Farmer's Market

I spent most of the day working today, but I took a short break this afternoon to run a few errands in town.  The town I live in (Kilauea) is roughly the size of Damascus, for those of you back home.  There are more stores, even a restaurant and an ice cream shoppe, but they’re all congregated in one quaint little cluster. 

On my way out, I snapped a picture of the rainclouds passing over the mountains.  It’s been muggy and threatening rain all day, but the skies haven’t yet opened up.  I’m hoping for sun tomorrow—I have a kayak waterfall tour scheduled and a bonfire in the evening.

Then I stopped at a cute little thrift shop, which consisted of rows and rows of books, a few racks of clothing, and household odds and ends.  Good thing I can’t take much home with me on the plane… the space constraint is breaking me of my literature habit.  Purchasing literature in and of itself isn’t a bad habit… but back home, I have too many books to fit in my two bookcases, and I’ve read less than half of them.  I managed to reign myself in by not even scanning the book titles, and bought only a lightweight drawstring backpack for seventy-five cents.    

Then I stopped at the Sunshine Market, which is a farmer’s market held in Kilauea on Thursdays at 4:30.  The market was packed—it was hard to find a parking spot with cars lining the streets and filling all the little gravel parking lots.  The market is held in one such parking lot, and consists of a horseshoe-shaped ring of tents and tables set up by local farmers, all selling fresh tropical fruits and a few veggies.  For ten dollars I bought three cherimoyas, a mango (I haven’t had any mangoes since moving here—I’m so excited!), and two starfruit (the last photo explains how they get their name.)  The market is a fun mix of locals and tourists… but I felt like a local because I was executing my knowledge (thanks to my Fruit Farming Friend) of how to feel all the different fruits for ripeness.  Next time I’ll get a fresh pineapple. :)

 Something completely unrelated that I've been meaning to mention: I think the toads here are all on steroids.  I've seen some that I would need two hands to pick up!  They're EVERYWHERE at night... when I come home and pull into the driveway, I usually count approximately ten just in the beam of my headlights, and I usually have to manually move a couple from the path of my car so I don't squash them.  Most people just squash them.  There are dozens of pancake toads on the driveways and roads.  But I have an affection for toads... they remind me of grade school when my cousin (shout-out to Jessamyn!) and I used to catch them, house them in my turtle-shaped sandbox, and teach them "tricks" like how to hop on a leash or crawl on our pant legs.  We took our most well-behaved toads (Nightingale was mine, Kevin was hers) to Sunday school for show-and-tell, and I still have a fully illustrated storybook I wrote logging all the names and discovery places of the toads we found.  

Anyway, I'll take a picture next time I see a particularly gigantic toad.  

Until then, aloha. :)