Kauai 2013: day 3

Day three of my vacation coincided with Super Bowl Sunday, so I spent most of the day at a small gathering at a friend's house. This ended up being a good thing, as that's when I hit the travel wall and was pretty much a walking zombie not fit for much besides watching t.v. for several hours. I did, however, step out onto the lanai from time to time to try and take some shots of the Mejiros (aka Japanese White-eyes) as they flitted from tree to tree:

I was most interested in getting some shots of the birds as they worked the blossom of a nearby banana tree, and eventually my persistence paid off:

Since I was having a hard time choosing between photos, I'm basically just going to share a whole bunch of them (no pun intended) with minimal commentary—they're all fairly self-explanatory anyway:

A wider shot of a bird on the blossom, just to help provide a sense of perspective:

Peek-a-boo...

Yup, I see you:

I really liked how the position of the bird echoed the curve of the plant in these next two photos:

One final pic for the road:

Sweet Sunday

This afternoon I went over to the Sugar Shack to take a few pictures. Thanks to their Facebook page, I knew they'd be boiling today; in fact, it was likely the last weekend they'll be boiling this year. As always, walking up and seeing the steam pouring out of the building was a happy moment:

Rather than a wood-burning machine, they're now using an oil-burning evaporator, which allows them to be much more productive while going through a lot less fuel:

I wish there was some way to somehow attach the amazingly sweet smell of the steam coming off the evaporator—there's nothing else like it on earth:

Drawing off some syrup:

Getting ready to test the liquid's specific gravity with a hydrometer

They also use a new filtration system that sends the syrup through a series of chambers:

The sweet result. Trust me—if you've never tasted fresh maple syrup, especially when it's still warm from the machine, you're missing out on one of life's purest pleasures: