I took care of bugs and transferring data, before making some calls to potential participants for the week. We have one participant at 5:30 today, and will be heading to another house at 3:30, since the woman couldn't hear clearly over the phone.
We stayed around the house and did work, before heading out around 2:30 to pick up bug traps from the previous participant. Seth had read that he should take advantage of hot tubs for his tendons, so he soaked in the hot tub, while I did some water running in the shallow end of the pool.
We arrived at the 3:30 participant in the rain, and that was only the beginning. As soon as we got there, it started to pour, and pour it did. I chatted with the sweat older woman as well as her grandson and granddaughter. She had never seen a coqui frog, but hears them around the house. She left a container out for us to put a frog in if we caught one. She had just read in the paper how they were stopping their funding for coqui research in the area, so she was extremely appreciative that I was doing the work I was. It continued to pour, and it didn't let up. In fact, it seemed to only rain harder as time went on. She had a large umbrella, which I carried with me, as well as having the camera all wrapped up this time, so we didn't break it again. I was already wet under my rain gear, so it wasn't much fun to be out in the rain, but we kept at it. This participant thought Seth was from the Hilo area. Then she thought maybe he was Mormon, since he lived in Utah, and wanted to know "how come" he wasn't, but Seth didn't hear the question, so didn't have to answer. She was Mormon, which was probably why she was so curious.
We went to the next participant sopping wet. She said she didn't think we were going to show up. I told her we had just finished a property up the way in the pouring rain. She seemed impressed. We chatted a bit about the study, and discussing how best to handle sampling her property, and decided to do the interviewing now and the drawing out the property, but come back when it wasn't pouring to do the daytime measures. This was the skeptical woman from before, and she had more inquisitive questions about our research. We mentioned that Seth was my husband after I was giving him directions for what to do next, and she said "That's true love" especially because he was going out to do the work in the rain. She thought Seth must be from a foreign country, because she said he talked with an accent that didn't sound like a midwestern accent. Strange that two participants in a row wondered where Seth was from. She was pretty candid about the frogs, and how she heard them coming towards her property, almost like a monster in a scary movie (her description). It sounds like she may just have a few on the boundaries of the property. The rain let up a bit, but it was late enough that we decided to head to the first property and take care of finishing up drawing out the property and collecting insects before it got dark.
We set up the sound recorder and were already hearing the frogs around the property. It seemed the rain had mostly let up, which was promising, but we were already wet and cold from earlier in the day. We ended up seeing a handful of frogs, and hearing others in the distance. The rain did stay light, which was a relief from earlier, and also allowed us to actually hear the frogs.
We headed back to the apartment and peeled our wet clothes off. I took care of bugs and made some hot cocoa to warm up. We were both exhausted from a long day of work, made longer by the pouring rain.
I called a couple of potential participants and scheduled them for tomorrow and the coming week. We hung around the house taking care of data and watching a modern marvels episode on power tools.
We headed out around 12:45 to go to the second property from yesterday, to finish up the daytime measures. The clouds looked threatening, but we only got a few sprinkles in total. We took our measures and set up our plots for the evening before heading to our next property.
We arrived early, but we arrived with a problem. The driver's side window wouldn't go up and the rain clouds threatened. I did my interview, while Seth monkeyed with the window. I finished, started setting up gear, but the window still wasn't working. Seth figured out that the circuit board was the problem, and had disassembled the door control panel. Meanwhile, it was starting to sprinkle. He called a couple parts supply facilities, but the second one said he'd need to call a dealer to get that part. The manual only discussed if all the widows weren't working, so that didn't apply, and no other solutions were listed. So.... we were going to try putting plastic wrap up around the door, but Seth decided to try connecting the circuits with a metal piece from a clothespin. This worked- yay!
We went to the Kona scenic park nearby to wait until it was late enough to leave the sound recorder before heading to the first property and looking for frogs. While at the park, I heard a couple of people talking about the banana plants getting sprayed for the coqui. I heard them say that they had the frogs a year or so ago, then they left, and now they are back again. The person talking was the owner of the property that's for sale, so he was doing yard work on it.
We heard lots of frogs around the edges of the first participant's property, but didn't see any. So far, we haven't seen or heard any frogs on coffee trees. We packed up and headed to the participant in Kealakekua, packed up there and headed to the apartment.
Our first participant was scheduled for 7:30 a.m. in Honalo. We got a little lost finding their place, but when we did, the 18 acre flag shaped property kept us busy. This couple was quite active at trying to control the frog population. They had even applied for a grant through the county to do spraying with citric acid around their property. Their neighbors weren't as enthusiastic about trying to get rid of the frogs, so even if they took care of their frogs, they just keep coming back. The husband was from the island, and appreciated what it used to be like prior to the coqui frogs. They were a bit rushed to head off to work, but were still quite chatty, and knew a fair amount about the frogs, enough for them to not like them.
We took a while to map out the property, and then randomly select the 6 points we were going to survey. One of the points landed in the middle of the horse and coq pasture, which meant we had some curious visitors.
We spent a while collecting all the data, and decided to head back to our apartment to take a break before a long evening.
We'd been wanting to go out to lunch to a place called "U-Top-It" for a while, so decided today would be the day. The restaurant makes Taro Pan Crepes with all sorts of interesting toppings. Seth selected the Mo Loco Attack, and I had Pele's Passion. Seth's consisted of Taro crepes, rice, a huge piece of sausage, gravy, and eggs (like the Loco Moco we had earlier in the summer). Mine had Taro crepes, vanilla pudding, raspberries, chocolate hazelnut sauce, and passion fruit sauce. It was super good!
We did some other errands and then came back to the apartment. We headed out early to pick up the sticky traps from the previous properties, and stood and chatted with the homeowner in Honaunau for a while. He wanted advice for things to try with the handful of frogs on his property.
We headed to the 18 acre property and set up the sound recorder, while the man was out with his cocktail. He told us polo stories, and chatted for a while before heading into the house. We got our rain gear on, as most of the brush was over my head, and it had rained during the day, so we figured it would be quite wet. We were right... not only was it really wet, but the mud (and poop) was pretty bad. My socks were quite muddy and sopping wet after 3 hours of walking around in the field.
We didn't hear many frogs on the further points from their house, as it seems they are more concentrated down by their house. It sounds like that's the direction they are moving to, so they may be there in a matter of time. We were warned about wild pigs, and we did end up hearing some, as well as the horses from the neighboring pasture. The thick grass made it hard to see the frogs, but we heard them around.
We decided to take the morning off and head to a presentation at the Natural Energy Lab north of Kona, since the timing makes it hard to get to. They were also doing an abalone farm tour as well, so we signed up for that with a bit of a student discount. There was one other older couple they're visiting from California, but otherwise it was a small group. The presenter's slide clicker wasn't working, which distracted him a bit, and made the presentation a bit disjointed. We learned all about the problems with government regulations here in Hawaii, not allowing people to sell their extra energy produced from solar panels back to the grid like they can do in other states. When people here are paying over 40 cents a kwh, you would think there would be a revolution of sorts to make things happen more quickly. It sounds like the government officials are chummy chummy with the electric company here though, so it's anyone's guess how long it will be before things are better.
We had a tour of the abalone farm, which was really interesting. They use a combination of deep ocean water and surface level water to get the right temperature to grow the abalone. We saw the kelp tanks, which take up 70 to 80% of the space on the farm and feed the abalone. The abalone is then sold locally, as well as internationally. We were able to sample some cooked abalone, which was hard for me to do after just having handled some... but I gave it a shot. They look like giant slugs stuck on a shell, and are fun to hold. They are chewy, as you might imagine, and naturally salty. I guess they are also high in cholesterol.
We heard about some deep water bottling plants they have, with most of the product being sent to Japan. The water is advertised as a health food, of sorts, because it is quite rich in nutrients. However, in order to desalinate it, they actually extract all the added nutrients, then just add them back.... so, maybe they should just do this to any old bottled water and then mark the price up? At $8 a bottle, you won't catch us drinking it anytime soon.
