Daily reflections by Ema and Elle
By Ema ~ I was pulled from my bed this morning with Elle urgently telling me something was wrong with the toilet. We were suppose to being going down into Kona today, but this suddenly became our priority. I felt I needed to solve the issue and not contact the owner, as we were the caretakers and had caused the problem it seemed. I found a plunger and got to work, until I had a blister on my thumb. This was not working fully, as the stuff had gone down, but the water was not really going through. I could not afford a plumber and decided the internet might know something. I found several sites that recommended baking soda treatments with vinegar and hot water, but not boiling as it can crack the bowl of the toilet.
We got ourselves some food to begin our day, and then found the ingredients. I had Elle do all the measuring, as I figured she was getting math, chemistry, and life skills for her home schooling today.
After we let the baking soda and vinegar sit awhile and had added the several doses, I plunged some more until I had two blisters on my thumb. We let that sit again for awhile and wrote some postcards while we waited. I heated up the water and we added that and waited some more before a final round of plunging. My two blisters had now grown into a big one covering my poor thumb pad. The other toilet was acting funny too, so I was really concerned that we would need to get a pipe snake to go through and sent a message to Jonathan. Unfortunately he does not have one, but suggested we ask his friend we met other day. I decided to keep working on the problem before I reached out further. We added the vinegar and baking soda to the other toilet too just as a precaution and to try to get at the lines from both ends.
With patience and lots of plunging in between, the lines finally cleared.
I got a lot done around the home during all my waiting on the toilet. Our room is free of sand again and reorganized.
I opened the boxes that arrived yesterday and we found one was a treasure chest. Perfect for mermaids, so we got that set up to store our tails when they are done drying on the lanai.
The other box was a basket that we set up next to Elle’s bed for all her homeschooling stuff.
I made us a simple lunch of of rice noodles and zucchini in some olive oil, garlic granules and shoyu.
Out into the yard I went to harvest and tend all needed. There was lots more dragon fruit to harvest.
The kumquats are almost ready and I harvested two for my goddaughters family.
We are preparing some dragon fruit and citrus to trade them for some starfruit from there tree. The lemons are also starting to be ready. I also collected some of the Portuguese limes as they are always ready it seems. There are also papaya and coconut to harvest!
My little papaya trees are growing nicely. They were just babes in pots the last time I was here.
I worked on some more postcards til it was time to make dinner. I was not feeling so well and made Elle bean tortillas, but skipped this meal. Once she was set to eat I worked on my postcards until there was not enough light. It was another beautiful sunset here at the cedar house.
By Elle ~ today we didn’t go to Kona. I started my day with a pee as always however when I got to the bathroom there was paper in the toilet, I didn’t think much of it and did what I usually do. The toilet plugged up so I went to Ema who was still in bed, and we searched the house for a plunger. When we finally found a plunger, Ema started to plunge, so much that she got a blister. We searched up ways we could deal with this without having to get a snake we did some research and found a baking soda vinegar alternative and we wrote down what we would need to do. At this point my belly was growing so I needed to eat, we went into the kitchen and started making our food. I had a fruit bowl with some eggs and half a slice of bread, ema had a fruit bowl and came back for some ice cream. We ate, did our dishes and started to search for some baking soda and vinegar. We found some and got to work doing measurements I measured out the baking soda poured it in and then the vinegar and poured it in. We did this several times waiting for the bubbles to stop in between, then plunging, before adding in more vinegar and baking soda. Then we each had to pee again so we took turns and soon I noticed the other toilet wasn’t flushing so we added in baking soda and vinegar into that toilet. While in there we opened up a chest that we were allowed to use while Terry is away, we also got a basket too. So I folded towels while Ema worked on our room. She was still working on the room when I finished so I did what I was asked to help. Today all day it was rainy but sunny so the skies were bright and sunny with poofy clouds on one side but sad and gloomy on another side. I took lots of photos. I was told to go fill the frogs dish while Ema did some more plunging. I met a little gecko who was on the watering tin so I had to pick up the watering tin before he jumped away. I headed to the kitchen however ema was in there cooking, she told me to use the hose. I filled the bowl and asked what Ema was doing she said she was feeding us before we went into town for groceries. I asked if I could go harvest some guava, she said “ yes” so I got the harvester and went to harvest guava. I only harvested 4 before I hear “Elowyn!” I knew our food was ready so I walked back. Ema had 2 bowls of food in her hand one for each of us. We sat and she was talking about how happy she was with the pace I was eating at. We talked about going to the store but Ema didn’t feel like it so we didn’t end up going. I did up my dishes and talked to mom a while before she hung up to record Lou Lou ( my brother Luke) as he is preforming in the homecoming peraid. She called back soon and we talked before leaving I don’t remember why. We decided to go out and collect some dragon fruit and we got some big ones one the way back I saw the biggest slug ever he was like the size of my finger. I really wanted to grab him but the slugs in Hawaii are dangerous as they carry rat poop desese in there slime trails. I took lots of photos and some video too.
I wanted to go see the horses so I asked if I could, and I walked down there. No one was down there so I just walked back up to the house. We worked on the toilet more and talked to mom one more time, before hanging up. I decided to get dressed in something simple and we did a few post cards. I made a cute fishy paper card for Gracie, and we were hungry for dinner. I had my bean tortilla thing with cheese and avocado, it’s really good after that I did my dishes now the sun has set and it was really pretty pink skies, there was another millipede in our room I tried getting him but I actually ended up killing the poor dude. But now I sit on my bed journaling and I have finally finished.
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