Mountains and Islands

Smaller in diameter that a dime and cute as can be, the coqui frog is nonetheless much maligned here on Hawaii Island. Many view the little buggahs as disruptors of the peace, invaders who have turned our once quiet evenings riotous. By contrast, the bitty frogs are much beloved in their native Puerto Rico, and threatened there as a species. But they thrive here, the first of them having arrived as stow-aways on imported plants sometime in the 90s. Named for their sound -- coQUI, coQUI -- only the males sing, and only after dark. During the day, the frogs are quiet. For a time, it was all out war against the frogs. The county advocated and supplied a variety of chemical sprays -- caffeine, citric acid, hydrated lime -- with huge promotional campaigns aimed at eradication. They're still here, more than ever and in the Puna and Hilo districts here in The Big Island, it would appear that, for lack of funding in these austere times and a waning of the will to murder the little beasts, ...

"Little darlin', it seems like years since it's been clear..." George Harrison After eleven -- count 'em, cause I do -- yes, eleven days of all-day rain with intermittent downpours and deluges, yesterday was glorious. Now, you might think that one good thing about a string of foul-weather days is that a person would appreciate the sunshine even more when it finally breaks through to lighten a dismal world. But I'll marvel at a sunny Thursday even if Wednesday was also fabulous. Maybe that has something to do with growing up in the great, if gray and drizzly Pacific Northwest. But it's a bona fide, documented, irrefutable fact that I would never take a sunny day for granted, even if it were sunny every friggin' day of the year. I wouldn't. Really. No way. Hoppsy wasn't feeling her best, so we hobbled to the yard to sit under the kukui nut tree, she in the grass, me in my shaky, rusty lawn chair. The kitties all gathered 'round. I didn...

They love each other like typical siblings.  One minute they're all cuddly, like this.  The next, their initiating body slams and chomping on each others' jugulars.  I had a bit of a start the other day.  It happened in the laundry room.  I say this like it's some far-away wing of my vast mansion.  It's a small offshoot from the kitchen.  Stooped over the edge of my top loader, I gripped and tugged at wet sheets that were wrung tight and smashed against the sidewalls inside the washer's basin, listening to Jack Johnson in the background, wondering, "Where'd all the good people go?" just like Jack, relishing the mindlessness of my chore.  Once the wad was free, I hurled it into the open dryer, slammed the door, set the timer and pushed the button.  At first tumble, I heard a loud thud and wondered if the dryer, like all my other appliances, was about to expire.  A few more bumps had me worried.  You can see where this is going, right?  I opened the door...

It still raining. Really, this sucks.   Hmmmm.... What's new?  Right now, I'm sipping a nice Spanish tempranillo which I opened with, of all things, a twist of the wrist.  Yes, screw tops are growing in popularity and are no longer for the cheapest, crappiest of wines.  This one's a 2005 Riscal.  It's light, as tempranillos are want to be, fruit up front but not over-the-top, a touch of pepper and a smooth, slightly tannic finish.  I'm enjoying it.  Perfect with Spaghetti.   Lucy is curled up in the corner of the couch.  Mr. Sox just came in, soaked, water beading up on his back.  Now, he's washing his face.  The little ones are off somewhere, napping, or snacking.  Hoppsy is here, in a ball on her favorite, cushy living room bed, licking her paw.  Doc is outside, where it's cooler, listening for evil invaders.  Ron is in the tub.  Abner ran into the bathroom when he heard the water running, thinking the tub occupant was me.  He likes Ron alright, but he l-o...

They are growing!  On Monday, it will be one week since I brought the little kitties home.  They have since taken over the lanai.  My neighbor was kind enough to loan me a giant pen/crate she wasn't using.  Since it is suitable for a Saint Bernard, it give the little guys room for a little resting spot, food and water, litter box and a few logs I've put in their for them to climb.  I take them out several times a day to romp all across the deck, wrestling and pretending that I'm their favorite tree.  I'm still looking for a good home or homes.  I won't give them away to just anyone.  It has to be someone I trust to care for them as well as I will, and if I don't say so myself, I set a pretty high standard.  Anyway, at night, they go back into Doc's crate, which has solid sides so is much warmer.  If it gets really cold out, I'll bring the crate inside.  But this is Hawaii, so I think their fine right where they are.  I place an item called a Snuggle Safe...

