Johnston Life Tasks

1) F.O.D. - Foreign Object Debris survey is done weekly. We have to ensure that a certain area (I forget the exact dimensions, it's marked on the concrete) of the runway is clear of any debris that could inhibit an emergency evacuation transport. Basically we walk the important part of the runway and pick up ANYTHING and EVERYTHING bigger than a pickle. Obviously, since Johnston is windy, many things end up on the runway but since we do it every week it's not too horrible of a job. I refuse to pick up any bird regurgitation that ends up there. Not interested in touching half digested squid that has fallen from 50 ft up and has now been baking in the sun. 

2) Tide Station - The tide station that transmits data to Univ. Hawaii and USGS needs monthly cleaning. Jake and I drew the short straw and we have to climb the tower to the solar panels and clean to bird poop off with a squeegee and then go for a swim to clean the algae off the water level sensor. I got a hyroid sting from holding onto the underwater structure with my feet and Jake and I have each dropped, and had to dive for, the washers and wrench used to close the outer covering of the sensor.

3) Kestrel - technically we're "monitoring" the weather on Johnston but we consider this more a chore because all we really have to do is retrieve the Kestrel from it's tripod on the runway and plug it into the computer. We do have to update the weather database with the raw data, log the amount of rainfall we accumulate and report highs and lows of temperature and wind speed but we switch the weather chore weekly.

Camp Happenings

The Fourth of July was fun because we got the day off and each cooked something for the beach picnic. The morning was a bummer because it was raining but not the fun rain we've been having where it DUMPS, floods everything and then gets sunny. It was kinda like Washington rain and surprisingly cold. It was gray and drizzly, thus super humid. We had saved up our "burnable" trash and collected the 5 pallets we were supposed to dispose of (they can't be returned to Hawaii because of contaminant rules, possibly spreading invasive ants, blah blah blah, we didn't care). We had a bonfire!!! I made a gallon of red-pepper, pine nuts humus, Sarah made Naan, Jake made couscous salad and Steven barbecued chicken. I broke into my "special meal" of crab cakes because I have 12 of them and I was not interested in eating the chicken. We went to one of the only beaches without a seawall, called the "Agent Orange Beach" and had dinner, swam, had a bonfire and made up star constellations. Not too bad even though I really missed the 4th celebrations at Lake Sutherland, with fireworks and no residual contaminants (just kidding).

We rotate who cooks dinner and who does the dishes every day except Sunday when it's free-for-all. Sunday is supposed to be left over day but we all eat so much that we never seem to have left overs. I do the dishes after Steven cooks and Sarah does the dishes after I cook. I've made some pretty good dishes that the crew has requested i make again; lentil, bean and veggie sliders with whole wheat buns, sweet potato and veggie fritters and two kinds of pizza, ALL FROM SCRATCH with mostly shelf stable ingredients! Steven has made curry a couple of times and sushi, Jake has also made curry and last night he made crab cakes! Sarah and Ryan are very good bakers and have made super yummy biscuits, about 20 different kinds of bread, and casseroles. Ryan made breakfast for dinner once and it was amazing. I feel like I've secretly influenced them all into eating mostly vegetarian meals and they seem very happy, I take credit. I have been helping Sarah and Jake a tiny bit with the garden but they are very happy to do most of the work. I find it funny that they come ask me gardening questions when there's an "emergency". Mostly they just over watered their starts and didn't know how to transplant once they were crowding each other. We have been eating collard greens, arugula, cherry tomatoes, squash and zucchini pretty regularly. Everything tastes better when you've been walking 10+ miles a day (no joke, Ryan, Jake, Steven and I have each tracked our mileage on random days) but really, everyone is gifted in the kitchen which I count as a HUGE bonus. We also rotate who chooses the after dinner activity, whoever cooks gets to pick the movie/tv show/board game we play that night. We finished Chernobyl, have steadily been working through Avatar: the Last Air Bender (we're on season two), and have watched a couple episodes of Community, Brooklyn-99, Planet Earth II, and Dexter. I've chosen Hot Rod, Jake's chosen Avatar (with the blue people), and Sarah's chosen Buffy the Vampire Slayer. We also have been playing some of the 50+ board and card games in our library. Last night we played Clue (Johnston Edition, with the rooms changed to places on island, and weapons changed to things that have injured us such as the seawall, coral, centipedes, and even our own bikes), we've played Go Fish (Hawaiian Edition, with cards with real fish from Hawaii and the Hawaiian names), Skip-Bo, Family Feud and Jake's personal game called Evolution: Climate Edition. We highly recommend this game for EVERYONE, especially those interested in ecology, but seriously, EVERYONE will like this game. You create species (and try to increase their populations) with special adaptations (burrowing, hard shells, pack hunting, etc...) and deal with changing climates and sometimes even climate events (wildfires, meteors, and ice ages, etc...)

I miss home a lot but am having a very good time!

-Anna