According to Wikipedia, "Jury-rigging" or "jerry-rigging" refers to makeshift repairs or substitutes, made with only the tools and materials that happen to be on hand. Where I live, we simply call it Puna style.As you can see here, Lucy's all about Puna style.
To give you an example, our storage shed is Puna style. Our greenhouses are Puna style. Ron has learned that he's been doing things Puna style for much longer than he's known what that is. Back in Colorado and before that in California I called him the jury-rigging king. In Gunnison, he made a funky plywood doggie door in our cabin to keep out the cold and let the pups go in and out through out garage. It came complete with a clasp made of a wooden peg. In California, while we were still dating and I was still in school, he connected a fan to the battery under the seat of my VW Beetle so I could kinda-sorta have air conditioning. It worked great until the wire shorted and began to burn, filling the entire car with black, toxic smoke within about a nano-second. I emerged coughing and spewing, spewing and coughing. "It worked pretty good there for awhile, didn't it?" He said. Indeed it did. If something can be made using duct tape, staples and zip ties versus actually constructing it from traditional construction materials or buying it already manufactured, then that's what he'll do. Now, proudly, we've found a place on this earth where our style matches the neighborhood. We dig Puna style. We ARE Puna style!
Our Puna style greenhouses now shelter soy beans, peas, peppers and tiny cabbage seedlings from too much rain. They also keep the plants a little warmer on these chilly winter nights. Chilly in Hawaii, you ask? Actually, yes. We live at 2500 feet, which isn't high by Colorado standards but is high enough to experience significantly cooler temperatures than sea level. My neighbor said her porch thermometer read 45 degrees early this morning. We had the wood stove fired up last night and re-stoked it this morning. By mid day, however, I was back in shorts and aloha shirt.
My first freelance article has been published locally. Yay! I think that officially qualifies as a foot in the door. Granted, it was whacked (an official journalism term) to fit the space for which it was allotted. Still, the byline is there, so the local portfolio has begun to take shape. Meanwhile, while the winery is fun and a nice diversion, it doesn't pay much, so I'm keeping my eyes on the want ads for anything that looks equally fun but pays more.
A hui hou. Aloha!
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