A Christmas Turtle

Legend tells us that Kauila, the turtle, can transform herself from a Goddess into a turtle. As a turtle she scooped out the trenches that allow the fresh water to percolate through the black sand giving fresh water to the people. Kauila comes onto the beach to play with the Keiki (the children) to watch over them and to protect them from harm.


For Christmas I polished my toenails–didn’t want you to think I had gone completely primitive.

For Christmas Eve I painted the living room–haven’t finished.

For Christmas Day, Daughter Darling Baby Darling and I took ourselves to the beach.

We know if we drive far enough we will eventually find water, but so far, we hadn't seen much of it. Daughter Darling said, "Here I live in Hawaii, and can't find the ocean."

We wanted a sandy beach, not lava encrusted one, and so we drove about an hour and a half to the Black Sands Beach, where Hawaii spread herself full-out in a glorious display of wind, surf, palm trees, crystalline water, and an estuary adjacent where water lilies blossomed and a ducky swam through.

And it was there we saw three Hawksbill turtles sunning themselves on the beach.

The black sand at water’s edge–fresh water–where it trickled under the sand running into little pools, Kauila's gift, looked and felt like Caviar.

Baby D played in the Caviar sand, mushing it through his fingers, smearing his legs and tasting it occasionally. I believe he would have spent the entire day there given the opportunity.

After the beach we drove into Naalelehu and had our Christmas meal at Hona Hou, the southernmost restaurant in the United States.

And so back home, and today, Sunday, in the early hours, it is raining. For the last four days, however, we have had sunshiny glorious weather, and we got the shipping container emptied after 19 loads to the house, the last four with help.

There are angels in Hawaii.

This is the way it works: You go to the dump--called a transfer station--and find two fellows looking for yard work. You hire them, and they bring two others to finish emptying the shipping container–affectionally known as The POD. (I know, a company name, but the POD in the Papaya Field sounds better than the shipping container in the Papaya Field.)

You go to the Propane store and ask if they will install batteries. No, but the man standing next to you says he will do it for $65.00. After installing 12 new batteries, Pete helps you start the John Deere “Gater” that ran out of gas. Do you know where the carbonator is? I didn’t, but he did, and with “Quick Start” squirted and gas primed you get the Gater running.

You see a man walking down the street with a white “Silky” (breed of chicken) on his shoulder–you stop–he shows you three chicks from his back pack. They stand, not jumping off, not pooping on your car window sill. He has chickens for sale–you have been wanting chickens.

Scenes from Hawaii.

You sit outside the Post Office and watch a lady limping toward her house, and from the house an orange cat limps, a mirror image, toward her.

A man sits up a hot dog stand in the Y between the two highways and supplies lunch for two weary travelers 3 days running. (Guess who?)

You follow the moving fellows behind their truck and watch the play, the friendly boxing, the jumping off the truck, road surfing behind it, catching overhead branches.

You are painting and an anole (small lizard) perches on the edge of the paint tray–you shoo him away lest he fall in and paint a track across your floor or the wall.

A couple is cutting the enormous grass that grows beside the road; you stop and thank them for widening the road. They tell you they are cutting it for their horses who love it. It is not sugar cane they say, but the horses love that too.

About 15 people wave as they pass you on the road, and about 15 mongooses cross it before you reach the highway.

You start the Gater and drive up the top 5 acres of your property and stop and pick oranges and star fruits and drive back with the evening wind ruffling your hair and it feels almost as good as a horseback ride.

And then you go to the beach and find that the turtles...

Merry Christmas!

Two Blogs sent in one day, forgive me, but I had to wish you a Merry Christmas, and I promised you the first paragraph of Mark Twain’s Hawaiian book. And so, here it is:

“The date is 1840. Scene the true Isles of the Blest; that is to say, the Sandwich Isles--to this day the peacefullest, restfullest, sunniest, balmiest, dreamiest haven of refuge for a worn and weary spirit the surface of the earth can offer. Away out there in the mid-solitudes of the vast Pacific, and far down to the edge of the tropics, they lie asleep on the waves, perpetually green and beautiful, remote from the work-day world and its frets and worries, a bloomy, fragrant paradise, where the troubled may go and find peace, and the sick and tired find strength and rest. There they lie, the divine islands, forever shining in the sun, forever smiling out on the sparkling sea, with its soft mottlings of drifting cloud-shadows and vagrant cat’s-paws of wind; forever inviting you, never repulsing you; and whosoever looks upon them once will never more get the picture out of his memory till he die. With him it will stay, and be always present; always present and always fresh; neither time nor distance can dim its features, or dull their charm, or reconcile him to the thought that he will never see that picture with his eyes of flesh again.”

That is all I have.

So, what happened to Mark Twain’s manuscript? Some writers have made its disappearance a topic not even Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson could solve.

Some believe it was rewritten into Twain’s book, The Confederate Yankee in King Arthur’s Court, for many of it feudal concepts and practices which come under attack in Yankee had their inception in Twain’s observations of the Sandwich Islands. However, no one knows for sure.

And now you must be tired of my ramblings and so I will say, “A Merry Christmas to all and to all a Good Night.”

I love every single one of you,

Joyce

An Attitude Adjustment?

December 20, 2009

It’s 4 AM. I’m writing by flashlight. Outside a monsoon rages.

The avalanche of rain pounding the roof has drowned out the frog’s song, or maybe it is too much for them and they are snuggled in their bed as I am.

This is the most severe rainstorm we’ve had since our arrival. It rained before, but mostly at night–You know, like Camelot, “It never rains until after sundown.”

Yesterday, because of the rain, we opted not to unload any goods from the shipping container, but to use electricity not made on our property. We drove into the little town of Kea’au–washed clothes at the Suds shop, went grocery shopping, and took ourselves to a restaurant called Hokulani's Steak House.

One couldn’t possibly sit inside at Hokulani's for the outside is splendid even if it does overlook the parking lot. While the rain pounded, and the temperature was set to bathroom comfort, we watched the rain hit the people and the cars, and the Niagara Falls of water course off the downspout. I could see Gene Kelly dancing under it as he did in the movie Singing in the Rain.

Hokulani's makes the best garlic, ginger (with a Thai dressing kick) chicken sandwich this side of De Friscos in Eugene Oregon.

After wading the parking lot we drove home through 10 thousand road lakes. DD said if we poured cement in those lakes we would have a smooth road. Imagine, though, cars would be stuck in it like the dinosaurs in California’s La Brea Tar Pits.

Trudging inside, and flipping on the kitchen light, we began to unload the truck and “Wham.” The lights went out! Guess with all the rain the solar panels weren’t soaking up rays, for there was none.

Unpulsed this time, we got out the solar pack that DD had the foresight to order one for her and one for me. This pack has lights, plug-ins, and it will even charge the car battery. (Given it is charged, of course.) DD, BD and I climbed into bed with the laptop we had charged with the car cigarette lighter on the way into town. We snuggled in and crafted a business proposal while baby D, like a persistent cat, was determined to get my pretty red lighted mouse.

When the thunder and lightening began this morning I was hoping it meant the storm was moving on, but soon the avalanche of water fell again. I wouldn’t care except some sunshine on the solar panels would be nice.

"CRASH!" The thunder and lightening is fierce. I tremble to think about how much water is on the road right now, but I am thankful we got home last night. Remember the Hawaiian lady who said living as we were would make us appreciative? Yesterday I was thankful for clean clothes and a wonderful lunch, and getting home, and having lights by some source, and a laptop that worked, and DD and her darling son who is happy through it all.

It is quiet outside, I wrote through the storm, and I just heard a frog sing.