We drove out to the end of the road to see a water display where the warm surface water, and cool deep water come out. We also saw what the tubes look like that transport the water.
The NELHA (Natural Energy Laboratory Hawaiian Authority) facility is an area designed for entrepreneurs and innovators to come, use the water, and test out their ideas. Sustainable agriculture, tropical fish breeding, fish for consumption, sea horses, etc. The possibilties seem to be endless, and some quite profitable. Pictures, of course, are limited in many of the areas in order to protect the intellectual property of the company, though we really didn't see anything that revealing at the Abalone farm.
I had a really hard time during the tour, as the gentleman that was also on the tour was very self absorbed, liked to ask a lot of questions, was a better door than a window, and was just generally obnoxious. Smart guy, but just annoying. He made a rather bigoted comment right after we got there about the Hawaiian's blessing ceremony for this solar array, which I found rather rude, and he didn't get any better after that. I actually felt like I'd need to do the tour again to really appreciate it, as this particular gentleman really made it difficult for me to concentrate.
The tour went much longer than expected, and we didn't get back for lunch until around 3 p.m. We decided to grill out the last of the veggie burgers and take a breather before heading out. I spent some time taking care of all of the insects from the previous properties, and getting the funnels ready for the next property. We headed out to pick up the sticky traps from the 18 acre property and then judge the time to see what to do next. No one was there when we first got there, but they were home when we were done collecting the traps. One of the horses greeted us and wanted to escape through the gate with me, but we didn't oblige.
We chatted with the woman about where we heard the frogs, her muffler problem, and the energy facility, before being given a stack of freshly trimmed apple bananas (much sweeter than varieties sold in the mainland). We were also able to try some homemade dried white pineapple, which was super sweet and super yummy. We chatted for a while and decided we wouldn't have enough time to do another property before it got dark, so we decided to head to the last community on this side of the island, Hawaiian Ocean View Estates, and listen for frogs there.
Along the way, we stopped by the Donkey Balls outlet, though they were actually closed, but we bought a couple of bags of balls and sampled a creamin' screamin' ball, which was bright orange, white chocolate, covering a mac nut. Very good.
We drove down to the Ocean View estates, and spent a few hours driving around the community listening for frogs. The community is quite large, and we ended up only hearing a couple of frogs at the lower elevation spots in the community. There were areas at the higher elevation that you could stop and listen to silence. Not even the crickets were calling. Almost eerie in a way. We made the hour long drive back to our apartment, and then settled in for the night.
Our first participant was scheduled for 10 a.m. down in Honaunau. He's a coffee farmer that owns 7 acres of property. He really doesn't like the frogs, but only really has the on his banana plants, and the neighbor's banana plants and other vegetation. He's cut down some of the bananas, sprayed others with lime, and plans to cut and spray the last of his bananas the next time around. He even has a burn permit and was considering trying to torch the areas where the frogs were. He was an interesting character. He took us around his property and showed us the boundaries, as well as the areas where the frogs like to hang out. He also answered our questions about coffee plants. Apparently, one of the things we learned at the Greenwell coffee farm tour was false. We had heard that older trees need to be cut down and replaced with younger trees to keep cherry production up, but, it sounds like the reason the Greenwell farm did that was because they had an infestation of nematodes a hundred years ago, or so, and nothing would kill them. They found another variety of coffee that was resistant, and grafted it to the Kona variety, to get the plants they have today.
We spent a couple hours talking with him, and then it started raining when we were ready to collect our daytime measures, so we worked on getting things ready in the car, put on rain gear, and headed out when it wasn't pouring. We got wet and muddy, but nothing like the other day. The mosquitoes, however, were the worst we have seen them, and they saw us as giant things to suck blood from... not the most pleasant experience, especially since the only uncovered areas were my hands and face. We finished up around 3 p.m. and headed to a nearby park for lunch. I drove, and forgot the window was still busted, so accidentally rolled it down, so Seth had to work his magic to put the window up again.
We stopped by a park to eat our lunch, and then decided to check out the Kona Chip factory across the street. Seth decided to buy some Sumo Style shrimp chips, which he enjoyed later as we ate our dinner at a scenic overlook.
