We have 2 participants today, and the first one is at 2:00 p.m. We decided to hang around the apartment, exercise, and do some work, before eating lunch and heading out for Honalo.
The first participant mentioned that there are more frogs south of Honalo, in Honaunau area, where we'll be heading after we finish these two communities, so that will be more interesting for us. He thought the frogs could generate on their own, which is why there are so many, but we've never heard of them doing this, so that would be a pretty big change in their morphology. We parked along and apartment building and did some reading between participants, since the second participant wasn't scheduled until 4 p.m.
The second participant had a charter fishing boat business, which has been hurting because of the economy as of late. He hears a frog in the backyard, and thinks it came on some new landscaping one of his neighbors did, but hopes we'll be able to help. I gave him the contact information for the numbers you are supposed to call to report a frog, in the hopes that someone will come out and take care of the situation. I chatted with him for a while about the changing neighborhood, etc. until his phone rang and I got to work helping Seth. As I was finishing drawing out the backyard, Seth was propositioned by the neighbor across the way (who we think is a participant tomorrow) for drugs (we think, based on his gesture). Maybe he sells them and thought Seth looked like a potential customer? Something new everyday... We finished up with his property and then headed to a nearby park to eat our dinner and wait for it to get darker.
We didn't see any frogs on the second property, though we did see cockroaches, worms, a snail, and a caterpillar. We walked out to see if we could pinpoint where the frog was calling from, and it was one house down from where the participant thought. The frog seemed to be calling from several meters up in the tree, so would be hard to hand capture. This participant had offered us some fresh Ahi (yellow fin tuna), which we gladly accepted. He gave us a hefty chunk that we could use for sashimi (thin slices of raw fish), or for grilling/baking (which is what we'll use it for). We thanked him for his generosity, and he thanked us for our work, so that was nice. We packed up and headed back to the apartment for the night.
It seems I may have an ear infection, so I didn't sleep very well, but was able to call the insurance company at 4 a.m. our time to see where I could go around here. I had suspected I would need to be seen, as it started to hurt on Sunday, but it had gotten better, then worse again. Must be from all of that swimming I've been doing. Unfortunately, there aren't too many options for places to go around here that are in our network, but I finally made an appointment with a woman who was sympathetic and able to squeeze me in. It will be a bit of a juggle today with the two participants we have, but we'll find a way to make it work.
Our first participant is a 91 year old man in the further south community of Kealakekua. The next participant is at 5:00 p.m. in Honalo, and my doc appointment is at 3:45 p.m. back in Kona... so, we're going to arrive to our 2:30 appointment a little early and try to move quickly.
We got to the first participant early, and it went smoothly. The younger wife of the 91 year old was home, which worked out well, since he's hard of hearing and also speaking. They hear a frog on both sides of the house, but haven't seen any around. She has lots of potted plants surrounding the house, which could be where they hang out, but hard to say until we actually are able to listen. We left around 3:15 and flew to the doctor's appointment.
The doctor was stationed in a hotel not too far from where we are staying, which was a little odd, to say the least. The receptionist was super nice, but mentioned that the doc is always behind, and there were still 3 people ahead of me. So, I went outside and did some reading, and came back after a half hour (as instructed). He was still working on the first person, so it was going to be a while. An hour and a half later, and a few chats about the coqui with other people waiting, and I was finally called to his examining area. He was an interesting case, that's for sure, but seemed nice. He diagnosed me with a middle ear infection, and sent me on my way with a prescription for antibiotics and eardrops. At this point, we were 45 minutes late to our appointment that was schedule for 5, but we decided to head there anyways, since we needed to pick up bug traps nearby.
No one was home when we got there, so I left a note with my contact information and asked for him to call and reschedule. As I left the note, he pulled up into the driveway, so I asked if it was okay to participate now, and he agreed. So, we sailed through his property (he's not the one that propositioned Seth, though it was the same house), then headed to the further south property, set up the sound recorder, then flew back down to the only Pharmacy open after 7- Kmart. They had had a really busy day, but said they'd be able to fill my prescription in about 20 minutes. An hour later... the prescription was filled, but they had difficulties with insurance, though the woman I was dealing with was just filling in because they were short staffed. The drugs were cheap enough that I decided to take them, with the hope it would get straightened out in the morning, but the pain was bad enough I didn't want to wait longer to get meds in my system.
We drove back to our second participant's house, listened for frogs (heard none), and picked up the sound recorder. We then drove to the first participants house, and heard a frog off in the distance around the self-storage area. It must have been transported by someone driving in and out, as it was just hanging out on a palm tree among a sea of asphalt and storage units. We didn't hear any frogs on the other side, but did hear greenhouse frogs possibly coming from the potted plants out front, though it was hard to pinpoint.