The Isle of the Blest

“If only the house would burn down, “ wrote Mark Twain, “we would pack up the cubs and fly to the isles of the blest and shut ourselves up in the healing solitudes of Heleakala and get a good rest; for the mails do not intrude there, not yet the telephone and the telegraph. And after resting, we would come down the mountain a piece and board with the godly beech-clouted native, and eat poi and dirt and give thanks to whom all thanks belong for these privileges, and never house-keep any more....What I have always longed for was the privilege of living forever away up on one of those mountains in the Sandwich Islands overlooking the sea."

One doesn’t have to burn down the house to move to the isle of the blest, burn a little bridges maybe...
After his four month and one day assignment on the Islands, Mark Twain yearned to return, but never did. He wrote a novel with a Hawaiian setting, but sadly it was never published. Only 17 pages of it exist unless it turns up in someone’s attic. A visitor at the University of California at Berkeley can view those 17 pages in the Mark Twain collection.
I have the first paragraph of the novel. I will copy it for you on a later blog.

I have been feeling narcissistic writing about me all the time, but I’m the one with my fingers on the keyboard. Unless you write to me, and some are, bless your hearts, it is just me and the white page. And then I throw my ramblings into a bottle, called cyberspace, where it floats all the way from Hawaii to the mainland

Isn’t technology grand?

But being without it is traumatic. I couldn’t get Internet connection for a few days and I quaked, finally got ATT, but my signal is still weak.

I am sitting on the edge. One day I fall into discouragement. The next I’ve had an attitude adjustment. I’m fragile like the Noni fruit growing on the tree behind our house. They don’t look fragile, but are large lumps of gnarled white fruit that at first glance look like breadfruits. The trouble is ours are either green or black. Either too green to eat, or black rotten. I ate a bite of one I picked beside the road--tasted like green.

Noni’s are sold mainly as juice, and a company in the vicinity places the juice into capsules. There is a Noni company in the vicinity that puts the juice into capsules. Noni’s will, so they say, cure anything.

While in Hilo getting the car from the Port, and the Broadband from UPS, daughter Dear, Baby Dear and I took ourselves to lunch at a charming place called The Ponds. It had the Hawaiian slide windows that make an open wall, and no mosquitoes, and outside a freshwater pond where two guys were practicing the surfboard paddle. That is standing on a surfboard with a long oar and paddle oneself around on it. It was the bunny slopes. The advanced riders ride the Pacific’s waves.
It was perfect at The Ponds. The temperature was perfect. The weather was perfect. We drank iced tea with Liliqoi fruit juice in it. The Liliqoi is a yellow passion fruit and everything we have had with its juice is delicious. The iced tea looked like a Tequila Sunrise-- dark on the top, beautiful yellow on the bottom. DD had a hamburger, I had sashimi. We had a Liliqoi chiffon cake for dessert that was so light it melted in our mouths like cotton candy. (They told us we had Liliqoi on the property but so far we have not been able to find any.)

A Hawaiian lady sat at a table beside us–I have great respect for a woman to takes herself to a fine restaurant and is willing to eat alone. She ordered the full fare, escargot, a salad, lamb chops, wine. She was charming, lived in Dallas Texas for awhile, but came back here. We talked about our children, and she told us that living as we were will make us appreciative everything. This island is healing so she said. Also she told us that we must go to the Tsunami Beach. There you can find treasures, glass rolled up on the beach for mosaics, she found a complete brown glass Purex bottle with the Purex imprint on the glass. Now that was even before my time.

She lives in the Tsunami zone, but if the water rolls out, she is not taking the car, but has a tandem bike where she will put her child on the back and they will head for high ground. Usually there is ample warning, for Tsunamis are created from some geological event, usually an earth quake a long way away.

It is my favorite time of the morning. The sun is coming on. We have had a monsoon all night. The sound on the rain on our roof almost drowned out the sound of the Coqui frogs. If I listened carefully, though, I could hear their little chirping behind the driving rain. I have come to rely on the nighttime singing of the frogs. Now that it is light they are silent.

And so I changed the name of my webpage to The Frog’s Song. It is fitting, the old name I once used for my journal that some of you graciously read... Little did I know then, with Life’s Twists and Turns where I would be now, or that little chirping frogs would lull me to sleep.

Aloha from me to you.

http://thefrogssong.com/

P.S. IceRyder "Yes."

One of the Sandwich Islands, December 2, 2009

I’m experimenting. I’m sitting on the porch using my laptop plugged into the little solar panel Daughter D gave me as a gift before leaving Oregon.

A few moments ago my laptop went into Hibernation mode, which meant, I guess, I had used up its batteries. I can plug it into the wall socket, or use my full-sized computer, but just think the sun is there shining in all its potent glory, warming us, sustaining us, and powering my computer.

Hallelujah!

I had decided to stay in bed all day today if that suited me as I believed all my synapses and neurons looked like cat fur after the cat had put a claw in a light socket. I did stay in bed for awhile, but finally poured myself out, and sitting here is refreshing, wonderful, and from my seat on the porch I can see DD taking a picture of BD sitting in the mowed grass.

The temperature is comfortable probably in the 70's. Husband Dear told me it was 10 degrees when he got back to Oregon–so cold that our cat Zoom Zoom’s poop was frozen. Zoom Zoom is on a different Quarantine schedule that the other animals, but when Husband Dear travels back here Zoom Zoom will come with him.
The shipping container hasn’t arrived yet, but our pickup did. The car and truck became separated in Oahu, poor dears. Now, though, we have the truck and not a rental car.

On Wednesday, that was day before yesterday, Daughter D, Baby D and I drove to Utah–we didn’t really leave the island, but we drove from the Hilo side of the island to the Kona side, and it looked like Utah. We left the rainforest and drove through an arid stretch of land where tufts of grass grew on a barren prairie sort of landscape and even cactus dotted the terrain.

This island is a wonder.

I will take pictures for you, but that day I needed to focus on driving. The drive was incredible; we coursed down the highway over ravines deep as Oregon’s Multnomah Falls is high. Everything that could be green was, and in the ravines we looked out over the tops of trees where blossoming umbrella trees dotted the canopy with red flowers.
When DD awakened and told me she had a nightmare about the grass growing, I decided it was time for a break. (We are afraid the jungle is claiming along with various mechanical devices sitting outside.) Before coming here we worried about these ten acres supporting four horses. Now we need animals to munch the grass and think about 25 horses might do it.)

DD had suggested we go to Kona and we went for it. We drove the beautiful drive, went swimming at our favorite pool at the Sheridan Hotel, watched the surf at sunset and Daughter Dear treated us to an exquisite dinner overlooking the ocean with the gift card her co-workers the Battered Woman’s shelter gave her.

And then I was fried the next day. Why? Overdid it I guess. On the way home I got stopped by the police for speeding, I had been doing 55 on the highway, and didn’t see the 35 mile zone. It was 10:30 pm. That used to be early for me, not anymore. (The day we used up all our solar power and the lights went out we went out we went to bed at 7:30.) The policemen said it was the witching hour when the drunks and crazies were out–and the police. He didn’t give me a ticket, but it served to totally unnerve me. And coming home BB got tired and was crying, and the three miles of potholes was the clincher.

I was ready to move.

It helps to clean.

Look what I found:


The future novelist of Hawaii got off the ship in Honolulu. He was thirty one years old–not a novice, but not famous either. He had been landed the exotic assignment of writing a series of articles for the most important newspaper in the American West...He was Samuel Langhorne Clemens (1835-1910), and he had only recently assumed the pen name of “Mark Twain.”

 This was taken from the foreword by A. Grove Day wrote for Twain’s book, Mark Twain in Hawaii Roughing It in the Sandwich Islands.Mark Twain only spent four months and one day on the Islands. He wrote 25 articles for the Sacramento Union, and he often looked back on his adventures, and wrote a novel with a Hawaiian setting. What he wrote is still being collected in anthologies, used in advertisements, and quoted over dinner tables.

