A week of wild winds, warm laughter, and deep gratitude for this ʻāina and the crew who cares for it. Enjoy the latest blog from Kayla!
Hey everyone! It’s Kayla here to share this week’s blog
This week was quite different from what has come to be the norm on the island, including Thanksgiving… which was definitely one to remember. The forecast was absolutely not in our favor this week. With winds forecasted up to 60 mph and thunderstorms on the horizon, there was not much to do in terms of work. Thankfully, we had two decent days this week to get out into the plots and treat CASFIL! Other than that, most of our time was spent in camp preparing for the Thanksgiving Wind Bowl lol.
Thursday we hung out in the Main House all day due to high winds. With the shutters down, we had nothing but candlelight and headlamps to work with. But what work could we possibly be doing in the Main House for hours and hours with no wifi? Readers, our W25 team locked in and came up with “Kure-opoly”, a fun twist on the beloved board game that we unfortunately do not have on Kure. After collaborating on property names, we split up individual parts of the project, and many hand-cramps later we had our finished work of art.
Over the weekend we laughed – and argued – over two very different games of Kure-opoly. As player tokens, we used character pieces from the board game ROOT. For houses, we used eggs from Wingspan. The Chance (Birding) and Community Chest (WorkDay) are all custom cards Nick and Delia wrote that pertain to the island. And for money we used good ol’ fashioned calculators, pens, and paper. The most difficult part might have been establishing house rules, it seems we all played differently back home. I am still iffy about having to pay $50 to get out of the Muster Station (or Jail), even after my three turns in jail have passed. One thing we can agree on is that Jordan has the most interesting playing strategy.
Now, you may be wondering about Thanksgiving. Well, we all decided not to celebrate on Thursday due to the weather and to push it back to the weekend. The Thanksgiving spirit seemed to have been washed away with the storm, but Delia made a delicious meal of fish and veggies on Saturday for “Thanksgiving”. Jordan and I also contributed: Jordan making mashed potatoes and cranberry sauce, and I made cornbread. Delia also made pumpkin pie! As we sat around the table, we did the mandatory tradition of sharing what we were thankful for. It was clear across the board that we are all thankful for the opportunity to be out here on Kure and for the chance to be working with such a great team.
Highlights: Kayla and Delia’s pumpkin cinnamon rolls, Delia’s blueberry muffins, Delia and Nick won Kure-opoly
Bird Highlights: Ruff, Eurasian Widgeon, Sharp-tailed Sandpiper, first Blue-billed White Tern egg, at least 3 Short-tailed Albatross on the island