We drove to Kealakekua to recruit the last participant from this area. I lucked out, and the first person I talked to agreed to participate. She was a videographer for the local news and he was a science writer for NPR/ now science writer for the local paper. They felt that the frogs wouldn't be bad in their area because it is much more urban than other areas, and people there are more receptive to going out and taking care of the problem as it arises (his take on things). The woman gave us a bunch of green Williamson bananas (not as sweet as the others), and then we were offered to join them for a sausage soup that sounded delicious, but we were pressed for time to get set up at the other property, so we had to decline.
We headed back to the coffee farm to set up the sound recorder and wait until it got darker to go out and hunt frogs. We heard a loud crash, and then a lot of yelling, and assumed that there had been a crash of sorts. When we went over to check it out, we realized there was a large pickup truck that had gone over the side of the road. The decision was made to bring some boards down to try and hoist it out, but it was questionable whether the hoisting would just make the problem worse by resulting in it rolling over. It sounds like these narrow roads have seen a number of other rollovers in different spots, as it's easy to do when you are backing up to let someone go past. Seth took some pictures of the grand event, but was then asked to help pull the rope with the first attempt to pull the car up. Then he helped push on the board for the next attempt to pull the car up. This time, they were successful, but one of the helpers was on the wrong side of the board and flew up in the air and down a ledge a number of feet away. Seth described it as if he were a stuntman in a movie, attached with a cable in the middle of his back and yanked backwards. He was okay, but had quite a wild ride, I'm sure.
We started our transects around 9:20 p.m. and didn't finish until after midnight. We heard one coqui on a coffee tree near the creek on the property, but didn't see any. The night was nice and not too cool or too warm, and didn't rain on us. We then had to drive back to Kealakekua to pick up the sound recorder at the second property. It was a fairly long day, with us not getting to sleep until around 2 a.m.
With all the bananas we now have around, I decided to make a soy milk chocolate, banana, and coconut smoothie for breakfast. The bananas helped make it super creamy.
The first participant was scheduled for 10 a.m. in Honaunau. We arrived a little late, as the computer took a while to transfer the data from the night before, since they were larger files than before. This participant was used to the frogs, and didn't feel they were as much of a problem as other invasive species on the island, such as feral cats and mongoose. They offered us iced tea and water, which they put in a cooler for us outside. This participant was really interested in what we would be doing on the property and seemed to find me amusing.
We needed to recruit one more participant from this area, so we decided to try a couple of areas we hadn't been before. We ended up recruiting a very sweet almost 90 year old woman who gave us some freshly made sweet potato tempura before we headed out. She was quite the character, and a lot of fun to talk to. She doesn't like the frogs, but realizes that if her neighbors keep the property in an unmanaged state of being, then the frogs can just hang out there and still be within earshot, no matter the effort she puts in on her property.
We headed back to the coffee farm to pick up the sticky traps, and talked some more with the participant about where we heard the frogs. I mentioned my suspicion that there might be something in the fertilizer he's using that keeps the frogs away, and he said they've actually been using a lime product to adjust the pH around the coffee trees, so I would guess that might be the reason there weren't much for frogs around the coffee areas, but hard to say.
We decided to head down to the Kealakekua state park to eat our lunches, since it was already after 3, but stopped first at a macadamia nut shop that had a small little display of the equipment used to process the nuts. We walked away with some dark chocolate and coconut mac nut bark.
We continued down the road to the Kealakekua state park and were lucky that it decided to stop raining for us as we enjoyed our lunch/dinner at the picnic area.
We drove to the second participant from yesterday to pick up their sticky trap, and then headed to the nearby park in Kealakekua.
We went back to Honaunau to set up the recorders and wait for it to get darker to start our frog transects. We didn't see any frogs on the first property, but their were a couple of dueling males on some banana plants, which was rather entertaining.
The second property had a number of frogs around, but I only ended up seeing 2 of them- one of which was calling on an old stump. We headed out around 11 and wet back to our apartment to take care of bugs and deposit our gear.