 He wrote:
“No alien land in all the world has any deep strong charm for me but that one, no other land so longingly and so beseechingly haunt me, sleeping and walking, through half a lifetime, as that one has done. Other things leave me, but it abides, other things change, but it remains the same. For me its balmy airs are always blowing, its summer seas flashing in the sun; the pulsing of its surfbeat is in my ear. I can see its garlanded crags, its leaping cascades, its plumy palms drowsing by the shore, its remote summits floating like islands above the cloud wrack; I can feel the spirit of its woodland solitudes, I can hear the splash of its brooks; in my nostrils still lives the breath of flowers that perished twenty years ago.”

Tiki Picture--loaded where it wanted to

Hawaii Dec 8


Oh I love getting up in the dark and going to the computer, and outside, between my bedroom window and the Tiki room, the morning awakens. The sun doesn’t burst over the hill in blazing glory, but subtly brightens as though God is reversing the dimmer switch She turned down last night.

It is pouring down rain. The light glowing on the green between here and the Tiki room is a green undescribable, lime/forest, gorgeous. Oh dear, that rain will make the road muddy, and the shipping container truck is scheduled to arrive today.

We sent the cars early so they would be here first, but alas shipping companies do their own thing. I am being warned that the truck might not get the container to our property. Oh, please please please.

We had enough hauling in Oregon. The truck didn’t make it up the hill to our Oregon property so we used the Company pickup truck (our truck was forging its way here) to haul everything down to the shipping container parked at the bottom of the hill. Actually that worked well, as the container was four feet off the ground, and would require carrying furnishings, boxes, etc. up a ramp. With the pickup we could stack a load into the back of the truck, drive down the hill, then off load onto the container. Here, though, I do not want to make ten million trips over potholes carrying furnishings. And Daughter D and I cannot handle some of the heavy equipment stored in that container. (Husband Dear will not be here.)

I am chewed up from mosquito bites as Husband D and I spent last night outside installing an on-demand hot water heater. Bless his heart, it was complicated and intended for a professional installer, but we think he got it. We’ll see when we turn on the gas this morning.

We are rather fried from the last month of packing and the move and being here and all the things to do. We were grumbling last night that we dealt with crap at the other house, and here the previous owners left more crap. What is it they say if you dig through manure you might find a pony?

Actually there were two horses grazing by the Tiki room this morning. Two of the neighbor’s Icelandic Horses wandered through. Wish they would stay longer and eat some of this grass that can grow as high as the house. (I’m not exaggerating this time.)

Before I complain too much let me tell you that first you are keeping me sane. I know you are out there and I am here, but I feel our connection, and I know some of you are pulling for us. I love having you there.

Second I have to tell you about the Coqui frogs that sing every night. They are tiny little frogs and have a sweet “Kopi” sound, like birds chortling. They coordinate their call—it’s a mating call--with the night sounds of bugs, birds, whatever. It sounds like the jungle. I love them. I can’t understand why some people find them objectionable and consider them to be noise pollution. They are not indigenous, and there seems to be resentment to imports. Some people want to eradicate them, yet they do good eating insects, spiders and roaches. Why would anyone complain? You who remember my journal The Frog’s Song know that motto was “The frogs call the rain that settles the dust for our journey.”

No dust here.

First Day

Dec 2, 2009

In the Tiki Tiki Tiki Room, in the Tiki Tiki Tiki room, all the birdies sing and the flowers bloom, in the Tiki Tiki,Tiki room--Baby D’s favorite song.

That song came to be Baby D's before we knew we had a little auxiliary building on the property--it's a car seat settling melody. When we discovered we had an out-building, and a cute one at that, we dubbed it the Tiki Room. There were various plans for it, Husband D’s office, my office, but our first day here Daughter D fell in love with it. It is larger than her bedroom in the regular house, and has such potential for an interior designer like her. (Open side walls, screened-in, needs more screening in the eves.) "The energy there is really good," she says.

The Imagineers from Disneyland must have copied the road to our house when they built the Indiana Jones ride. If you endure the three miles of potholes you will land on a lush green compound in the jungle—our property.

I fell into cultural shock the first day at the house. The road, the primitiveness of it, the “What have we done?” aspect. Daughter D felt lost. I felt lost. We all had low-grade colds, so were not in the best of humor or condition.

And here I was quoting Thoreau not long ago, “I went to the woods because I wanted to live deliberately…”

Yet, I know living deliberately is not so much about where one lives, but ones attitude. Right now mine stinks. We decided we wanted the adventure, and knew a REALLY big change will force something. That something is yet to be discovered. A new way of thinking, perhaps? Daughter Number One says if you change 29 things (that many huh?) in your life you will change your life. The question is will we like the change? Some of my friends say, “It will be perfect.”

I wrote this before I had Internet connection, but we brought the computer in a suitcase, both a lap top and a full-sized computer. So you see we had priorities. And we have electricity. I thank God every time I flip a switch and our solar power works. And once we connected the propane, we smelled gas from the range, so I refused to use it. (I brought a one burner propane camp stove, we are using that.) Daughter D says, “Some amenities would be nice.”

The house is cute, and by nightfall that first day, I settled into it. Coming here was like going to a mountain cabin. You schlep in your stuff, you feel you are outside your element, but you enter into the house, and yes, you are camping, but it’s all right. Daughter D said it was like going to sixth grade camp. The previous owners left some furnishings. Bless their hearts. The furnishings serve us, the enormous amount of junk on the property doesn’t. We have a bed, a couch, and other things. I brought clean sheets and towels, and we went to a Laundromat and washed the in-house comforters. Daughter D put the two bunk bed mattresses on the floor in her room, and that’s where she and Baby D sleep.

I like the simpleness of the house, and I shudder whenever a box comes in. I think of Anne Morrow Lindbergh’s book Gift from the Sea, and her beach house where she kept it simple, and let the sand blow through, and brought in shells she gleaned from the beach—each one a metaphor for her mind droppings.

Our belongings are traversing the ocean as I speak. So are the cars. The question is, "Will the trucker get the shipping container past those potholes and to our house?

P.S. I will attempt again to give you a picture of the Tiki House. After an hour or so to download it failed.

Hawaii, Dec. 1

Moving Day
We're in Honolulu.

I jump out of our rented Dodge Ram pickup–necessary for hauling the stretch 700 doggie transport doggie kennel from Continental to Aloha Airlines to see if Bear can be checked in early. We leave at 7:30 on Hawaiian, he doesn’t leave until 9:00. Because Bear, Daughter D’s Newfoundland dog, is over 150 pounds he must go Cargo, and that from Honolulu to the Big Island is Aloha Airlines.
Daughter D jumps out with Bear to give him a last minute bathroom break.

Husband Dear decides to be of assistance, leaves the motor running to keep the truck cool, closes the truck door, and the doors lock.
Baby D is sleeping in his car seat.
He’s locked in.

We’re locked out!

Peaches, our poodle, is loose in the truck, Hope, the cat, is in her carrier.
Daughter D, in a panic, runs into the Cargo building to see if they can call the National car rental company. I call 911. Shortly sirens and a big green fire engine blaze down the road, and like the military exiting the ships at Normandy, about 8 firefighters, swarm over the truck. Thus begins the arduous process of trying to break into a truck that is built like a tank.
One might think that firefighters could break into a vehicle instantly, but so as not to damage the truck, they are careful using leavers, snakes, I don’t know what all. They pry and pull until finally one brilliant firefighter manages, with a long pole, to push down the automatic window button. The window opens.
One of our saviors opens the door, and Happy, happy, happy, Daughter D is united with her child.

Baby D, who was sleeping in his car carrier the entire time, awakened wondering what all the fuss was about.

