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Carpet of leaves from a PROTEA tree. I love how the edges look like they were cut with pinking shears. As always... no one can beat mother nature.

WHALE TALES

Baby humpback whale breaching with Lanai in the distance.

Mama whale is the dark spot to it's left...almost in the center of the pic.

Friday morning were up not so bright but very early to make it to Lahaina by 8:00AM for our whale cruise with PACIFIC WHALE FOUNDATION. It was a picture perfect day and within 5 minutes of sailing out of the dock Mom, Nick, Brandon, Heather, John and myself were treated to a mother and baby humpback whale (above). This time of year, most whales have already started their long journey back to Alaska to feed for the summer, so we were lucky to have any sightings at all. Along with the whales we also saw a few bottle nose dolphins who were taking it easy just swimming along as though they were out for an afternoon stroll. The other great thing about taking the boat is the view you get of the islands from the water. It's always nice to get another perspective of Maui other than the highway view.

I picked up a new 250mm zoom lens with image stabilizer the day before in hopes of getting "the shot". Problem with the zoom lens, other than me not having time to adjust to it, is that it is much more sensitive to motion and the images are not super crisp. The use of a tripod would help that. I have 90 days to try it out... so I'll be shooting and posting away during that time to see if we think it's a keeper or not.

This is a shot from the top deck of the boat looking directly down into the water.
It looked exactly like this... NO LIE. Water can look different colors depending on which way you look and where the sun is at that particular moment.

A deep valley on Maui's West side.
You can actually see all the way through to the East or Wailuku side.

An adult ding a "spy hop". Who's watching who?

An adult breach and splashdown.

The fluke or horizontal tail fins of whales, dolphins, and porpoises are unique to each with no two having the same markings or ridges on the tail edge. This helps to identify whales for research purposes.

Bottle Nose Dolphins

Mother and baby with another adult in the distance.

(detail)

The slow rise of the hump then tail before the whale descends.

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Raindrops on the leaf of a VARIEGATED SHELL GINGER.

SWHALE TIME

Last Wednesday Mom and Nick arrived for a month long visit with my sister and nephew arriving tomorrow for a week and a half. Grandma was supposed to come with them all, but a small health issue kept her home this trip. She's doing well, but we're sad she's not here to see the whales. Trying to see if MAYBE we get her back with Mom and Nick in the summer sometime.

Yesterday we headed over to their hotel in Lahaina for a MUCH needed get away. We lounged by the pool watching HUMPBACK WHALES and SPINNER DOLPHINS treat us to a spectacular show. Most were out a bit too far to even try to photograph. We headed over to
WHALER'S VILLAGE for dinner at LEILANI'S right on the beach.

As the sun began to set they raised the sun shades as the wait staff walked through the restaurant announcing the sunset. On cue, a mother and baby whale started their tail slapping performance the minute the shades finished raising. The mother would slap her tail then baby would follow. One of the waitresses said that they usually do this right after the baby had fed. I could not manage to get a good shot of the baby because it was turned sideways. Here you can see mama giving a whale of a tail slap lesson. Mind you, there were many whales in the distance doing the same thing, but this pair just happened to be a few hundred feet from shore. As soon as they had finished, another whale started to fin flap to the right. A few minutes later it shot into the air and I got my first shot of a whale breaching. A "swell time" was had by all.

Mother whale tail slapping. The bay was just behind the boat.
The railing at the bottom of the image will give you an idea of just how close it was.
(detail)

Whale doing a "spy hop". This is when they just pop their heads out of the water to have a look around. It's really not all that far from shore.
(detail)

I could not tell if this was an adult or a baby. It appeared to be alone, so I am assuming it was a young male. Notice just how close it was to shore. You can judge the distance from the peoples heads at the bottom of the image.
(detail)

The quintessential "sunset sailboat" shots. How could you resist taking these shots. The bottom one is so seventies.

