I know it’s been some time since I have published a newsletter — for my subscribers and members of Hi‘iaka’s Healing Herb Garden, I do apologize. But I am thinking of all of you so fondly at this time of year and would like to send you all happy holiday greetings. This is my first e-newsletter… I hope none of you objects to this format, but the cost of printing and sending paper newsletters is one of the reasons I stopped sending them in that format.

 

I’m Still Here

 

The other day I took my dog Jackson down to what we call “the beach” (it really isn’t — it’s cliffs and crashing surf). It had been a while since we did that. It struck me that after 11 years in Hawai‘i, “I’m still here!” The past year and a half or so has been a challenge because of the poor economy, but I found a reason to be very grateful that day. How am I getting by? I’ll get to that.

 

The East Hawai‘i coast near my house

The Bionic Woman

 

For those of you who don’t know, I had my second hip replacement in May, 2008. Almost everyone asks, “the same hip?” This always surprises me… no, the other one! I am officially bionic now and getting around very well. But the four weeks of downtime really gave me a chance to mentally examine my life and my prospects for the future.

 

Hawai‘i Island Journal, the local alternative newspaper for which I was writing and proofreading stopped publication in June. Two jobs down the tubes. Then because of rising gas prices and the sagging economy in general, two trusty sources of income, my classes and garden tours, dropped off to zero. Two more jobs lost. What was I to do?

 

Trip to California

 

Kind of in desperation, I decided to travel to my old homeland of Silicon Valley in search of work in my old profession, technical writing and editing. Little did I know that my skills are oh-so-yesterday and even if they weren’t, the job market was NOT good. But I had a wonderful time for six weeks re-connecting with old friends, drinking some good California wine and enjoying the first fall rains. Thanks especially to my sister and brother in-law, Bev and Steve Shepherd, my dear friends Debbie and Alan Colgrove, Kris Houser, Penny Wolfsohn, Margaret Pickens and everyone else who gave me shelter.

 

                       

                                                    Debbie and Alan at Mazzocco Winery                               Vineyard at Husch Winery, Philo

 

On October 15, a group of old college friends from U.C. Santa Barbara rented the “Wharfmaster’s House” at the Wharfmaster’s Inn at Point Arena, on the Mendocino county coast, for two nights. It was wonderful to get re-acquainted with the people (and two spouses) that I spent so much time with 40 years ago. Here's a little slide show I made to commemorate our time together... and the page I created to tell us all about each other and refresh our memories of the good old days.

 

View from Wharfmaster's Inn

 

Financial Life Savers

 

After my return to Hawai‘i, I knew what I had to do in lieu of the high tech job that never materialized: I started clearing out my house in preparation for renting it. I moved into my ohana cottage, which had recently become vacant (aloha to Shane and Camille, who were the perfect tenants for three years). Thank God for the cottage! It’s small, but cozy, and I really love it because life is so much simpler in a smaller house. Plus it’s at ground level, so I find myself venturing into the garden more often because I don’t have to negotiate the stairs to get there.

 

My cute little cottage

 

Just last month, in the middle of November, I had new tenants move in who wanted a one-year lease. I was very happy to give them that because I had gone through four sets of previous renters, none of whom stayed longer than three months. That was stressful, but now I feel that things have stabilized.

 

 

 

In December ’08 I launched a local job search, but again, the economy precluded any success. Except for one thing, which is still happening: I noticed that another local paper, Big Island Weekly, had a new editor, so I thought I would contact him about the possibility of proofreading this alternative paper. The editor, Jed Stockton, hired me and I worked one day a week helping him get the paper ready for publication until July, when I realized I could make more money writing my how-to articles than proofing for him. But I continue writing for BIW — almost every week one of my articles appears. Now I am concentrating on writing about plants, gardening, sustainability and the environment because those are the areas I love the most and have the most knowledge about (as opposed to local politics… yawn).

 

In January I started receiving Social Security (yes, I turned 62 in 2008). That has been a huge help.

 

 

 

In March I reconnected with Demand Studios, the company that manages several “how to” web sites and for whom I had written in the past. After a stint as a copy editor and then a writer for a number of different subjects on ehow.com,  Demand acquired GardenGuides.com, which is a site I’ve been familiar with for 10 years because I wrote a few articles for them long ago. Now I am a contributor and make an income writing how-to gardening articles. It’s basically my full-time job, but I have to be very disciplined and make myself sit down and write five days a week. Not eight hours a day — my bottom and my eyeballs won’t allow me to do that. I’ve started a gardening blog on their site, so check it out. I love to receive comments and feedback!

 

Trip to Maui

 

In early May, I ventured to the neighboring island of Maui for the first International Conference on Miconia, a very serious invasive tree that has taken over thousands of acres here in Hawaii and other tropical areas, such as Tahiti. I covered it for Big Island Weekly (read my article here) and was invited to stay with Angela Kay Kepler, a well-known and award-winning author of many books on Hawaiian plants. It was a pleasure to meet her husband, Frank Rust, and enjoy the absolutely gorgeous amenities of their fabulous estate on the Valley Isle and their extremely warm hospitality. Here's the slide show I put together.

 

Angela Kay Kepler and Frank Rust

 

Woods Institute for the Environment

 

Thanks to Patti Hines, a neighbor in San Jose, in May and June I was fortunate enough to land a contract copyediting and preparing a book for publication for the Woods Institute for the Environment at Stanford University. The Endangered Species Act and Federalism is a 600+ page compilation about many legal issues surrounding the endangered species act. It covers such fascinating topics as the Karner blue butterfly, the plight of salmon, grizzly bears in Yellowstone Park, and many other endangered species and what’s been done to help them survive. It was totally my cup of tea and the extra income enabled me to get some much-needed repairs done to my house. I’m hoping for additional work from them as they move closer to sending this book to their publisher, Resources For the Future.

 

We replaced the two rotted bottom back stairs

 

Last of the California Kids

 

When I moved to Hawai‘i in 1998, I brought two dogs and two cats with me. They had to undergo a one-month quarantine on Oahu, but they lived very happy lives after we got to this island. I told them at the time that “you had better live a long, long time,” because of all the trouble and expense of getting them here. Clyde passed away at the age of 15 on April 2, and Bonsai followed him on May 20... she was 17. I miss them dearly, but take solace in the fact that they got to spend the final 10 years of their lives in Hawai‘i, which they loved. And I have my two younger cats, Rhiannon and Kiki Catalina, both Hawai‘i-born, to keep me company.

 

Clyde (left) and Bonsai in their heyday

November Workshop

 

From November 19 through the 21 I held my first workshop in a long time. Susan Spence, a nurse at U.C. Medical Center in San Francisco, signed up for my “Beyond Traditional Herbalism: Secrets of the Kahuna La‘au Lapa‘au” workshop. It felt great to get my feet wet again in the topic that interests me the most — plants that I grow at Hi‘iaka’s that were used in the ancient healing tradition. New tenants Adil and Christine Ghiassi joined in and were a great help preparing lunches and adding information from Adil’s homeland of India. Mahalo to all.

 

Janelle Honer, Susan and Christine at Janelle's "Josanna's Organic Garden,"
where we went on a field trip

 

What’s Coming Up Next?

 

The Garden’s 10^th birthday is coming up in March, and my goal is to get it back into some sort of non-weedy shape in time for a public open house party. I’m planning to revitalize my WWOOF program soon, so those Willing Workers on Organic Farms will be staying here again and helping to restore the Garden to a bit of its former glory.

Happy New Year to all and watch for another newsletter in March!

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