We drove back to our apartment, taking a bit of a scenic route, and relaxed for a bit before going to sleep.
Our only participant for today was scheduled for 6 p.m. though we thought we'd try to schedule another one as well. We left a message with one person, then talked to another who couldn't help today. We decided to get some errands so we could cook up some of the fish today for lunch. I was able to get the meds all squared away and insurance paid for part of it, which was good.
Seth cut up the fish into steaks and we froze half to try later with a different recipe. I decided to try Grilled Lime cilantro ahi with honey glaze for our first attempt, and see how we like it.
The fish was super good. If I had eaten it blindfolded, I might have not even suspected it was fish, since I had no fishy taste. It looked like we cooked it well on our first attempt on the grill, which was pretty good as well. The flavors seemed to work well with each other.
We received a call from the 6 p.m participant that she wasn't going to be able to participate, so we were kind of bummed, but kept trying the other numbers to see if we could recruit someone else. No luck for today, but we did schedule one person for tomorrow. It was late enough in the day that we decided to just stay in and do some work from home. I worked on the computer from the lanai, and enjoyed the ocean view. I was still feeling a little tired and achy, so it was fine to just lay low as it turned out.
I was anxious to try some swimming, though I didn't want to get my ear wet, since it seems to be doing better. I put the ear plug in, and decided to try treading water, to get my water fix, but not dunk my head. Seth hung out in the hot tub, and a bit in the regular pool, reading his book. The water was nice and refreshing. I fell asleep while watching an episode of modern marvels on the computer.
Our only participant for today was scheduled for 4 p.m., but we decided to stay around the house again, doing work on the computer, and Seth did some reading. We walked out to the shoreline in front of the apartment we are at, as we saw some divers, and parasailers, and just wanted to enjoy the clearer view.
We also decided to take a walk further south along Ali'i drive, because we hadn't walked that direction previously. All along the drive, between resorts and things, there are public shoreline access areas, so we stopped by those. One of them contained a saltwater swimming pool, which was built by a private owner, but when he died, he didn't have any heirs, so the pool went to the state. There were fish in the pool, which was neat, and it looks like the ocean feeds it when the tide is high, but it wasn't high while we were there, so only a few small splashes went in.
We saw a couple of sea turtles hanging out near shore at another shoreline viewing spot, along with a couple of kids fishing, and just enjoyed our walk. We stopped by the Ali'i Gardens Marketplace on the walk back, but it was pretty quiet, and not much for fresh produce.
It gets pretty hot and sticky here mid-day, so we both cooled off before heading out for our 4 p.m. participant. We stopped first at a medical supply store, where Seth had ordered another elbow armband that he wears for sleeping, since he didn't bring his with, and has been wanting a second one.
This participant was a landscaper for a large resort area north of Kailua-Kona. She mentioned her boss was also interested in talking with me, so she gave me here number as well. It would be interesting to talk to the director of landscaping for a large resort, since it sounds like they have an active coqui hunting program there. This woman also knew about the greenhouse frogs, which they've had at their house now for several years. No coqui on the property, but they can hear them down in the ballpark and in the backyard area, but at a distance. They had a neat house with a couple of cabin looking things in the backyard, which hadn't been taken care of, so were mostly falling apart. We collected our data and then tried driving to the house of a nearby participant who hadn't been answering his phone. He was there, but too busy to participate. Hard to know if he will ever end up being a participant, but he was pleasant.
We headed to a nearby cul-de-sac with a nice view of the ocean and sun setting, and ate our dinner. We then walked around a nearby park and listened for the coquis in the banana trees. Just a few there, but they were definitely there. Out of reach, so out of sight.
We collected the sound recorder and headed back to our apartment, where we had banana splits and veged for the night.
Our first participant was scheduled for 9 a.m. so we headed out early to get to his place. I was nervous he wouldn't be there, but he was, and he was quite pleasant. No frogs on the property, but some off in the distance. He is an english teacher for a nearby community and was telling be about families that come here for a few months in the winter, put their kids in school, and then head back to the mainland. I guess that's quite common. Seth thought I sounded a little funny when I was talking about teaching with him (like a teaching fanboy, or something), but I'm always curious what it's like to teach in different states, especially with the no child left behind law. He's also a free diver, and it sounds like the divers have a pretty good community that takes care of their waters by killing pest species, which is neat to have them empower themselves. We collected our data, and decided to do some exploring before our participant at 4 p.m.
We headed first to the H.N. Greenwell store, a part of the Kona Historical Society, where Seth got to play the role of Pico Golarte, a Portuguese dairyman who makes a lot of butter. It was fun and interesting to learn about prices of the day, and the lay of the land. We also got to sample some Portuguese bread, which we plan to come back for on a Thursday, as they make it fresh.