BLOG ALOHA

I'm pleased as Hawaiian punch to blog about a recently completed redesign for hapa|hale. The blog's author, Leigh, and I cyber-met about 2 years ago through the design*sponge feature penned by our pals Lauren & Derek about Conn's shelf makeover. We shared many common interests and design influences so it seemed a perfect match when she asked me to redesign her blog identity and site. She was well prepared and supplied me with a handful of blogs that she admired and a wish list of design tricks and functionality that she wanted deployed in the new template design. When she suggested Squarespace as a development and hosting platform, I took it out for a test drive and gave her my blessing. Using a combination of their custom style editing features, I designed the template based on the approved mock-ups and banner photography.

Before all of that were a few rounds of logo design. The lowercase h's were a trademark display style that I needed to keep but I really liked how the capitol H's worked together and when placed in a pattern arrangement they do double duty as the state's abbreviated name. The simplicity of the letter forms in the title words seemed well-suited for futura, where as the client wanted a more whimsical and girly cursive for the tag line. Enter linoscript. We were both really pleased with the results.

I styled the image in the top banner with a combination of things supplied by Leigh and an assortment of our own flora and seashells (all from local sources). Conn helped me out with gathering and positioning the elements. I must of snapped a zillion photos before we arrived at the perfect one. Leigh had the vision to have the logo letterpress-printed into beautiful calling cards by Meimiko. I took a photo of the card in the cello-envelope because I liked how the label complemented the design on the cards. They did a great job in the printing and color matching. Beautiful paper too. Letterpress is a wonderfully tactile medium, so nice to actually "feel" the design rather than just see it on the computer screen.

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An old abandoned water tank near Ali'i Kula Lavender.

3 AND COUNTING...

It just dawned on me today that as of yesterday we have been living on and in our little slice of paradise for 3 years. It feels like more and less at the same time. We don't remember too much from last year with all of the construction and as you can see, we still have yet to paint the main house. It's going to happen soon... well sometime in April or May. Just look at how much things have changed around here. Mind boggling really. Here's to (at least) another 3 years. Thank you to all who have stopped by. We truly enjoy your comments and are happy to have met so many new friends via CFC.
A hui hou!
c+j

Right after we moved in and a shot from today.
We have also planted many plants or just allowed others to grow in rather than scalping them in addition to the construction. Here you can see some of the coco palms we planted soon after moving in. They were about 18" tall with 2 - 3 fronds each. Notice the potted palms nestled in under the teenage palms? There are about 45 of them... waiting to go in the ground.

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Stems of a TRAVELLER'S PALM.

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Leaves of the ROYAL POINCIANA tree.

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Today I am starting a new weekly feature called: Tuesday's Texture. These are images of various patterns and textures that make me stop in my tracks and take out the camera. I have been gathering these last year or so, but many of them are going to be more recent. Most will be natural textures, but that's not to say there won't be a man made one tossed in now and then.

This is the photo that really inspired me to start this weekly post. It was taken down inside HALEAKALA CRATER and shows the many textures you encounter as you walk further and further in.

m&mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm

As I approached the checkout aisle yesterday at Costco, this little box of treats caught my eye. I put it in the cart, then took it out and proceeded to the checkout. Still thinking about what the coconut m&m's might taste like... I made my way back for a box. HOW COULD I NOT BUY THEM? We are CUCKOO FOR COCONUTS after all! They aren't bad and taste a little bit like Mounds candy bars... without the chewy coconut. I actually think the packaging is pretty good and I like the bright white with the hot pink accents. It feels fresh and tropical. The brown m&m's in the tree are a cute touch, but coconuts have a green outer shell and brown inner shell. I'm just sayin'. The graphics of beach umbrellas, palm trees and hibiscus printed on each could be a bit easier to see though. They really only show up on the white ones and the brown seem to only come with m's. I'm such a sucker for something old in a new package or that has been given a new taste sensation. Sometimes it doesn't always work, but I (we) give these two (four) thumbs up.

