Mango!

It is that time again… Mango season.

The fruit are just starting and I was only able to find enough for one dehydrator load. Over the next week there will be more fruit reaching that perfect ripeness. The fruit do not last long, there is only a few days for any given fruit before it spoils. Fortunately not all the fruit ripen at once, each visit to the tree finding a few more ready.

With this sort of bounty the fruit must be used quickly. I will give some away, taking them into work. Much of the harvest will go into the dehydrator, saved for later with a little processing.

Actually we get a couple mango seasons in our back yard. The trees I have are a different variety than the huge tree that overhangs our yard from the neighbor’s. It is just showing small starts right now, it will be later in the summer before those fruit are ready.

Mango!
A load of mango in the dehydrator.

Lava Lake at Halemaʻumaʻu

A bit of video put together from the clips I recorded at Kilauea Caldera this morning. The video was shot with a Canon 6D and a Televue 76mm telescope. It really does not do justice to the image through the ‘scope with a mark I eyeball. But it will have to do.

The soundtrack was mostly wind noise and random comments from the crowd of people watching the spectacle. Very faintly you can hear some of the noises from the lava, but only in spots. Instead of this annoyance I just threw a copy of Fireworks Music in place of the mic noise, much better.

Lava Lake at Halemaʻumaʻu from Andrew Cooper on Vimeo.

A Lava Lake at Halemaʻumaʻu

It was worth the predawn dive across the island!

Up well before 3am and on the road. Blitz across Saddle Road, through Hilo and up to the volcano. I expected a small crowd at that time in the morning, what I found was a mite more than that. The parking lot was nearly full, I was lucky to get a spot as someone else was pulling out. Several hundred folks were already on the terrace at the HVO Jagger Museum. No surprise, it was a beautiful view of a lava lake with small fountains along the edge. I did have an advantage over most of the crowd, I brought a small telescope.

I will put in a better write-up later when I get a chance to process the photos. In the meantime one quick process..

Halemaʻumaʻu Lava Lake
The lava lake at Halemaʻumaʻu on the morning of April 27, 2015