Su Ba

Doug, good suggestion, but…….  There is only one FM station that services most of my area, though it doesn’t reach as far as my house. And 6+ miles away there is a smaller radio station that only broadcasts in the Oceanview area, just a small section of the Ka’u district. With no functioning back up generator, the stations were down.   Yup, there were a LOT of lessons to be learned from this event.  

Doug… loved the long trumpets!  How fun!  

Communications—-  all systems went down except Starlink. And I mean ALL. No cellphones, no cable, no landlines, no fiber optics, no internet, no text messages, no civil defense messages. 6 miles from me is a nice CB radio community, but there was no system to spread communications beyond their immediate location. With the roadway blocked, there was no way for the CBers to spread any information along. Plus,  without electricity, I would guess that only those with generators & gasoline would have been able to function. As a side note, my neighbor has Starlink. So we were able to use it to get news about what was going on and to notify my insurance company that my new truck had been smashed by a tree. Ouch!  Lost my new truck. It hadn’t even gotten its second oil change yet.

When we made it into town on day #4, the local Hub had set up Starlink for anybody to use. I don’t know how quickly they got that done, but those folks running the Hub were right onto addressing most of the problems.

5 days into the disaster, AT&T was broadcasting a DR signal (disaster relief signal) for texting. I don’t know if it did voice calls, because I normally just use texting. But it did not support internet. At least people had communications again and could let friends and relatives know about the situation.

It was really eerie being without communication of any sort. One doesn’t know what’s going on. One doesn’t know what to expect next. You are aware that you cannot even call for outside help, and pray that nobody gets a heart attack or stroke. And with the roads blocked, you couldn’t even go out for help. The only incident I heard about was that a lady had an accident of some sort and was airlifted out via a helicopter.

Speaking of helicopters, many roads got washed out, stranding dozens of families for several weeks. The County used helicopters to airlift food, water, and medical supplies to those families. At 9 weeks post disaster, there are still roads that are not fully repaired, though a 4 wheel drive truck can get through most of them now. Yeah, it was quite the disaster.

I just lived through a natural disaster in my area — 24 inches of rain, hurricane winds, and incredible flash floods. Personally, we had many downed trees blocking our long driveway (600’) which took us 2 days to clear enough to get out, only to discover that our road (1 mile long) had been blocked by more than a dozen downed trees and close to a dozen downed telephone poles, which our neighbors worked to cut and drag off enough to clear things so that one vehicle could get by at a time. Then…. On day #3 we discovered that the highway was blocked, so we all were stuck at home anyway.

So how did we handle food?  No problem, but then again, we are all rural folks and do not rely upon visiting the corner grocery store every day.  We all cook using propane, so again, no problem.

In town, the story was different. The town, in fact the whole area, lost access to electric, water, and sewer. It’s been 2 1/2 months since the disaster struck and there are areas still without water and sewer. Electric had been out for weeks, but it’s restored now.

How did the town folks do?  Poorly if they had been entirely on their own. Luckily for them we have three things going for us here —#1- we have a strong culturally based concept of sharing,  #2 we have a Hub system designed to respond to a disaster, and #3 we have local non-profit community oriented groups that immediately leapt into action.

