outside in the coop and at night we'd roll it into the garage.

Chicken Whisperer

In the garage one day Tracy was just hanging out leaning on the edge of the cage watching the girls cluck about when slowly they just started climbing aboard - HER! On this day I came up with Tracy's new title. They're about a month old at this point.

A couple days later I caught them hanging out on the coup. By the way they have names, ya know: Betty, Blondie, Ruby & Delores. They say you should never name farm animals in case you have to eat......ah, we'll deal with that later.......

First portrait

Two month birthday

Huge celebration!

(be sure to click the pic for full size)

This shot taken 3 days ago on the their 3rd month birthday!

We expect eggs at about 20 weeks which works out to either really late July or early August.

We had no idea how much fun it would be having these gals around. So far so good regarding predators. These days they spend most of their time roaming around the yard fluffling about. They are very well behaved, always returning to their coop and even putting themselves to bed up in their clubhouse each night around dark.

Oh yes, the cost? Well we figure the eggs will probably cost us about.......$25 a dozen???

-;)

What do "The Girls" do when it's time for bed? They play GODZILLA!!! Here's a 5 minute video which shows their rules... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QZ1N2v1fUIk

New Underwater Flora and Fauna Photos

On a recent snorkel trip we discovered a sheltered bay with pristine, placid water; ideal conditions for snorkeling.

(Once again, remember to click on the pic to see it larger)

We had many first's during this snorkel, the most outstanding being the almost immediate discovery by Tracy of this huge ball of fish called a bait ball. It's made up of 100's, perhaps 1,000's of Bigeye Scad. It attracts hungry predators, naturally. In the shallow waters of the bay the most prominent bigger fish and predator is the Bluefin Trevally. We discovered that both of these fishes are members of the Jack family so, we realized they
EAT THEIR OWN!!!!

Bluefin Trevally moving in for lunch

Lunch (Bigeye Scad)

The Bluefin swim right into the center of the ball scattering it. As the ball separates the Scad swirl back around the Bluefin in an effort to get back together in the ball.

Closeup of the Scad

Closeup of the Bluefin Trevally. The one front and center was about 3 feet long. Totally harmless to us and surprisingly tame. They are just about the only larger sized fish that come into shallow water to feed on coral and the fish it attracts. For this reason they are a prize catch for shore fisherpersons. These and their big relatives, the Giant Trevally range up to over 200 pounds and the locals that can catch them are considered heroes and statewide treasures. The Hawaiian name for these is Ulua (pronounced Ooo-loo'-ah)

Here is an Ace-Eye Hawkfish settled into the coral perching like a hawk would perch in a tree - just watching and waiting for prey.

A kind of Pufferfish. So far we are unable to find it's name. NO, WAIT! It's a

Stripebelly Puffer. Whew.

Reef Lizardfish

Blackside Hawkfish

Day Octopus - most octopuses are nocturnal

Parrotfish

Cornetfish and Cowrie

The Cowrie is actually a sea snail . The shell itself is often spelled Cowry. The term "porcelain" derives from the old Italian term for the cowrie shell (porcellana) due to their similar translucent appearance.

The one pictured here was feeling threatened so all you see is the shell. When not threatened the shell sort of opens up and you see more of the fleshy snail/slug parts.

Update to Post in January Called "Giant Step Forward"

Back in January we announced here on the Blog that the County of Maui had banned all plastic grocery bags from all stores. (scroll back/down a bit to find the first post in January). I clipped this picture from one of the local papers showing the effect.

It's quite an amazing and very real change and everyone we've talked to is happy about it. The before picture was taken last July. The law went into effect Jan. 11 and the after picture was taken in mid March. Don't you think it's worth it?

Haiku Ho'olaule'a Flower Festival

The Haiku (our town) Flower Festival was last Saturday and it was a rainy, cool day. That didn't stop us (or many others) from attending.  It's a free community event and fundraiser for Haiku Elementary School, Haiku Boys & Girls Club & Haiku Community Association. It features live entertainment, local food, farmer's market, grower vendors, Maui-made arts & crafts, silent auction, small & big games for keiki, and more!  We had fun talking story with plant people, vendors, friends and neighbors. Ho'olaule'a means celebration in Hawaiian.

Made up of about 250 small square pots with individual flowers in each, assembled to make this welcoming greeting.

Possible winner at the flower arrangement competition booth, perhaps?

Tracy talking plants with a local vendor.........that's not her horse in the background but from the looks of her it should be!

Our friends Syd and Karen who recently moved here from British Columbia showed up to play as well.

Rain protection

Sven cooking plenty chicken for the people. This is a great system:  Half of a 55 gallon drum for the fire. The wood used here is Kiawe (kee-ah-vey). It's a relative of the mesquite tree and is abundant on Maui - also considered invasive so it's a win-win in the fact that it grows like a weed and needs to be chopped back often and it's a fabulous wood for grilling. The chicken is on a heavy metal woven wire grate and suspended from 3 points and connected to a tripod of 3 metal pipes (tipi style). The grate can be spun and swung back and forth which is important because the wood burns long and hot. Sven had started the fire at 8 am. It was about noon when I took this picture and he had not touched the fire the whole time. I purposely took the picture at a slow shutter speed to get the spinning effect. It looks like it's spinning much faster than it actually was (shutter speed a little too slow, makes Sven a bit blurry as well). While hanging out and talking, Sven offered to either make me one or help me make one. I can see it now in our big back yard cookin' up da kine!

I suppose all things should be considered at the Flower Festival.

Ya gotta love the "Surfin' Coffin Table"

Giant Step Forward

This is a picture taken outside of the Maui dump on the down-wind side. Those beautiful trade winds blow through the island and the dump, blowing all of this around and depositing it in the brush, hanging all over fences and all tangled up in the sugar cane fields. It's been a massive, ugly mess for years!

The good news is that this is all going away, hopefully forever.

On 1/11/2011 the ban on all plastic bags on Maui took effect - it actually hapened! I happened into the Walmart in Kahului a few days after the ban began (I was unaware of this at the time) and noticed the shoppers rolling out with carts full of loose purchases. As I walked in and looked down the row of checkout counters I saw no bags of any kind - not even paper. I thought WOW even Walmart is doing it! They now have inexpensive reusable bags available: 25 cents for the small one and 50 cents for a bigger one and still no sign of any paper bags.

Now on to banning plastic water bottles - whoopie!

Peek-A-Boo View of the West Maui Mountains

Or should that be PEAK-A-Boo? 

Taken from our front lanai (name used here in Hawaii for a roofed porch) just after sunrise today. Camera is pointed pretty much due west. It's rare to see these mountains clearly, they are almost always shrouded in clouds. The normal trade winds blow from the east and northeast and slam into higher parts of this mountain range. Clouds build up through the day and end up nearly completely covering the mountains. That's why the rainfall up there is 400 inches a year. The trade winds have stopped (a rare occasion); I think that's why there are no clouds.........
BTW - the front lanai? Great place for a morning cup of coffee!