Piglets without Poohs

Ode to Wild Wilburs

Four youngster piggies came into our yard
We saw them coming close and we tried real hard

To shoo them all away before they did their deed

But they toppled coffee trees with tremendous speed

With broom in hand, Ron ran, yelled and swung

We couldn't bear to shoot them, they were so young

They may have been piglets, but their noses dug well

enough to do damage, I'm writing here to tell

When the pigs get bigger, all bets are off

The oinkers will be braver, at us they will scoff

So instead of just a broom, a .22's sting

Or a giant metal trap might be just the thing

Poor poor piggies, they're just trying to eat

Everybody wants them, to smoke their meat

A bounty's on their head, they're always on the run

When one yard gets to dicey, they find another one

Yes, the pigs returned with a vengeance tonight. They did topple one tree and were getting set to do what they do when we spotted them in the twilight. Scat! Cute little buggahs. Not for long, though. Da kine gonna grow biggah, fo'real!

I'm reading my textbooks for school and learning what a woefully poor fiction writer I am. The beauty, however, is that I'm starting at the bottom, so the learning curve should be steep.

$11.88 cents in recycling today!! Oh, but it cost $75 to fill up the truck. Cat food was on sale! The price of water at the reverse osmosis spigot rose from $1 for five gallons to $1.25. Clearly, it was a mixed day when it came to financing my errands.

I learned about leaf miners in Alaska. My roommate Lisa showed me a leaf there as evidence of the destructive little critters. They're like the pigs of the insect world. Today, as I transplanted my tomatoes from small pots to larger ones, I spotted the tell-tale signs of leaf miner damage. That's what you see in the photo above. I felt pretty damn smart, I must say.

Apparently, leaf miners live in both Alaska and Hawaii. They've gone global!

These red leafed ti plants were some I planted as mere sticks, cut from a thick growth of them behind the water tank a year ago.

A hui hou. Aloha!

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Fruity booty

It was a long drive from Glenwood to the northern tip of the island -- three hours -- so for sustenance, we stopped at Baker Tom's for malasadas on the way. My pal Kathy and I were headed to Kapa'au for a hike, one we'd read about in the local newspaper. The couple who run Baker Tom's (not sure if the husband is actually Tom or not) are delightful, with enduring stamina. They're as old as radio, yet they're always on duty, ready to serve behind the counter, as they have for many years, frying, baking, brewing and smiling, there in Papaikou , gateway to the Hamakua Coast. The malasadas are enormous, cheap and delicious, the coffee OK, the tourists all happy to have discovered this place, buzzing with sugar and caffeine. They make a killer pumpkin cheesecake at Baker Tom's, too. It's always a pleasant stop. Ahapua'a . It's a Hawaiian land division, usually a strip or wedge, stretching from mountain to sea. Hawaiians lived in villages wit

Born and bred

The creature stared at me, wide-eyed through the florescent glare, Saran Wrap stretched tight across its broad back. Alone in the seafood cooler, he was the only one of his kind, there among the farmed, color-added Atlantic salmon and mud-flavored tilapia, perched on a blue foam tray, legs tucked 'round him like a comfy kitten. He didn't blink. He was dead, red, cooked and chilled, ready to eat. Such a find is rare in the City Market fish department in Gunnison, Colorado. What if nobody takes him home? I thought. This beautiful animal will have died needlessly, ripped from his home, family and friends (Dory, Nemo, Crush and Gill?) only to be tossed in the trash when his expiration date came and went. I lifted him for closer inspection, checked that date, felt the heft of him, scanned his surface for cracks and blemishes. The creature was perfect. I lowered him back into the cooler, nodded farewell, turned to walk away, took one step, and stopped. Shoppers strolled past, stud

On Tennis and Writing and Being Too Nice

I've recently been recruited to play tennis for a local 4.0 ladies tennis league team, referred to as either "Team Debbie" for the nice woman who manages us, or "Have Fun," which is our pre-match chant. We're still looking for a proper name. But we do have fun, despite getting creamed most outings. Last Saturday, we played in the Edith Kanakaole Tennis Stadium in Hilo. Good thing, too, since outside it was pouring, complete with thunder and lightning. It's a substantial structure, covered, yet open all around, most famous for hosting the annual Merrie Monarch Hula Festival in April. It was about 85 degrees outside and 100 percent humidity, air so thick it took three sucks of my albuterol inhaler just to breath. Several of us arrived early to warm up, but after twenty minutes' steady rallying with my teammate, Keiko, the human backboard, I was drenched. I played doubles with a nice, extremely fit and excellent ground-stroker named Cynthia from Pahoa.

Mountains and Islands

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