Peaches didn’t bark at the men breaking into the truck as I was alternating my stare from her to the baby the entire time.
Daughter D and I, however, lost 6 of our nine lives.


We began the journey the day before by driving from Eugene to Portland to send Bear off on Continental, the airplane that would take him, and the one where we could make connecting flights in Honolulu, a necessary stop to retrieve the animals from Quarantine. We spent the night in Portland in a Motel, and the following morning, each of us schelping two of the biggest suit cases allowed, plus carryon’s, plus Peaches and Hope in their hard airline approved carriers, we made out way to the airport.
We were like the Beverly Hillbillies with present time update.
We fly the 5 ½ hours to Honolulu, retrieve the animals, go through the procedure of renting the Dodge truck, eat sushi from a little carry out place. (It was really good, and inexpensive–that delighted us, as most everyone tells us how expensive it is to live in Hawaii), and deposit Bear at Aloha Airlines. Now we can carry Peaches and Hope in soft carriers and they travel as carryon luggage to the seat with us.
We rented a hotel in Hilo–if you come to Hawaii stay in Kona, not Hilo. It is old Hawaii, rather run-down, and not dog friendly. The animals had to spent the night in the mini van. I got up early to check on the temperature.
We didn’t want to go to our house dead tired and in the middle of the night.
Our first day.

To be continued....

Winging its way as we speak

When I was 7 years old my mother and I left Illinois to move to Oregon. We left behind my Grandmother, who we lived with since I was born, and my little dog Tiny. We boarded a train and traveled for five days rattling across the country aiming full force into our destiny. My mother’s was to marry her soldier sweetheart, me to grow up.


I never saw my Grandmother or Tiny again.

Am I repeating some pattern here, leaving behind family and friends, boarding a plane and flying off into some unknown? I don’t know. It does seem karmic. I do not, I repeat, I do not intend to abandon my family and friends. You will be in my heart always.

It is too sad.

The cars left on a big truck. Our household belongings rambled away in a cargo container. The horses are gone, the chickens have a new home, the ducks are re-homed, and Wednesday Daughter D, Baby D and I drove Orville and Wilber the goats, the 5 hours to (and back) from Medford Oregon to Sanctuary One, an animal rescue facility. Normally the Sanctuary does not take animals from the general public, and our goats were in beautiful healthy shape, not in need of rescuing, but in need of a loving home. They were so displaced after the horses left, standing around moaning. So we wanted them to be with other animals.

A wonderful man from the Humane Society named Scott Beckstead acted on our behalf. He found a home for all four of our horses, and Sanctuary One http://www.sanctuaryone.org/ for the goats. I, in return, donated my horse trailer to them.

It ripped my heart to part with that trailer, not that losing the animals didn’t, not that leaving people didn’t, but leaving that trailer was so final and I had to let go of the idea that I could sell it. Daughter D reminded me that when we hold onto something, it is claiming lack for oneself. Now, with a trailer, Sanctuary One will be able to rescue more horses.

I have to tell you about a Premarin horse housed there. Oh, how can it be? How can people torture a poor mare for hormone replacement therapy when there are other sources? This horse broke my heart.

This mare was so depressed. She was thin, and could hardly walk, but, thanks to the wonderful people at Sanctuary One, she was on the road to recovery. Premarin mares are kept almost continually pregnant so as to be a source of estrogen for human women. These horses stand on cement which kills their legs. They stand tied, and with a permanent catheter. Sansa, Sanctuary One's manager, said that this mare had legs like noodles when she arrived. The mare would get down and they had to use a tractor to get her up. When I petted her I said, “Oh, she looks like a curly (a specific breed of horse who has curly hair) as her hair was extremely long and cow licked

“No,” said Sansa, “she has Cushing’s disease.”

Cushing’s disease causes an inability to shed hair. In the summer they have to clip her. Another result of her treatment.

The babies these mares produce are usually throw away horses.

It goes on and on…

Dreams and Hopes and Cares and You know...

A Bromeliad plant around the tree at Pu’u Honua, our Hawaiian,”Mountain of refuge.”


Pu’u can mean any protrusion from a mountain to a pimple. So we could call it, instead of a “Mountain of Refuge,” a “Pimple of refuge.” (Don’t laugh, it is still a place of refuge.)

“When I was six years old,” writes someone I don’t know but wish I did, “my teacher said, ‘For 25 cents you can choose a pen pal.’


“I choose a girl from abroad, and for 60 years we have written, shared holidays, birthdays, our lives.

“For 25 cents I got a friend for life.”


That’s what I hope to accomplish here for those who care to come along for the ride.

Last Friday--You have probably had days like this, especially if you have ever listed your home for sale.

You awaken at 3:30 AM. Might as well accomplish something, you think, do the tasks instead of running them through your mind sixty million times. So you get up. (I went to the computer.)

At 8:30 you have an appointment (I had a Chiropractor’s appointment) so you get ready and after the appointment you meet someone for coffee/tea and it extends to lunch and the running of a few errands. (I had an exquisite time with Daughter #1) Okay its afternoon you have some papers to pick up from the computer at home, and bring them back into town to FAX. Driving home, that early morning hour catches up with you, and you have to watch your driving lest you have little mini-unconsciousness naps—not a good idea while driving. You tell yourself, you can rest or nap when you get home, except the phone rings the moment you come in the door.

“Can we view the house right away?” says a Realtor. “The people are from out of town.”

Oh My God, you think, the house is a mess. “Give me an hour,” you say.

There are dishes in the sink (I know you never do that, but let’s pretend.) The bed isn’t made, There’s a wheelbarrow in the living room (another, you would never do that, but at our house Husband Darling brought in a load of wood for the fireplace, and left the wood in the wheelbarrow, and in the house.) There is laundry on the washer, an unmade bed, clutter, you know, a lived-in house. You run around like a crazy person, get it done, the house looks great, (The dog is in the car, the goats are in their pen, the carpet is vacuumed, there is a fire in the fireplace, and even the glass top tables are polished.) You can’t believe it, angels must have helped, except that your own body fragrance that wafts to your olfactory lobes isn’t that of a delicate young thing. It is more like a sailor who and has been out to sea for six months, hasn’t bathed, and just swabbed the deck.

First the Dream, then the Fantasy, Then the Good-Byes

As I am writing this the chickens, Milli Fleur, the chicks, Dixie, and Sir Winston are going to a new home. A man just loaded them into his truck. He was amazed at how large they were. He has the Milli Fleur breed of chickens, and he said his were half the size of our's--he better feed our babies good. He figured it was the water, as the goats seemed huge to him too. (I think it is alfalfa hay, or grain, or maybe it is my tender loving care.)

On the last blog post I wrote about the horses. Now it is lonely around here. The goats stand around moaning and follow us around, and would come in the house if we'd let them.

And now Daughter D is considering finding homes Orville and Wilber, the goats. The picture on the last blog was Baby D riding Wilber.

We have a flight the Hawaii scheduled for December 1, so guess the move is real. And, wow, I still have a ton of work to do. I would rather sit here, though, with the heater at my feet, the keyboard under my fingers, and you in my thoughts. Soon I will be blogging from Hawaii. I hope you come along for the ride...

You know how they taught you to type in High School? "Don't look at the keyboard," they said. Well, I couldn't get my book review to paste on my website http://grannyshootsfromthehip.com/ so I typed it. Should have watched what I was doing though, when I looked down I discovered I had written it in all Caps. Rats. Do it again.

I did.

I was surprised that Kirkus, an independent reviewing firm, actually read and reviewed my book. I'm happy with the review. They said I wandered a bit--everybody who knows me knows I do that, so guess they were perceptive. Actually they described the book better than I could

To view it check out http://grannyshootsfromthehip.com/

Onward, Upward and Ahead!