From here, we headed down to the Greenwell coffee farm tour, and learned all about coffee beans. It is quite a process to go from cherry (ripe fruit) to the actual roasted bean. Inside the ripe cherries, there are normally two beans, which are then covered in another layer of skin, which needs to be removed. The beans are then dried on the roof before sorting into the appropriate quality.
There were Jackson Chameleons hanging out in the citrus trees on the coffee farm, which are pretty cool to look at.
Next, we decided to head down to the Kealakekua State Historical Park to eat lunch and enjoy the scenery. It looks like it might be a pretty place to do some snorkeling, as we caught glimpses of the life below, and saw a group of people head off to the water views. We explored the Hikiau heiau, saw Captain Cook's monument down the shoreline, as well as the Napo'opo'o beach.
We drove around towards the a smaller beach nearby, and then headed back up near the main road. We stopped at another coffee area, this time a co-op, where they had a great fruit garden area with displays about all the different kinds of fruits, and we sampled a few, like this surinam cherry.
The tour for this coffee farm left an hour prior, so we'd have to come back if we were interested, though we read through all their signs about the process inside the store. This mill processes 15% of all Kona coffee beans.
We drove to our 4:00 p.m. appointment, but got there early. I decided to check and see if we could do the property now, and if where we were parked was okay. We ended up talking to the woman of the house, who seemed amused by me. We chatted a bit about the frog after she was done with her interview questions, and one of her daughters came by. They had lived in Utah for a bit, and some of the kids had gone to Brigham Young and Utah State, so they knew the area. I was asked if I was Mormon too, which was amusing, but they thought that was the main reason to go to USU, which is probably the case if you are looking for undergrad schooling.
We collected our data, then headed to the cul-de-sac area after picking up sticky traps from the previous day. We ate our dinner and watched the sun start to set. We walked around the block a bit and headed over to the park to do some walking as well.
We set up the sound recorders at both of the properties, and then walked around for a bit trying to listen for frogs. No frogs on either of the properties, but there were some across the street from the one (at the Credit Union), and down the street from the other. It decided to rain on us, so we got a little wet, but nothing like a nice peaceful rain in the tropics.
We headed back to our apartment and had the last of the ice cream and mini banana splits.
As we were sitting on the lanai, enjoying our breakfast, I thought I saw something peaking out the ocean (and not a turtle), so I went running down, camera in hand. Seth eventually joined me, and we were able to see a small pod of spinner dolphins porpoising, and spinning (jumping vertically out of the water and spinning). How neat! It sounds like they come mornings and evenings up and down the shoreline, which explains why I saw them the other morning right after we arrived here.
Today was the 5th Annual Cream of the Crop Coffee Tasting competition at the Hualalai resort, north of Kona. We thought we'd check it out, especially because there were supposed to be local desserts made with Kona coffee-yum! We were handed a ballot when we arrived, and told to pick the best from each category. Seth decided my tasting skills were better, so I was in charge of tasting and doing the rating. I tried to just take small samples of each, so it wouldn't take too long for the samples to cool, and so I wouldn't get buzzed, but, in total, I still tried 17 or 18 different coffee farms' coffee, which amounts to over 12 oz, which is a lot for a non-coffee drinker (this is without any cream or sugar, as I figured that would interfere with taste testing. The desserts were pretty yummy- from a coffee cream sponge cake, to a coffee crisp, to coffee cake, to coffee mac nut cookies, to coffee short bread, to a coffee panna cotta, all were very good. I rated my top picks for coffee, and then we watched a roasting demonstration over a camp stove.
One of the coffee farmers (from Wisconsin originally) donated some of his green beans and roasted some over his stove several times during the event. It's hard to get the evenness by roasting this way, but still, anyone can do, and it seems like it would be fun. He heated his dutch oven to about 400 before adding the beans and then stirring constantly (this is the trick, since they burn quickly). It smelled a bit like burnt coffee, in all honesty, but was interesting to watch.
We walked around the resort area and enjoyed the nice views, as well as an edgeless pool. I tried some ice water that had pineapple chunks at the bottom for flavoring. It was even more refreshing than lemons in water, but I do love pineapples.
After wandering around, we went back to the car and decided to try calling one of the participants I've tried before, to see if she'd be around. We lucked out, and she was, so we headed over. After getting stuck in traffic, we still made decent time and were able to complete her property before heading to our 4 p.m. appointment down the next road over. She was a very spiritual person, and into traditional Hawaiian ways of living, and was upset by the fact that the frogs are disrupting the balance, especially in places like Waipio Valley, which was considered sacred land. No frogs on her property, but she can hear them in the distance. As we were chatting, she made salmon tofu burgers, and then offered us some for later, so we took one to have at a later point.
Our next participant owned 13 acres of farmland, complete with coffee and macadamia nut trees. We decided to concentrate on the 9 acres closest to his house, since the parcels were divided up in a way that made them not line up perfectly.