ONE POTATO, TWO POTATO...

A few years ago, my mom tried to show conn and I how to make gnocchi di patate (potato gnocchi) but we didn't have the proper kitchen tools so they came out mushy and clingy. So later that year, she gave us a ricer (think large-scale garlic press) hoping we'd be churning out the gnocchi like professionals. Alas, that didn't happen.

So on this visit, faced with a big ol' Costco bag of large, starchy, Idaho baking potatoes, we figured we'd finally put that ricer to use and attempt the gnocchi again. Here's what we did, without measurements because my mom doesn't measure anything when she's cooking... only when she's baking. This batch gave us dinner for 7 or 8 (we actually froze about half).

• 4 very large (or 6 medium) baking-type potatoes, like a Russet or Idaho Gold.
• All-purpose flour
• 2 eggs

Put the potatoes in a pot of salted water and bring to a boil. Cook until they are fork tender. It's important that you use the starchy baking type of potato.

Let the potatoes cool until the are warm and easy to handle. Peel them and cut them up into pieces that fit in the ricer. The cut pieces here in the pic fit perfectly into our ricer.

Squeeze out the potatoes into a pot or bowl that you can then mix the dough in. It's sort of like Play-Doh Fun Factory. Very cool. See how they get all delicate and stringy? You can't just used mashed potatoes, they need to have some solid bits in there. And also be sure not to let any large pieces of potato fall in. We only riced 2 of the very large potatoes to start out with, otherwise the final dough would have been too large to manage. And if you decide not to make the full recipe you'll just have leftover boiled potatoes that you can make potato salad or mashed potatoes with.

Here we are sprinkling all-purpose flour over the potatoes. Start with about a cup and a half of flour. Then add 1 egg. Remember to reserve the other egg for the second batch.

Then blend the flour, potato and egg together with your hand until it holds together. Add more flour if it's too wet. Or alternatively, more riced potato if it's too dry. It should start to form into it's own loaf-like shape.

Place your dough on a floured surface and lightly knead it until all the ingredients are incorporated. You'll have to tell by touch and by the look of the dough. Conn tried to resist the lure of the fresh boiled potatoes but eventually succumbed.

It's going to feel light and soft... sort of like the top of your hand between your thumb and index finger. It's not nearly as firm as a bread or pasta dough.

Then cut 3/4 inch slices off the dough and roll them out into a rope-like shape that's about 1/2 inch thick. It doesn't matter how long it is because you will then cut off little 1/2 inch pieces. It may help to have a small pile of flour near where you are flicking the pieces so they don't stick together or to your finger when you roll them.

Using a box grate, nail-punch side up, dip your thumb in flour and roll/flick the gnocchi by pressing into the grater and off toward the bottom. It helps to hold the grater at an angle. The gnocchi need to curl up as you can see in the pic. So getting the pressure just right is crucial. I let mom do this part. It would be good to have a cloth spread out on the counter with a fine sprinkling of flour on top to set the gnocchi as you finish rolling them.

Here's a close up of the finished gnocchi. They can sit out on the counter for up to a few hours. Then you can either prepare them or freeze them. To prepare them, drop them into a pot of well salted, boiling water. Stir them gently to make sure they don't stick to each other. When they start to bob up to the surface, they should be done. They'll be firm and tender. We ate them in a simple sauce of melted sage butter and lots of grated parmesan cheese. Notice, there are no pics of them prepared because they were gone in a flash. Seriously. They were extremely ono!

Update on mom and dad's doings... Here's Dad making the very steep trek from the coastal cliffs near the house. "Never again!" he vowed. Too steep for his 70 year old self.

Mom stayed at the top which is maybe why she doesn't look as flushed as Dad. It was a cloudy day but still gorgeous.

Had to post this pic I took on our jaunt to the Kula Lavender Farm. The orangey plant is a type of bromeliad i think.

More tufts of lavender.

Mom and Dad stop to take in the clear view of West Maui.