Joyce

Sometimes a Guy Has to Substitute

“A friend is someone who knows the song in your heart and sings it back to you when you have forgotten how it goes.”

Last night as I twisted the tops off carrots I stopped and stared at green leaves against a white cutting board.

These are treats for horses.

Now, though, I have no horses.

It was a week ago today that they jumped about three feet into a stock trailer—never saw a horse do that before. At first, looking at that high step, and well, just looking at that trailer was fearsome enough—I could see it on their faces, “You’ve got to be kidding.”

In the end all four jumped in—however reluctantly.

I was impressed with the loader lady, for she said of Sierra, "If she takes a step (meaning getting closer to the trailer door) reward her.”

In the end all four horses were loaded into the trailer, then they were driven away leaving two sad faced adults who felt to be six years old again.

The lady who took them is a trainer with 64 acres of property. She has a Percheron to buddy with Sweetums, the Belgium, and she thinks Velvet, my quarter horse, will be her riding horse.

A wonderful man from the SPCA put us in touch with this lady who would take all four of the horses. We figured the SPCA would make sure they went to someone who loves horses, and would not sell them for slaughter. We gave them away because no amount of money could account for what they were worth to us, besides we couldn’t sell our friends.

As you might imagine Daughter D and I were lost for a couple of days after they left—I suppose I gave away a little of myself when I parted with them. Both of us were happy to have this issue resolved, yet another part grieved. The goats are lost too. They still wander around going, “Uh, uh.”

Their new owner plus two friends drove about 5 hours from Northern Oregon towing a big stock trailer, Velvet, Sierra, Sweetums and Dante’s chariot for their trip to their next adventure.

The first thing the new owner did was jump on Velvet bareback to see how she handled. I had told her Velvet was nervous, she said, “She’s better than you indicated.” My lady Velvet behaved as a lady. Next the new owner jumped on Sierra, who danced around a bit, but was okay. Dante got that annoying person off his back.

None of the three horses had been ridden in two years.

I worry about my little Diva Velvet in the rain and hope she has cover. She hates being in the rain and will stand in the barn with her head out saying, “Well, I want the grain, but do I have to get wet to have it?”

On the home front, I’m reading a book to Husband D before he nods off at night, it’s entitled, Busting Loose from the Money Game, by Robert Scheinfeld. It was recommended by a friend who has a way of pointing out directions when I get lost. (When we were in Germany, though, she found that when asking for directions the person would point one direction, yet nine chances out of ten where we wanted to go was the opposite direction.)

The Busting Loose book is quite esoteric, and you need to follow his directions to get it, but I can point out a couple of things I found helpful.

• The Money game is one you can’t win. It’s set up that way. Even people who seem to play it well pay a high price.
  
• As you bust loose, “Your expanded self is driving the bus. You can’t make a mistake, mess anything up, or blow it. You just trust your Expanded Self and flow with what you feel inspired or motivated to do, moment to moment.”

You know how we spend much energy trying not to feel bad?

According to Scheinfield, jump into the feeling, allow it to be as bad as you can stand, and when you reach the peak, tell the truth about it.

He likens this process to children finding plastic Easter eggs with toys inside. The child finds the egg, breaks it open, grasps the toy, and runs to the next egg. The eggs in this analogy hold our limitations, breaking them open frees us.

To use another metaphor, you know how long it takes to build a building brick by brick, steel girder by steel girder, but if an explosive charge is placed strategically the entire building will come down in seconds. Our limitations can be like that. Rather reassuring isn’t it?

Okay, here are some pertinent points.

• Express appreciation—paying bills, receiving money, all is asking for appreciation.
  
• Apply the process—feel your feelings, tell the truth
  
• Use empowering Vocabulary and self talk.

I’m out of here. You know there will be more ahead. Hopefully you will join me on this journey.

Something to Look Forward To

I woke up this morning feeling like an empty skin bag.

I don’t know if I felt worst for Daughter D or myself. Yesterday when DD hugged her big Belgian horse Sweetums she said, “I don’t want to give up everything to move to Hawaii.”

Someone agreed to take her two horses Sweetums and Dante. I didn’t ask her to leave them behind when we move, but when I decided to leave my two horses, she thought it made sense to leave hers as well.

She said, “This gives us permission to part with them.”

By afternoon the lady who agreed to take Sweetums and Dante also agreed to take my two horses. It’s a relief. I made the decision to part with them. I’m glad we found someone. Still I feel sad.

This lady, whom I haven’t met yet, lives 40 miles from the coast on 64 acres. She is a horse trainer who often rescues horses and finds homes for them. She has another big draft horse, also aged, who will be a buddy for Sweetums. She said her grandkids can play with Dante.

It sounds as though she would like to keep Velvet, my AQHA Quarter horse, for herself. At first she was going to give her to a girl who had a barn and pasture but not the money for a horse. I thought that sounded perfect, but if she wants Velvet that’s okay with me. Velvet needs a nice gentle trainer to turn her into an awesome riding horse. (I hope this person is gentle as my Velvet is a sensitive lady.)

Some of my non-horsey friends think a Quarter horse is one quarter of a horse, meaning small. They aren’t. Most Quarter Horses are big muscular athletic horses. In the early days of this country cowboys used their cow-ponies during the week to herd the cattle. On the weekends, for sport, they would have races. Those horses became known as the fastest horse for one quarter of a mile. Thus the name Quarter Horse.

Quarter horses are the ones you see cutting cattle, roping steers, barrel racing, reining, spinning, or screeching to a halt so fast it throws your stomach into your nose. Sometimes they are used in other disciplines such as Dressage. One of the horse actors in movie, The Black Stallion was a Quarter horse. They have beautiful broad hips which gives them “rear-wheel drive.” They usually hold their head low as that gives them leverage for the task at hand. That rear-wheel drive gives them strength and the agility to out-maneuver a steer. On a cutting horse, unless the rider relaxes into the horse and lets it do the job, the rider can be all over that horse in a matter of seconds, under its belly, on top of its head, hanging on its neck—it isn’t pretty.

And then there is the mustang. Can you believe in the 8 years I've had Sierra she had never had her feet trimmed? The Farrier looks at them and says, “I’m glad all my horses aren’t like that. She takes care of her own feet.”

Tonight when I said, “Hi Guys,” and I heard the resultant whinnies. My heart strings twanged.

Don't forget to check out my webpage http://grannyshootsfromthehip.com as I will change the content from time to time.

Granny Shoots From The Hip

“I’ve stopped listening to talk radio,” says Daughter D. “All I hear is ‘I’m in debt, I’m going to get robbed, and my penis is too small.”

Shall we instead have the song of the poet ringing in our ears:

We need the tonic of wildness,--to wade sometimes in marshes where the bittern and the meadow-hen lurk, and hear the booming of the snipe; to smell the whispering sedge where only some wilder and more solitary fowl builds her next, and the mink crawls with its belly close to the ground.
Walden
--Henry D. Thoreau

The news around here is that I’ve have gotten a new webpage.

It is http://grannyshootsfromthehip.com

Can you believe I am calling myself Granny when 4 years ago I had a hard time thinking of myself as Grandma?

The Granny Shoots From the Hip site will not be about horses although I will still be selling my book It’s Hard To Stay On A Horse While You’re Unconscious. It’s about, oh I’m not sure, Spirit will direct the course. The site attempts to explain itself.

I figured with the new turn of events around here, it is time for a new site, a new slant, and hey, I’m not over thinking it--just shooting from the hip, one can't hold a sight well with glasses on anyway.

All Dogs Go To Heaven

I’m like an old dog—I tend to crawl away when I’m grieving, sick, about to die, or afraid someone is going to yell at me.

Daughter #1’s dog Aski died last week. Daughter is so sad. She worked so hard trying to save him, but alas his kidneys were just too damaged. We all miss Aski’s lovely presence. A dog really makes their place in your heart and life don’t they?