Today was our last recruitment day- yay!! We packed up our meals and after we transferred data (which took a long time) we headed out to our last community- Hawaiian Ocean View Estates, which is about an hour south of Kona. I found out that the recording on the first property didn't work, as the unit must have run out of batteries immediately after us turning it on, so we were going to try and re-record there at night if all went well. It was raining all along the drive, but not when we got there, which was nice, though the vog was still quite bad. I had success at the first house with recruiting, and it sounds like they have one frog on their property, one of few in the area, so that's exciting as well. We spent the next couple hours recruiting, as the houses are quite far apart here and many people weren't home.
The second to last participant I talked with didn't speak much english, so we had some rather comedic moments with me talking in english, one son translating, then him getting his older son to help with translation, me talking in spanish, then half spanish, half english, oh joy. The man was definitely amused, and agreed to participate, with his son helping to translate, tomorrow. Should be interesting!
We stopped by a nearby park to take a pit stop, and were asked if we had jumper cables, which we do. I immediately went into recruitment mode, explaining why we were here (the cables are labeled USDA since they go with the vehicle we're borrowing), and asking if they were interested. I laid off a bit, while they worked on getting the car started, but then they asked what my study was about, so I started again. We were able to recruit our last participant this way, which worked out well, since the other way wasn't cooperating all that well.
We drove to the nearby Manuka State Park to eat our lunch/dinner, before heading to Honaunau to finish a property we started last Sunday by interviewing the woman. We picked up sticky traps from the previous participants, and made our trek through the mostly jungly property. The ground was, of course, very damp from earlier rain showers, so my shoes were yet again sopping wet and muddy. I was also attacked by several trees, made into a depository for seeds, walked through plenty of chicken poo, and had ants not only in my pants, but in places unknown. Not fun. We were on the last plot of 6 when the flash decided to stop working (right after I had a nice fall), but we had to continue. We finished with just a few minutes to spare before we needed to head back out and hunt for frogs.
This property had one of the highest densities of frogs we have seen thus far, especially in the front of the house with a tree covered in bromeliads. Not only was the tree super super loud, but we also saw a number of tiny little coqui frogs around. Must be a great breeding area for them, since there was a nice moist brush pile nearby.
Seth also spotted a male frog calling in a bird nest in one of our unmanaged plots.
We didn't finish with the property until 11:15 or so, but the time flew by since there were so many frogs to see. Seth even had one go down his shirt after we were taking its picture, as it hopped on the camera lens, then onto him, and down his shirt. He wanted to make sure it wasn't on him before we headed back to Kona, as we didn't think the apartment complex would appreciate us bringing coqui frogs with us!
We packed up the sound recorders and headed back to the apartment to take care of bugs and crash for the night. We were about a mile from the apartment on our favorite road lined with speed "humps" (as they call them) when one cop SUV pulled out in front of us. The second one almost blew through the stop sign as well, but decided to wait and go behind us. We felt like we were swimming with the sharks on the last stretch, since the cop in front was going about 5 under the 30 mph speed limit. Sure enough, about a 1/8th of a mile from the apartment entrance, the cop behind us turned its lights on, we pulled off, and the other cop turned around, parked in front of us with his lights on. Seth had to roll down the busted window, while they came and told us that they had run our plates and the safety inspection was showing up as being expired. We knew that it wasn't, of course, since we had it done in June, so I got the paperwork out for the cop, while he took Seth's license. They commented on us being from Utah, and we mentioned we're doing research on the coqui frogs and we explained a bit about the project. We mentioned we just came from a property that was very jungly, and the cop said that he could tell, as we smelled pretty bad. We had a good laugh at that, since we couldn't smell that we were that bad, though we knew we had chicken poo all over us, and were looking forward to a shower when we got back to our apartment. We made small talk with the one cop about our project, while the other checked Seth's license, and cleared our plate. The one that had been chatting with us told us to have a good night and to go and take showers (!) We told him we were headed that way, and then proceeded on our way. Seth had to pull out the circuit board again and use the metal from the clothespin to roll the window up. We took care of bugs, showered, did laundry, and headed to sleep after the eventful night.