mk30

@mk30@regenerate.social

artist/programmer living off-grid on hawai'i island.

as people here say, aloha 'aina!

programming alt: https://tilde.zone/@mk30
art alt: https://mastodon.art/@mk30

This profile is from a federated server and may be incomplete. Browse more on the original instance.

mk30, to Hawaii

this is me showing my nibling how to harvest salt from the shoreline rocks. it hasn't rained for 3 weeks (very unusual for east hawai'i! it's because of El Niño.), so the salt nooks were in peak shape!

every patch tasted just a bit differently!

the story i had heard was: to gather salt at the shoreline, wait for a big storm with big waves. then, wait for everything to completely dry out. then go look for white salt deposits in the depressions in the rocks.

i figured that even though i hadn't remembered a big storm, 3 weeks of zero rain would certainly result in some good salt buildup. i was right!

cliff salt isn't just salty, it tastes like the sea. a friend told me: "it's concentrated mana from the ocean." it's not like eating table salt.

plus, we were just using the tips of our fingers to get a little out of the caves, so we weren't eating it by the tablespoon. we didn't harvest any to take home, we just did taste tests. by the time we'd tried a bunch, we didn't want any more salt.

it's good to know that should the boats ever stop coming to the island, i know where my nearest salt is: a mere 5 miles away, completely downhill. 🌊 🌋

my finger with salt on the tip. in the background is the tiny salt cave that i harvested it from. you can see the white crystalline buildup behind the finger - this is salt.
the shoreline where we were harvesting salt

mk30, to Plants

@plants
i found this part of a leaf on my trail and immediately thought "uh oh!". why did i think that? what did i see that made me concerned?

hint: it's part of a banana leaf

harshad, to Weather
@harshad@sharma.io avatar

Sunny morning in the hills today!

(Also, got a used Nokia 8.1 with Zeiss lenses, this is definitely not a potato!)

Looking up at an acacia tree lit by warm sun against blue sky with wispy clouds and a contrail cutting across the frame.

mk30,

@harshad beautiful! just look at that rhizosphere (the clumpy soil around the carrot)!

mk30,

@harshad yea, i started out wanting to understand "what happens between the root and its surroundings" and ended up in a deeper rabbit hole than i could have ever imagined...

but i do feel like i understand better the relationship between the root, the soil, the water, and the soil ecosystem (very very very roughly).

mk30,

@harshad but still, if someone asked me to explain what happens between the root and its surroundings, i wouldn't even know where to start...

i find it hard to talk about ecosystems because stuff is connected in multiple ways. and the discussion is really about processes and relationships, not "objects".

mk30,

@harshad yea, once i changed my thinking from "how do i get this plant to grow" to "how do i take care of & expand this soil ecosystem so that it helps the plant grow", then things improved.

and then i realized that that pattern expands out into the tiniest and the largest scale, so you're not just taking care of the soil ecosystem in your garden, but also the other ecosystems around you, and the waters, and all that. it's all gotta be healthy and full of life. (sorry i think i spent too much time in the forest!)

mk30, to diy

some tips i've learned for / design:

it helps to design modular structures and systems with parts that are easy to replace with standard parts and tools. everything doesn't have to be under one roof!

it's also helpful to have important parts of the structure/system accessible for troubleshooting and repairs (ie, do not hide electrical circuits behind drywall).

redundancies and fallbacks are also important.

try to avoid single points of failure (although sometimes this is unavoidable).

design a system that your future self will thank you for, because you made it easy to maintain, repair, and upgrade.

compost, to random
@compost@regenerate.social avatar

The Back to Eden documentary was one of the first movies I watched that made me realize how it was to build up our soils and the need to stop tilling and mining the topsoils.

Our soil is a fridge that we need to keep filled with what the plants need. If the fridge is empty then we are in very serious danger to even exist.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9RJ_zEe_qzs

What was the movie that made you aware of the necessity to improve our farming techniques and to shepherd our soils?

mk30,

@compost nice, i'm going to watch it!

what made me realize it was this gabe brown lecture: https://youtu.be/uUmIdq0D6-A?si=c9bH6IGu-ZTGNAcs

before that, i thought what i was doing in the garden was helping individual plants grow by adding things to the soil and making soil. afterwards, i realized that what i needed to do was create the conditions for a soil ecosystem to develop, and that is what would help the plants grow.

mk30, to Plants

did everyone else already know that this is what potato roots do???

these look like alien/scifi plants, for real.

there's basically already a whole tiny ecosystem around these roots. i even saw some white fuzzy critters sitting on them. there's a lot going on here and it looks very out-of-this-world.

biology: you're wild!

@plants

another set of potato roots. you can see one of the white fuzzy critters on the left side and at the base of the center-most root.
another potato root

mk30, to Orchids

2 new orchids from the local sunday farmers' market last week:

  1. a blue/violet vanda (my first vanda!)
  2. a tiny pink and white epidendrum (so cute!)

epidendrums do really well here. you can just place them in the nook of a tree and they'll go.

i have the vanda suspended in the air under semi-opaque corrugated plastic roof (the vendor said it shouldn't get direct sun). it gets rain drips from the side. we'll see if that's enough/too much moisture. it's very dramatic just hanging there in midair!

@plants

tiny pink and white blossoms of an epidendrum orchid.

mk30, to Plants

can you identify the plants for sale at this farmers' market in the puna district of hawai'i island?

hint: they are all food plants.