Ah, simple pleasures. Whenever Crawford manages to poop outside, we are elated. "Crawford had a peepee and a poopoo outside this morning, daddy!" "She's a good girl, mommy!" (Somewhere along the way, when it comes to the pets, we began to converse like Nancy and Ronnie Reagan.) Crawford can't really feel when the poopies are coming out, but walking around in the grass for awhile at certain times of the day helps to ensure "love dumps" as we call them in the grass , not on the rug . It helps , but there really are no guarantees. Still, she's a good girl and we love her and it's only poop. Shit. Everyone poops. With our acid rain here in windward Hawaii, we have learned that it is unwise to drink our catchment water. The acid comes from Pele, as she spews forth noxious chemicals from her volcanic bowels. Those chemical then rain down and flow into our tank. The water must also be treated with very small amounts of chlorine to kill...

Adventure schmenture . I think I shall now make it my goal to one day live someplace where I don't have to rely on a pump, a well or a tank for my water supply. At least, those items won't be in my own yard and won't be my responsibility. Instead, I'd like to tap into some municipal water supply. It would be great. I could just turn on the kitchen spigot and viola! Water would come out, like magic. I could also drink said water. It would be officially potable. Oh sure, I'd still be willing to conserve with low flow toilets and shower heads, water-stingy washer, odd-even day lawn watering in the summer. I'd even be willing to continue with the mantra, "If it's yellow, let it mellow; if it's brown flush it down." That's a bit of what we've been doing lately, since it hasn't rained in a little over two weeks. Check that. It hadn't rained. It's raining now. Ron noticed, however, that despite the precipitation, no ...

Yes, I know I've been a slacker. That's what happens to people in the tropics. The rainforest sucks the ambition right out of you. It's looking sunny outside this morning. The tradewinds have died, however, so we may be in for some heavy vog this weekend. Apparently, Pele is in need of some industrial strength breath mints these days. Maybe those folks at Altoids could dump a 747 load of some seriously strong cinnamons onto the latest eruption point to squelch her sulfur dioxide-induced halitosis. No wonder her advances were always rebuffed and she was forced to turn men into stone or trees or whatevahs. That girl has some worrisome anger management issues, not to mention her brutally bad breath. (Now watch. She'll get pissy and take out my house. Some goddesses just can't take a joke.) Business at the winery has picked up a bit. Thank goodness for those crazy Canooks! They're spending loonies and toonies like their going outa style. (Loonies and too...

Ron swore he saw several pigs in the yard today. He said they were riding in an ark. Or maybe it was a canoe. I went for a walk with the poochies despite the rain. Actually, I did it to spite the rain. Like the rain cares. No need to give the dogs a bath this month. They got so soaked, they're now squeaky clean after a good drenching and a towel dry. Not all wet dog smell is created equal. Each of mine has his or her own unique odor when dry. Each smells unique when wet, too. Fortunately for me, none of them are particularly funky. They all smell pretty good, wet or dry. Still, there's a bit of a damp-dog aura in the air right now. We'll fire up the wood stove in a little while, when it gets a little cooler, to add some smoldering guava smoke to the aroma mix. Then we'll cook dinner. It'll be a cacophony not of sound, but of smells. There is no mist these days. No light drizzle. No spritzing. Just giant drops falling out of the sky in such great volume an...

Bugs. Winter gives many people on the mainland a break from them. We have various bug seasons throughout the year here in the rainforest, but we never get a total reprieve. There is gnat season in the fall which corresponds to the waiwi guava trees bearing fruit. We have beetles, which swarm for several days following the gnats, then suddenly disappear. We always have spiders to take advantage of the gnats and the beetles. Then, there are the mutant mosquitoes; huge yet incredibly fragile buggahs that rarely bite. If you blow on them hard or spray them with a spritz of water, they whither and break apart. Mosquitoes on other parts of the island can be voracious. Be sure to carry your Deep Woods Off when you head into Waipio Valley, Lava Tree State Park or the Hawaii Tropical Botanical Gardens. If you're not protected, they'll eat you alive. By contrast, our mosquitoes don't do much of anything. Their primary proclivity is to venture into the house to die. I suc...

"Hey, I put some new shoes on and suddenly everything's right...." Paolo Nutini - Lyrics from "New Shoes." The other day, as I lumbered along the belt of the treadmill with my iPod cranked for musical inspiration, it occurred to me that I was probably the only person in the gym who was listening to Alison Krauss through my earbuds . (Never mind the fact that I was the only person in the gym just then.) I also thought it likely that I was the only person on the whole island listening to Alison. Maybe I was the only person in all of Hawaii. That same experience happened to me today. This time, the artist was Roger Miller. Hey, King of the Road is a good song and fits in nicely with my folk/country/bluegrass playlist . DON"T MAKE FUN OF ME! Roger Miller was a genius! Trailers for sale or rent, rooms to let - fifty cents..... Or how about the classic , You can't roller skate in a buffalo herd? You've gotta admit ...

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 th...