Free mulch, pay in sweat and effort

A little while ago my friendly neighbours at the Hapuʻu fern nursery down the road told me about a source of free mulch from the county. They also told me that one absolutely needed a tarp.

Being the librarian that I am, I researched the State law. It is probably this clause which had me shopping for a tarpaulin and bungees for the truck:

No vehicle shall be driven or moved on any highway with any load if the load is not entirely covered by a cargo net, tarpaulin, canopy, or other material designed to cover the load to prevent the load from escaping from the vehicle, where the load consists partially or entirely of loose paper, loose rubbish, plastics, empty cartons, dirt, sand or gravel. - See more here

With school on break I finally got everything lined up: the truck empty of kayak, the tarpaulin, the bungees for securing, and a day dedicated to the task. With only a vague idea of where I was going, I found my way to the county solid waste disposal facility where I discovered another of those impressive set-ups with recycling, redemption and disposal taking place in such a well run, beautifully laid out space.

I found my way through all the activity to where I thought I could see big machines doing stuff with huge piles of organic waste. A helpful county employee in a pickup truck noticed me dithering, did a u-turn, came back to tell me exactly what I needed to do in the most delightfully teasing Hawaiian male way.

Incidentally, in this new life, I find that I am often the beneficiary of the Hawaiian way of reaching out and assisting. To kokua, in Hawaiian, is to volunteer, to help. Working together, helping others, assisting and acting as community are true Hawaiian ways. I experience and appreciate them daily. Thereʻs a lot more to the living experience of the  aloha spirit than the conventional translation of "love" or "hello" or "goodbye"

With this pickup truck driving employeeʻs kokua, (for which I am SO grateful) I am armed with instructions on how to go about going through the weigh station to get a ticket, then going to the green waste site, handing in my ticket, lining up to get loaded, then returning to the weighscale. Even though the mulch is free, I am thinking they probably keep records of how much they give away. Necessary for reporting purposes.

I follow all these steps up to the first go through of the weigh-station where I am told there is no green waste today, only wood chips. Hmmm.

I retreat to the Surf Break Cafe in downtown Hilo to ponder the matter while I avail myself of their free wifi, a coffee and a Green Goddess bagel - which is some form of variation on a freshly baked bagel loaded with luscious raw salad greens. When the cafe closes in the middle of the afternoon, it comes to me that I could use wood chips for mulching as well.

So I go back through the cycle. I discover that it is a very interesting experience to have a huge front end loader empty its scoop over what suddenly has become a very tiny truck. Splinters, wood chips and dust flies everywhere. The truck settles comfortably on its substantial springs. I am really glad I brought the truck across the water with me. I am really glad I found this little truck on the side of the road on the rez in the first place, those seven years ago.

My next challenge is securing the tarpaulin to prevent my newly acquired load from escaping. Anyone who knows me knows I am not very good at ties that bind. I never have been very succesful  binding anything down at all. Nor at being tied down. I do my best, tucking in excess and patting down wherever I can.

That I will be driving the 12 miles or so back to Hale Mahina in rush hour Friday afternoon pau hana (finish work) traffic, is to my advantage, I think. It will keep speeds down to below 45 mph and around about 25 mph for a big stretch of the highway. There is also mercifully no significant wind to wreck havoc with the tenuous tarp. Of course being in rush hour traffic is also a disadvantage should anything try escaping. But I take my chances with that.

I get home prickly and hot but with the load intact.

It takes far longer to unload, one shovel scoop at a time. I am at it until after dark. Mosquitoes have a fiesta.

It takes me another afternoon to distribute these chips around my pregnant banana trees, and  the moonflower alongside.

A few days later I return for another load. This time rain pours down through the whole process. There is a less than friendly Wednesday lady in the weighstation booth who does not get up from her chair, but informs me in a very surly fashion that I am going to have to get out of my vehicle and come up to the window. Her Friday male colleague had passed my ticket to me through the window. I am glad this isnʻt my first time around. The glare Wednesday lady gives me might just have made me feel real real bad if I didnʻt know how it works. Someone has forgotten their true Hawaiian ways.

The loading area is a huge muddy lake. I am glad for the truckʻs raised wheelbase and the good (snow) gripping tyres. I notice that there is a self loading and an assisted loading area. I guess if you have a little car, or a small garden,  you could just get buckets full of the free mulch. It is much easier for me to have the load dumped in a single scoop on the back of the truck.

This time around the mulch is like horse poop falling all over us. It has the same consistency, is steaming hot, and smells like wine. Yum! I can hear the plants partying already and I havenʻt even covered the load yet.

The fermentation smell and the heat reminds me of the silage we made on the farm as winter feed for the cows, horses and wild animals. Silage was the prime reason my father planted acres and acres of mielies (corn) every year. Just as the cobs were forming the entire plants were cut down, brought to the machine staged at the silos at the back of the cow shed. This machine chopped the mielies into tiny pieces which were then spat at high speed into silos where the silage matured through the cold months. Fresh silage was good to play in - I guess a little like my version of a beach. I burrowed in it, made hollows and landscapes, houses and furniture. I experimented with eating it - because the animals seemed to enjoy it so much - the best part was the pithy sections of cob, sweet and sour at the same time. Just like cowʻs breath on a frosty winter morning.

The horse poop load proves more challenging to cover. I have some uneasy moments on the return journey with the billowing tarpaulin blocking my rear view visibility rather disconcertingly.

It also proves much heavier to unload and currently sit steaming away at the back of the house. The truck needed a good hosing down after that experience and still has a bit of a spilled wine smell to it.

Am I still having fun in Paradise? Yes. But it is definitely not a free lunch kind of situation. Free organic biomass is a treasure indeed, especially when one is food farming on lava rock. I donʻt mind the sweat and effort involved.