Growing Family

When I first moved back to Hawaii, I started my pineapple growing experiment, which has been fruitful. This winter, I was overjoyed to see that the original pineapple stem was growing yet another pineapple baby! The flowers are so colorful and lovely, and they take a few months to grow and ripen, so it is quite a pleasure to watch their development.

After a busy beginning to the summer, being away traveling, I came home to see what looked like a fully grown pineapple on my plant. I had planned to wait until it was yellow and fully ripe to pick it, but while I was watering the plant, I brushed up against the fruit and it fell off! I took that as a sign that it was ready to ripen in the kitchen.

The fruit did ripen beautifully within just a few days, and it is so delicious. The taste can't be compared to store bought fruits, and let's face it, even those are yummy in Hawaii! Of course I had to plant the stem in the garden. Now I have three pineapples growing, though no more fruits are on at the moment. Look at how big the original stem is now! It probably won't be long until we see more offspring.

Camping with a Side of Sprouts

We went to visit family in Oregon this summer. Almost as soon as we arrived, Adam's mom decided that we should get out of town. We rented a lovely cabin on the Mckenzie river about an hour outside of Eugene. We had a great time, with activities that included fishing, hiking, visiting the Belknap hot springs, and nightly saunas at our cottage. It was super relaxing and we were happy to get away, but I still had sprouts on my mind.

A couple of years earlier, while back in Oregon we went hunting for morel mushrooms. While we were out that day, we found some baby pine tree sprouts and took them home. I was eager to see how they were doing when we arrived this summer, but Adam's parents claimed innocence in the fact that they had disappeared. So it all clicked when, up at the cottage on the Mckenzie, I saw the pine trees had littered the ground with sprouts!

We picked a few of varying sizes, planted them temporarily in Nancy's yogurt containers, and brought them home. We purveyed proper planters and the sprouts are now settled in what we think is the ideal location: under a pine tree in the backyard! We hope to see them again next time we go back to Oregon.