To Daughter #1 and her beloved Aski: We love you. I see Aski running on the beach, frolicking in Iris studded meadows, and there to slather you with kisses when you see him again. My thought about death is that the spirit is poured from one broken urn into a beautiful new one.

I have another heartache.

My horses.

At first I was sure I was going to ship them to Hawaii. Now I am having second thoughts.

A number of people have said, “They have horses in Hawaii don’t they?” They don’t get it. One doesn’t just exchange one horse for another. A personal horse isn’t a tool to use or to turn in for another.

I thought that giving them to my trainer/mentor Pat Parelli would be a fitting ending for my horse saga. I wanted to give them to him, and he in turn could give them to some deserving student who would love them the way I loved my childhood horse Boots. Alas he doesn’t take horses anymore.

You who have read my book , It’s Hard To Stay On A Horse While You’re Unconscious, probably thought, as I did, that I would never part with my horses. Now I am re-thinking that.

Do I want to put my mares through the trauma of shipment? I am told that mares need to be quarantined for two weeks to test for CEM, a venereal disease they catch from stallions, but they have never been near a stallion. Should I frighten the be-jesses out of them to get them there? I wonder if our 10 acres in Hawaii will support 4 horses. (My daughter has two geldings and I wouldn’t ask her to part with them.) Grass reseeds every three weeks on our Hawaiian property and I wonder about importing horses to such green grass after they have been on a hay diet their entire lives. Horses can develop grass laminitis from eating a too rich diet. Laminitis is a dangerous disease that damages their feet. (Horses like the lowest quality grasses when grazing. That’s the reason the cattle people who object to wild horses ought to rethink their position.) The price of hay in Hawaii is prohibitive, so if our property won’t support 4 horses I would be forced to sell them after hauling them all the way to Hawaii.

And, another thing—is this more than you want to know? I haven’t been on a horse for almost two years. Yes, I built up fear after I cracked my pelvis two years ago from a fall off Sierra. (And you who know me know I’m no spring chicken, although I like to think I am.)

So now you know why I have been quiet for a time...

There are a Million Stories in the Naked City—here is one from the woods

Pineapple label painted by Barry the caretaker for Pu'u Honua.

View of Pu'Honua, "Place of refuge."

I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately,
To front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived.
--Henry D. Thoreau
Walden

That’s the idea, and the reason we are running off to Hawaii.

I see, however, that while the woods are where I am happiest, it is not essential to go there to live deliberately.

And how does one live deliberately anyway? By being honest perhaps? Honest to oneself, to others, to life? To live simply so one can see, smell, taste, to experience the greatness that is this time on earth? To honor the divine that is imbedded within all of us? It seems that oftentimes the doingness of life, the seemingly necessary tasks that keep our “civilized” time on earth perking along is the very thing that holds us back from being happy. And so, how does one simplify that?

Says Daughter D, “We can let life push us around or we can be conscious, that is choose for ourselves.”

I know, the old axiom “Before enlightenment chop wood, carry water. After enlightenment, chop wood, carry water,” holds today as it did when first spoken. Some things just must be done.

Julia Cameron, in her book, The Artist’s Way, has a suggestion on how to handle those numbing concerns, those petty, circling thoughts that stand in the way of creativity. Write them out. She calls that process “Morning papers.” Do not, I repeat, do not print them, send them, or publish them. And yet the world loves drama—you figure.

I have to tell you one thing. I grieved for two days over this: Here I was bragging over the wonderful pineapples we have (had) growing on our property, and then Wham! The owner dropped this bombshell.

“Reconsider bulldozing the pineapple fields,” he said. “The mother plants will only produce small pineapples now. Best to start a smaller newer field.”

“By December there will be only Christmas pineapples few and far between. They are not as sweet as the summer ones. Season is between late July to end of September. Not many left now.”

(The harvested ones were being sold the day we arrived on the property.)

To be fair, he said we needed to replant, but I thought that meant rotate, that is keep some, plant more, take out the old ones. The idea of bulldozing the field was too great a burden that day.

We mailed four of the pineapples home to ourselves to see how they shipped. I believe the handlers played football with one box, half the pineapple was bruised, half was okay. The others were fine, not quite as sweet as the one we tasted straight off the field, but the four were green when I mailed them, and we ate them one week after shipment.

Did I tell you one thing we did while in Hawaii? The hotel kitchen had a blender, so I dropped in a peeled pineapple, husband darling broke into a coconut (dropped from our tree) we put the coconut “water” into the blender, plus a couple bananas, and a couple ice cubes. The blended result? Superb.

Our hotel in Kona, the Holua Resort at the Mauna Loa Village was perfect. For $14.00 more a night we opted for two bedrooms, one for DD and Baby D, one for us. It had a living room, laundry closet, equipped kitchen, and was newly remodeled. Beautiful colors. We fell in love with “Citron Cocktail” the lime green paint of the living room. No room was square, and three rooms had sliding doors open to outside.

The Sheridan Hotel lie next door to our hotel. And while we loved our “apartment” at the Holua Resort, their swimming pools were simple. The Sheridan, however, had a magnificent pool. waterfalls, slides, a pool leading via a canal into another pool, that leading into a wading pool with aquarium sand at its bottom. So where did we swim?

The Sheridan.

Baby D learned to splash the water, and he loved floating along as we coursed the pools. Apparently they didn’t care that we weren’t guests. And hey, we spent money there, sitting on the deck, drinking iced tea, ordering sandwiches. We ate brunch there one day and dinner the last night of our visit. That last night they were showing the movie “Momma Mia” outside on the veranda. We sat in the open air, watched Momma Mia on a large screen, and that movie—second time I’ve seen it—was the most fun I’ve had at the movies in a long time. A party.

A fitting ending to our time on The Big Island.

Pictures from Hawaii

Hawaii

September 2, 2009

[Check later for pictures, the image download is napping today.]

I have scared the pants off myself, and since it is not kosher to talk finances, I won’t. Suffice it to say right now I’m not decent.

I’m in Hawaii though, life is good, the sun is out, a little red-headed birdie is picking in the grass outside our sliding glass doors. Yesterday a streak I believe could be interpreted as a mongoose scooted past the doors. Years ago in Hawaii, the kids kept telling me, “There’s one. There’s one.” I would look, but on that trip I never saw a single mongoose. We’ve seen plenty this time. While we were visiting an estuary a group of those little ferret-like creatures, in single file like tiny furry elephants, crossed a limb bridging over a gurgling stream. One fell in, but was out of the water and into the bushes before his splash rings hit the shore.

We signed our Escrow papers today.

On Saturday we saw our Hawaiian property and the house. We traveled from Kona over Saddle Back road between two volcanoes, following the Real Estate agent to the Hilo side of the island. A rain forest.

We traversed a section of highway where an archway of trees, their tip-tops spreading like hands with fingers interlaced, formed a complete canopy over the road. Vines, straight out of The Jungle Book, hung from trees at least 100 feet tall. Years ago on my first trip to Disneyland—we took the Jungle Cruise ride and I was entranced. Huge trees, hanging vines—same here. I feel like as though I’m moving to Africa. And traveling the road to our house you might believe I am right.

For those of you who have visited our home here in Oregon and know our road, and wonder how we routinely drive it, and laugh at us, well, you are really going to laugh now. Traveling to our house is like taking the Disneyland Indiana Jones Ride, pot holes, bumpy, water standing after a rain. Except that it is not uphill, and it does not snow. One day it’s wet, the next dry. To visit our house you really have to want to.