We walked around in the light rain with him, chatting about the frogs, and checking out the property boundary, before we went into his house on Google earth and looked up GPS coordinates for more accurate readings. He was somewhat of an Apple fan, so Seth had a bit to chat about with the new iPhone and about the age of this participant's computer. We finally got started collecting our data, however, it started to rain quite hard, and the camera decided to stop working. Uh oh. Without camera, we can't do the rest of the points, since we need an electronic record of the data we are collecting. Not to mention the fact that we'd like to not have a busted camera. So... we asked if it would be okay if we came back in the morning, and he said that was fine. We left the sound recorder up, and finished doing our recordings on the two properties, while picking up the sticky traps from the previous participants, while we were both completely soaked.
There was a dance going on at a local church, which included loud drumming, which made it hard to hear coqui, but the rain also made it hard to hear the frogs, so it's comparable. We thought about stopping at the dance, since it looked like fun, but we were both pretty upset about the camera, and not in the best mood for celebrating.
We ran the dehumidifier in the car, and kept the car on the dashboard, hoping this would help, but Seth found that the camera was no longer turning on. We took the battery out (which we should have done right away), and stopped monkeying with it (which we also should have done right away), and decided to deal with it at the apartment.
Back at the apartment, Seth made some brownies to drown our rainy misery, while I researched about the camera. I read that putting the camera in a bowl of rice for 12 hours worked for other people, as the rice draws any remaining moisture out of the camera. Of course, this works if the water isn't salty, or corrosive, as that's a different set of problems. We had rice, and a bowl, so I decided to give it a try.
After partaking in some brownies, we decided to crash for the night, and hope the camera would be okay in the morning.
I decided to make eggs with some local veggies for breakfast, since we figured it would be a long day, and extra protein would be good. We tested out the camera after it had been about 12 hours, and it turned on. The flash still wasn't working, and we were getting a similar error message, but at least it turned on, and the other buttons were working. Seth decided to try resetting the machine, and this made it work. We really lucked out! We both think we were still a little hyped up on coffee and not thinking clearly when we decided we needed to go out in the pouring rain and complete the participant, without covering the camera at all. Yeah, not the clearest of thinking. We're just happy the camera works!
We headed out to finish up the large property from the rainy night before, but realized we had left bug traps at the apartment, which we'd need later for our 2:30 participant. After we finished the points on the property, Seth drove back to pick up the traps, while I continued to draw out the property and finish up things from the day before.
We went to a nearby park to eat our lunch, and decided we didn't have enough time to head to the next community to do recruiting, so we went early to our 2:30 participant. They were around and fine with us coming early, so we completed their property. This woman was curious how long it would be before the frogs were on her property, and she wasn't looking forward to it. She didn't really know what they could do about the frogs if they actually came, so I tried to give her some tips after the interview. We finished up and headed south to Honaunau to recruit for the coming week.
The first person I talked to was a big skeptic. She wanted to see my credentials, so I showed her my informed consent letter, complete with protocol approval number on it. After a while of chatting, she agreed to participate, and we'll be heading there tomorrow. I think she's how I would be if someone like myself came to my door asking me to participate in anything, so it didn't bother me too much, but took a bit of my time. After recruiting a couple more people, we got to one woman who was interested, but traveled a lot, so said we could chat with her now, and then come back whenever we wanted to do our measurements on her property. I decided that we might as well, so I chatted for a while with her, while Seth drew out the property. She used to work as editor for the local paper, and mentioned that she helped get one of the coqui advocates fired from the paper, which was really interesting. She also had the perspective that if the community can come together and take care of the problem, it would give a great sense of accomplishment and would be very good for the community as a whole in the future. She also mentioned a friend who used a really interesting method to get the frogs to stay away from her property (i.e. making ash with their skins and sprinkling it around the boundary), and I'm going to try and recruit her as a participant. We thanked her for chatting, and headed off to recruit a couple more people.
I was tired, at this point, so was having a hard time speaking clearly to potential participants, but ended up amusing the last one we recruited, as he sounded all excited about having us on his property. Should be an interesting one. Sounds like frogs are all over the area here, so that should also be fun for us.
We headed back to our property from yesterday, to pick up the bug traps, and I lucked out that she had just pulled up as well. I wanted to ask her for the contact information of a friend she had mentioned the other day that had frogs and lived up the way. We picked up the traps and went to our overlook spot to eat our dinner. It was raining on and off, but the sunset was still quite pretty.
After setting up the recorder, we decided to see if the McDonalds had any interesting flavors of shakes. We ended up trying Haupia pies, which is like a coconut pudding. They were interesting. We sat in the McDonalds then and chatted while killing time before picking up the recorder and heading back to the apartment.
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