Water tank painting & taping

Over the last couple of days we put two coats of top paint on the water tank exterior and put tape over all the bolts on the interior (to prevent damage to the liner).  The tank is finally ready for the liner to be installed and to start collecting water.  In order to spread the liner properly, water has to be put in, so the first time it's necessary to have water delivered (one truck load is 4,000 gallons).

Fully-painted water tank

Water tank and house (note the color experiments around the door and on the lanai post)

Interior of the water tank with tape over bolts and seams

Rooster farms are a fairly common sight. Even though cockfighting is illegal, raising the roosters is perfectly legal.  This farm is down the main road a ways from us (fortunately, far enough that we can't hear the roosters).

Each tent and cage has one rooster :(

Keaau

There is no home delivery of mail in our subdivision (and many others in the area). Mail is delivered to community mailboxes on the main roads, but there's a very long wait (four to five years) to get one of those boxes, and there are no boxes available at the post office (about an eight-month wait), so we have to go to the post office in Keaau every few days to pick up our mail.

Our local PO

This is our local farmer's market. There are about five farmer's stands selling various fruits and vegetables and a couple of stalls selling prepared foods. The prices vary a lot, with the local fruit being on the less expensive side. The papayas are 6 or 7 per dollar (depending on the variety) and incredibly delicious.  Limes seem expensive (about 50 cents each) but they are extremely juicy, so they last a long time.  The mangoes ($1/lb) are by far the best we've ever tasted.

The Keaau High School

Today we also got our plumbing equipment installed in the back shed.  Since we use a catchment tank, we have a pump to pressurize the water, a filter to remove any contaminants, and a UV light to kill any bacteria that gets into the water (instead of using chemicals).

Pump with pressure tank

Water heater

Filters and UV light

Our first door! (for the shed)

More shopping

We made another trip into Hilo to buy paint, painting supplies, and some food.

View from the street between Home Depot and Target

Rain showers on the mountain

 Island Naturals is the local equivalent of Whole Foods -- with equivalent prices too.  They have a lot of organic food, much of it local, and a lot of bulk foods, prices for which are generally pretty good.

The day before, we painted the shed (attached to the back of the house) to get it ready for the installation of the plumbing equipment.

The shed before painting

Shopping in Hilo

We made the trip into Hilo to look for tile for the bathrooms and to do some shopping.

On the way to Hilo, with Mauna Kea in the background

One of the tile stores is near the port. The large white structure straight ahead is a cruise ship (viewed head on).  About 200 cruise ships dock in Hilo each year.

One of our favorite (or most frequent, at least) destinations.

The view from the Home Depot parking lot -- looking down on Hilo with Mauna Kea in the background.

Across the street from Home Depot

Thank goodness for the new Target!

More interior painting

 Today's task was painting the master bedroom.

Looking into the bathroom

The thicket between the house and the road is very dense and requires some effort to get into.  In the center or the thicket is a large banyan tree surrounded by mossy rocks and lush vegetation.

Inside the thicket

The central part of the banyan tree

Some of the banyan branches

That evening we headed into the the bustling town of Pahoa, just a few miles to the south, and had dinner at Ning's Thai Cuisine.  It's small and not particularly fancy, but the food was outstanding and the serve very good.

At Ning's

Making friends with the neighbors

Our neighbors are getting used to us and now come to the fence to be petted/scratched. 

Ceiling and bedroom painting

The interior painting is continuing -- we did the living room/kitchen ceiling and one bedroom.

Painted ceiling

Bedroom walls in progress

 We've been seeing these insects flying around and gathering nectar from some of the flowers.  The look like enormous bumblebees (they are more than an inch long), but they are actual female Sonoran carpenter bees (Xylocopa sonorina). They are non-native, but have been in Hawaii for well over 100 years. They gather nectar before laying eggs in a burrow in wood.

Interior Painting

Several of these passion fruit (Passiflora edulis) fall off the vines on the rental property each day. We've been collecting and eating them.

The pulp does not look very appetizing, but it is quite tasty, with a tropical, citrusy flavor, although they are quite tart.

Today we started painting the interior with primer.

The kitchen/dining room ready for painting.

 A few hours later, the walls are done.

Living room

Slow Work Days

Mitch worked over the weekend, so he took Monday and Tuesday off.  On Monday, we went to the house to scrape and sand the putty filling the nail holes on the fascia.  It was hot work in the sun done on a ladder.

Hard at work sanding

Tuesday we didn't do any work at the house, but we went into Hilo to look at wall and floor tiles and countertops for the bathrooms  to get some ideas.

We saw this minibus on the way back from Hilo.  This is representative of a lot of the residents in the area.

We are here

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Technically, we're not there yet, but we will be when the construction is done. 

Makuu Farmers Market

In the morning, we painted primer on the exterior of the water tank.  Since it will get a top coat of colored paint, we are finally done with priming the tank.

In the afternoon we went to the Makuu Farmer's Market, which is just a few miles down the highway from us.  It's a massive market with farm stands, prepared foods of all kinds, plants and trees, crafts, clothing, and a lot of miscellaneous stuff.

Just a few minutes after we got there, it started raining hard, so we bought some fruit and waited for the rain to stop under a canopy.  (It was not a good time for pictures -- we'll try again next week).

More Painting

Some of the plants in the yard at our rental.

Banana tree with bananas

The bananas and the huge banana flower

Rainbow eucalyptus

Closeup of the bark

Coconuts

 

The house and part of the garden

Driveway

In the afternoon, we put a second coat or primer on the water tank interior... now we can move on to the exterior.

Water tank interior with forest in the background