The caretaker calls it the most beautiful spot on earth, and its name is Pu’u Honoa, meaning tranquility, or Mount of Refuge. How fitting is that? ! It is a simple little house, and already both Daughter D and I are—in our mind’s eye—painting, tearing out walls, and definitely putting a tub in Daughter’s half bath. We inherited a Gater. What fun. Do you know what a Gater is? It’s an off-the-road utility vehicle with a little dump truck back. The owner said, “Necessary for a farm.” Bless his sweet heart.

We had never heard of White Pineapple until we came here and found we grow the best tasting pineapple in the world right on our own property. Rows and rows of them. They need weeded so we have our work cut out for us, but that pineapple freshly picked cut and served on the lanai is tremendous. Lanai, sounds luxurious doesn’t it? On the mainland we would call it a screened-in porch. It is the best aspect of the house.

Another thing, “Don’t stand under a coconut tree. One dropped like a canon ball while we were there. It was in excess of ten pounds, the milk was delicious straight out of the nut, but we must teach Baby D, and all other living creatures, to stay out from under the coconut trees.

Speaking of Baby D. He is a traffic stopper, greeting and blessing the world wherever he goes. People go "Gaa-gaa" over him, and he them. Did I mention that people here are delightful, friendly and upbeat? It is an honor to meet such happy people. Is it something about the island? Maybe its because people are here because they want to be, or maybe good-humor is catching. Island slap-happiness, I could go for that.

We drove ourselves back to the house a day after the first visit. We measured, investigated further, I drove the Gater, and the caretaker, a sweet little man, an artist, who must live off the land, took us to meet the neighbors.

We climbed over a V in a tree, jumped the fence, and met two of the most wonderful young women. And here’s an incredible part, one of them is a Farrier (a horse foot trimmer/shoer). I couldn’t believe it. They raise Icelandic horses, and have been asking for "Quiet neighbors with horses" (We quality for one out of the two.) They even have a horse trailer and are willing to transport our horses from the Port of entry!

Man Oh Man.

It's Only A Day Away

Milli Fleur's New baby

It was Sunday, I saw him fall, a slow motion, stumbling down an incline, like Nicolas Cage tumbling into the Grand Canyon.

I was hosing the deck and saw Husband Dear take a nose dive. “Stay there,” I yelled and ran to his aid.

Somehow his equilibrium became scrambled, and he lie there while I, thinking he was having a heart attack, ran to the house for aspirin. After a number of vomiting attacks, he calmed, He had been painting in the hot sun—not a good idea—especially after a moment of imbalance the night before. After awhile, I dismissed calling the fire department, or taking him to the emergency room. Instead we sat in green grass, calmed, and talked.

The ducks preened beside us, humming and rolling their long necks over their back in an elegant display of oiling their coiffure.

We admired the majestic Douglas firs. My thoughts went to dying. I thought about how pleasant it was sitting there, and that death ought to come in such a beautiful setting, but not today. Monday the Chiropractor determined that Husband D’s neck was out of joint, adjusted him, and he has been fine ever since.

Milli Fleur hatched a fluffy little black chick that same day Sunday—evidence that life ought to continue, and later on Daughter Darling called on her drive back from work saying that that Baby D’s fussiness was more than teething.

He has a virus.

Life’s Twists and Turns…

We were going to Hawaii on Tuesday, instead we changed our Itinerary to Friday August 28 to give Baby D a chance to recover.

On Monday another chick hatched. On Tuesday another. Milli was faithful sitting in that hot house guarding her eggs, and she is such a good Momma. Wednesday another chick. Two years ago I bought Milli at the County Fair with three little baby chicks at her heels.

Now Sir Winston really has something to crow about.

Daughter D just came back from feeding her horses, and the neighbor, while holding Baby D, said, “Oh you ought to do it. Move to Hawaii. So many people say they could have, should have, and then they die and don’t do it.”

I couldn’t have said it better.

Saturday we will see our proposed Hawaiian property…
Will the air feel like silk as I remember?
Will the scent of it be that of Plumeria blossoms as it once was?

Take Your Cockroach for a Walk

--No picture today in respect for Molly. Check out, "A Horse Named Molly" on the web, she's awesome.

Now on the home front.

The Countdown begins…

Husband Dear says I would throw away everything.

I do attack the house innards with vigor, but I lack the courage of my convictions. “Oh I need that.” I say. “I can’t part with that.”

We don’t have a definite moving date for our sojourn to Hawaii—the big sojourn, that is the MOVE. We are taking a little look-see the end of this month.

Longtime readers will remember my writing about the morning I shoveled manure and asked for a place where we would be happy. The great cosmic consciousness answered: “Check out Hawaii on the Internet.”

Zap! When spirit talks, listen. It was love at first hale (HAH-lay, meaning house in Hawaiian). Actually it was the 10 acres we fell in love with. It’s a simple little house. I imagine packing to spend the summer in a vacation cabin—and staying. This move will require emptying of a 4,000 square foot house into 1,100.

First on the list was this: Wait for an existing offer on the Hawaii house to expire.

It did.

Put in offer.

Stew about finances.

Stay awake nights.

Trust.

Keep on keeping on.

Chop wood, carry water.

Turn in the panache of a Jaguar car for a fuel efficient green 50 mph Toyota Prius. We have had a Jaguar for 25 years (two cars.) The last one had 333,000 miles on the original motor. With that we could have driven to the moon and part way back, and I bet it would have carried us the distance. That is if we didn’t need to roll down the windows, move the driver’s seat, and we didn’t mind the mysterious roar.

Check moving quotes to Hawaii.

Check out car moving quotes.

Check out horse transport quotes.

Have dogs and cats vaccinated.

Begin the 120 day animal quarantine waiting period.

Prior to this move I dreamed of a garden shed for a writing studio. That desire has transformed into visualizing a Polynesian style hut, built off the ground, on poles and complete with a thatched roof.

And imagine this, we could check out the restaurants on the island, and I could tell you about them, and whet your pallet for Hawaii, and you could be ahead of the game in epicurean knowledge. (I’m a real public servant.)

Here’s a little secret between you and me. I hear that cockroaches are not a symbol of filth in Hawaii, but a fact of life. Hotels hide them as best they can.

Daughter D gave away her two ferrets, Toronto and Crazy Legs. She has had a ferret continuously since we first moved from California to Oregon 22 years ago. And that includes her move back to California, and the infamous ferret smuggle. That’s how committed she is to this move.

As I sat down to write this I received an email from a friend and reader of this blog. Did you check out A Horse Named Molly? Talk about fortitude. I couldn't send the pictures, but I guarentee they are awesome.
Don't forget www.wishonawhitehorse.com.

Ah, Plumeria Blossoms, the Fragrance of Hawaii

Thank you for visiting my blog. Your graciousness warms my cockles.

I know your life has its Twists and Turns as well as does ours. I would love to hear about yours, just visit http://www.wishonawhitehorse.com/, and send me a note, a page, or an epistle of your life. (Wow, don’t know if I’ll read an epistle. And I'll try not to write one.)

But first for the Horsey Crowd:

Take care not to vex the young horse, or cause it to abandon its affable gracefulness in disgust. For this is like the fragrance of blossoms, which never returns once it has vanished.

--Classical French Trainer Antoine de Pluvinel 1555-1620 Malama Lio, The Hawaiian Horse Journal.

I had to include something about a horse. (As Daughter D and I say, “It’s all about horse training.”)

Now back to Life’s Twists and Turns:

We are continuing our forward journey, planning to go to Hawaii in a few weeks for a look-see. We figure we ought to check out the lay of the land before we move there.

We are waiting to hear from our Real Estate Agent regarding our desired property. When I first found the property it had a pending offer. That offer fell through, and now we are in Number one position. They just have to clean up some paper work.

We are excited still and planning. Our conversation last night was about making macadamia nut butter. Or specialty nuts like Cayenne peppered nuts called Volcano Nuts.