Our community learned a lot from this disaster. Among the long list of lessons learned, here’s a few items for thought….
….food. Keep on hand two weeks of easy food. Eat out of the frig for the first couple of days after a disaster then switch to canned spaghetti, canned soups, canned chili,  ramen noodles and cup o noodles, canned tuna fish, canned chicken, peanut butter & jelly, crackers, that sort of thing. Although this stuff doesn’t appeal now, when you get really hungry they look a lot more appetizing. All this could be eaten without heating up if need be.
….Keep a propane bottle to use with a grill or cooker of some sort. For town folk, a small bbq grill works great. The day looks better when you can sip a cup of hot coffee or tea before tackling another depressing day.
….Drinking water. When the town water system got destroyed, people quickly were in trouble. Drinking water became a VERY big problem. So storing a case or two of bottled drinking water, stored in the dark (a black trash bag) is a good idea.
….When towns lost water, they lost the sewer systems. Couldn’t flush a toilet. Luckily one of our non-profits immediately brought in dozens of portapottis. But in the meantime people resorted to pooping into plastic bags (or outside at night). So a roll of kitchen bags might be a good idea to keep on hand.
….Personal hygiene. No water = no bathing. Not even a camp shower. Until a hot shower truck arrived (2 weeks after the disaster) people couldn’t even take a bucket bath. A person in our community made a trip to Kona and brought back cases and cases of "Dude Wipes" and handed them out for personal cleaning. So a couple packs of something in the order of Dude Wipes is a good idea.
… Medications . This was difficult. Our towns were completely cut off from medical/pharmacy locations. I didn’t hear of anyone going without their medicines, but I guess we were just lucky that people happened to have enough in hand. It took a week to get the road opened to the hospital and pharmacy.  Naalehu and Waiohinu lost ALL their medical facilities, so our Hub brought in a first aid facility. After a couple of weeks they got a mobile medical van to set up in town. So, keeping a medical kit in your home is something to consider doing.
… Gasoline. One of the flash floods engulfed our only local gas station. Flooded. And no electricity = no gas pumps. But since the roads were pretty much blocked, there wasn’t much need of gasoline for the first week …..except for running generators. Within a few days, most generators went silent.
….Charging mobile devices. A problem until the Hub addressed it. The area had only a few personally owned, small, solar charging units. People quickly realized that running one’s car in order to charge the cellphone ate up the limited amount of gasoline quickly. So sone sort of small camping charger is a good idea.

Soooooo, getting back to food. Experience has ahown me that food is just one part of the overall picture.

I’d rather be outside enjoying my farm, enjoying nature, growing food, caring for the livestock. Other than washing dishes twice a day and doing laundry twice a week, everything else is low on the priority list. I find inviting someone over for thanksgiving day dinner prompts me to houseclean.

I lightly till in compost between each crop. Plus with some crops I use it as a mulch. I’m in the tropics and grow year around. The year around warmth constantly breaks down my compost, so it needs to be reapplied regularly.

I thought it might be interesting to see how peoples’ food choices have changed since being introduced to the concept of permaculture. I’m not 100% a permaculturalist myself, but permaculture concepts have changed my lifestyle. I’ve changed our daily diet quite a bit, and what I feel is neat is that i learned about a lot of new food options right here on permits.com.  And then things snowballed ——I tried several locally grown/available foods some of which have become regulars in my kitchen.

From Rufaro I learned that the greens of sweet potato and pumpkin/gourd were edible. From others who I can’t recall right now, I got introduced to Okinawan spinach, cholesterol spinach, Tongan spinach, water spinach, yacon, cassava, plantains. And I now cook the tender innards of broccoli stems.

Since moving to Hawaii , I’ve learned about and eat when available : breadfruit, mango, guava, papaya, taro, dragon fruit, jackfruit, mamaki (for tea), jackfruit, angle gourds, passion fruit (called Lilikoi here), tomatillos, New Zealand spinach, yard long beans, malabar spinach, sapote, mangosteen, soursop, ……and maybe more, but I can’t recall just now. Also gracing my table, when available, it feral pig, doves, and Kalije pheasants.

So how about it?  Anybody eating something new?

Once our bananas get too ripe for eating out of hand, I simply plop them in the freezer still inside their peels. No cutting up, no plastic baggies—-just whole and as is.  These we use for breakfast smoothies. I’ll take one or two out of the freezer and let them sit on the countertop for about 10 minutes or do as I work on making our breakfast smoothie and fresh coffee. Then take the banana, cut in half, squeeze the banana flesh out right into the blender. The now empty peel goes into the food for the pig(s).

Rufaro, I have some questions about groundnuts. I recall you grew some.

I have the opportunity to acquire some groundnuts to use as seed, to start my own plants. Nobody in my area has ever grown them before, nor eaten them. Could you give me some hints on growing them? And how do you eat them?  

I’m always looking for new crops to add to my homestead style farm. So I’m excited that I have been offered these groundnuts.

I have spearmint and chocolate mint. In my climate, both can be rather aggressive. But I have them growing in my pastures which I mow every couple months. Truly, I don’t mind them invading the pasture.

I find mint to be a refreshing tea by itself, but I normally add it to regular green or black tea for iced tea. We keep a gallon jug in the frig all the time.

I don’t know if this will work for your conditions, but I simply use tip cuttings to start new plants. I will harvest, then replant with tip cuttings.