(bonus pic of the 'free seeds' box because plants are all about abundance, amirite? ^-^)

@plants

closeup on one of the plants for sale.
closeup of another one of the plants for sale at the farmers' market.
"free seeds" box!

mk30, to Birds

this morning our place was visited by a family of what i believe are chinese hwamei (Garrulax canorus).

i heard them before i saw them. my ears perked up because their song was so varied & interesting.

apparently they can be hard to spot, so i was happy to actually see them.

they are originally from asia and were introduced to the hawaiian islands.

here's a video showing their versatility in song and call: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dlt024a8CAs beautiful!

mk30, to nature

these lima beans are so amazing that you don't even have to work to open the pod! as they dry on the vine, the pods split open. you literally just reach in there and grab this amazing, delicious, nutritious, and beautiful food.

plants make it so easy for us and yet humans have made it so hard to live.... 😖

@plants

the dried pods that have naturally split open.

perkinsy, (edited ) to melbourne
@perkinsy@aus.social avatar

This afternoon I created another planter out of old wire baskets that I was given by the scrap metal recycling place nearby. I lined it with coir, upended a bag and a half of potting soil, then planted some tomato seedlings. The seedlings are Lycopersicon esculentum or 'Trussty' tomatoes. I haven't grown this variety before.

I have placed it in our small inner urban backyard in front of 2 other planters I created a few months ago in which I am growing sugar snap peas.

mk30,

@perkinsy those are excellent wire planters!!

mk30,

@perkinsy that is extremely thoughtful of that worker to do that.

mk30, to random

there's one extremely happy primate over here (me). this is just a giant bowl of fruit: cuban red bananas (from @saltphoenix ), starfruit (also from @saltphoenix ), lilikoi from my place, apple & cacao nibs from the store (sorry). it was so filling and luxurious. i really did feel like i was living the primate dream <3

mk30, to climate

indigenous activist nemonte nenquimo: "You forced your civilisation upon us & now look where we are: global pandemic, climate crisis, species extinction &, driving it all, widespread spiritual poverty."

"spiritual poverty" comes up often in indigenous writing on climate change. i think westerners tend to gloss over this.

i'd love to know your thoughts on this issue (even if it's "i don't give it much thought") b/c i now agree on its importance.

mk30,

my view on spiritual poverty & climate change: i basically agree w/indigenous writers.

i grew up in a secular/athiest jewish environment, so was always v skeptical of religion & spirituality, but i've now come to see it as central. without healing a broken relationship to nature (which is a spiritual matter), i don't know how climate change gets "solved".

i wrote about the evolution of my relationship with nature here: https://newcatwords.tumblr.com/post/696689931564744704/on-divinity-in-nature-hawaii-and-powerful

RickiTarr, to random
@RickiTarr@beige.party avatar

I'm taking a hard political stance, and I'm sorry if you get offended, but if it was never boiled, it's not a bagel, it's just bread with a hole.

mk30,

@RickiTarr this seems incredibly fair. bagels are boiled. if they are baked, they're something else (bread with a hole). they may be delicious, but they are something else.

mk30, to Hawaii

many people think is all sunshines and rainbows, but around , one is reminded that it gets extremely spooky around here.

here are a couple pics from my neighborhood from a few days ago. 🙀

a night view of a neighbor's halloween setup, which is 2 "freshly-dug graves" made out of red cinder. this must have taken some time to create!

mk30, to random

is: dreaming that i was chasing wild pigs away from the garden last night, & then today, hearing some suspicious pig-like-rustling & chasing those pigs away.

at first i was like "whoa a premonition dream!" but then i thought "maybe my subconscious just knows that pig-scaring is a part of life out here, so it put that into an everyday scenario 😅 "

as i was hollering & yelling, all i could think was: if one doesn't have a dog to do the hollering, one has to do it oneself!

pvonhellermannn, to random
@pvonhellermannn@mastodon.green avatar

There is no question that will be the most important yet. The will be the “biggest accountability moment in history”, and on its basis leaders will need to make crucial key decisions about fiscal and policy commitments. With less than two months to go, we need to all be as well informed as possible and put pressure on leaders as much as we can. I thought I would start a 🧵that I will keep going in the run up 1/n

https://www.wri.org/un-climate-change-conference-resource-hub/key-issues-watch-cop28

mk30,

@pvonhellermannn if i ever feel hopeless, i go out into nature and look at all the living things giving it their all to keep living and growing every single day. the plants and the fungi and the critters never give up, and we shouldn't give up on them either. i consider myself working with the plants and critters on the side of life, against a global biodeath machine. that's what keeps me going: the beauty of life itself. 🌱 💪

compost, to random
@compost@regenerate.social avatar

Today is my birthday and for a compost lover like me, nothing is worth a rich living self-reliant soil.

So I'm going to harvest the worm farm, make some aerated compost tea, and give a big boost to our landscape.

Taking good care of the soil is what gives me the most satisfaction.

mk30,

@compost happy birthday!!!

fireworks.gif!

mk30, to nature

: trying out this new tag. feel free to share your own fav tiny ecosystems!

here's mine for today: this green anole lizard sits on this exact pineapple leaf basically every day. it hunts lil flies that are attracted to a purple basil plant (whose little flowers are in the foreground).

there's a tiny circle of life b/w 1 leaf of a pineapple, 1 lizard, little flies, & 1 basil plant. 🤯

closeup on the lizard.

mk30, to Plants

@plants

can you tell what kind of sproutling is shown in the photo below?

it took me a while, but i think i figured it out. please post your guesses in the replies ^-^

hint: this is in a tropical wet climate at a pretty low elevation (~150m).

mk30,

@artem you are right! and you came in as a close second (someone else got it just before you).

please enjoy your "2nd place" gif. congrats!

gif of a pumpkin man doing a dance

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