Imagine a cartoon of a little boy toasting nuts over flowing lava. Next frame, boy’s grass skirt catches fire. Next frame “Creation of the Hawaiian Stomp Dance.” How about Two Nuts and a Man Cub for a business name? If Husband D wants to join the company it will be Three Nuts and a Man Cub.

Back to cleaning the house for sale…Well, its contents have exploded. It’s the Cleaning the Refrigerator Syndrome. First you take everything out of refrigerator (or cupboards); spread contents over the counter top, and then you are stuck. Clean it or bust. My question now is what to take, what to sell, what to donate, what to give away?

Oh, the chickens, my darling chickens. I have never liked chickens they way I like these. They are so gentle, their eggs are delicious, and the rooster is a complete gentleman.

I am now calling him Sir Winston.

When I bring vegetable scraps Sir Windton clucks to the two hens to come see what the sky god dropped in their yard. Anyway, I believe Milli Fleur, the original momma, is sitting. Now she has 5 eggs under her. I bought Milli Fleur two years ago at the County fair along with her babies, 3 little furry chicks. Milli Fleur and the Dixie Chicks I called them. Milli Fleur is the name of the breed. Now they are Milli Fleur, Dixie, and Sir Winston. I wanted more hens, but now I’m moving, and now she is setting. I tried to incubate eggs a couple of months ago and failed. Let’s see if she can do it. The trouble is I don’t think you can import chickens to Hawaii. (Smuggle them in a suitcase maybe?)

Hawaii?

Hawaii? I'm ready.

Miracles don’t happen overnight. Sometimes they take an entire weekend.

One day I declare how happy I am about the prospects of going to Hawaii.
The next I lie in bed ruminating. We’ll get gassed, I think. Sulfur Dioxide burps from the Volcano on a regular basis. The volcano might squirt lava in our direction. I’m sad about leaving my first-born daughter and first-born grandson. I’ll be leaving my friends; I won’t have any friends in Hawaii.”

Gee Joyce, the sky might fall too.

The sun comes out: I confess my fears to Daughter D. “It’s logical to have those fears about the unknown,” says my reasonable daughter. “Fear is what keeps people stuck. You still want to go to Hawaii don’t you?!”

She sees Baby D running on the beach, swimming daily, turning brown as a macadamia nut. And about daughter number one, she says, “Think of what a broadening experience that will be.”

Daughter D says when she was little her play was about water. When she and a neighbor girl would play, they would imagine they were swimming.

I played galloping a horse.

I have heard if you want to know what to do with your life, remember what wanted to do as a child.

What do you want to do?

I know we all have dreams and hopes and desires, and want to live life to the fullest, or at least to the happiest we can find. Our little group here on D mountain are able to move to Hawaii because of the magic of computers, as my husband does his design work on one. And there's the internet and cyberspace and I don't know what all. Gosh, I sent an email to our Real Estate Agent in Hawaii and he called me 2 minutes later. I’m in awe.

When I apologized to said Agent for going to the office on Sunday for our FAX, he said, “Are you kidding. Every day in Hawaii is a vacation.”

“In a time of great uncertainty and anxiety, my grandparents held on to a simple dream—that they could raise my mother in a land of boundless opportunity, that their generation’s struggles and sacrifice could give her the freedom to be what she wanted to be, and how she wanted to live.”
--Barack Obama

Chapter 11 of my book, It’s Hard To Stay On A Horse While You’re Unconscious begins thus:

Walk in Awe

“Is not life a thousand times too short for us to bore ourselves?”
--Friedrich Nietzsche

Find the book on www.wishonawhitehorse.com

Turn Left at The Volcano

You have brains in your head
You have feet in your shoes
You can steer yourself any direction you choose.
Oh the Places We’ll Go
--Dr. Seuss

Thus begins my soon to be a best seller Nonfiction narrative/ memoir, Oh Baby!

Life’s Twists and Turns may get another tweak in its neck. We are considering moving to Hawaii.

About 15 years ago Daughter D said, “In twenty years let’s retire to Hawaii.”

“Okay,” I said, not really believing it. I thought moving to Hawaii would cost about as much as a rocket trip to the moon.

Yesterday while cleaning the horse yard (Some of the best revelations come while shoveling manure), I asked the great powers that be where I be happy.

“Check out Hawaii on the internet,” said the Great Cosmic Consciousness.

Lo and behold, a property popped up that cost only a fraction more than property we were considering in the Eugene area. Plus it had a house which the Eugene property didn’t. I couldn’t believe it. Ten acres, fixer-upper house, macadamia trees, pineapple, limes, and it is remote. They will take horses.

Downside: You turn left at the volcano.

With Skype I can talk to my other grandson daily, and see him, and when he and his mother visit it will be quality time and in Hawaii.

Can’t wait to see how this story unfolds. Is it fate? And do you know, instead of the 120 day quarantine for taking dogs into Hawaii, with proper paper work, vaccinations and such, one can get immediate release.

Hallaluah!

I’m as excited as a cat with four mice.

Aloha!

PS. Don't forget to check out www.wishonawhitehorse.com. The book, It's Hard To Stay On A Horse While You're Unconscious is listed there, and of course you'll want to read it. It will tell you a few things about horses, it will make you want to run your hands over a horse's velvet coat. It will make you want to bury your nose in one's silky mane and believe you are nine years old again.
PS PS. How is the world am I going to get four horses to Hawaii?

Consider the Possibilities

July 10, 2009
I have completed a manuscript. I can’t call it a book because it isn’t one yet. I’m putting it out there though with high intent, with sweet affirmations, and a desire to either entertain or be of assistance.

Have a dream. Fan it to white-hot intensity. Take action, and don’t give up.

My manuscript is entitled Oh Baby! By Jewell D. (A new nom de plume.)
I think more than a story about Daughter D and I getting Baby D, it is a motivational book. You know I’ve been reading “How to be Successful.” Actually the book I’m reading is People Are Idiots and I Can Prove It, by Larry Winget. (Better title than “How to Be Successful” isn’t it?) I needed Winget, “The Pitbull of Personal Development,” to push me to the next level.

So, do you think a story about a mother and daughter embarking upon a journey that began at Disneyland and ended at Disneyland, “The Happiest Place on Earth,” could find its way into the heart of humankind?

It could be for whoever had a dream and took action to get it.

It could be for people who thought they wanted to adopt a child, but found that process so daunting they opted for artificial insemination instead. It could be for those who want to grow their own baby, and need encouragement.

It could be for those who contemplated an interracial family, and asked the hard questions: “How can one raise a peaceful person? Should one remove a child from its culture? What about raising a black child in a white household? What are the moral concerns of a single parent adoption? How does a child absorb its parent’s religious beliefs while accepting those of others?”

Two years.

It took two years to get Baby D.

In the meantime we “Flipped a House,” took trips, I fell off my horse, healed, we contemplated the nature of reality. My blog readers pretty much know the story at the end, but they don’t know the beginning, or the middle. Daughter D’s and my adventure led me into my blog’s title Life’s Twists and Turns, for this adventure was like following a two year old through the backyard, stopping at the sand box, splashing in the puddle, plucking dandelion flowers for Momma, spinning in circles, chasing the dog, jumping on the trampoline, riding a rubber bouncing horse, being distracted by a butterfly, chasing a hummingbird. Whew!

When Daughter D came to me with the proclamation “I’d like to adopt a child, a child of Africa.” I suggested making a documentary of the process. And with Daughter D’s attention to detail, and her eye for design, the idea of making a documentary fit her better than a wet tee-shirt.

We called ourselves Two Dorks and a Camera Production Company.

So we began. As I naturally turn to writing I began a companion to the documentary. Two mediums, says Daughter D. Let’s see how they manifest.

Mine is my manuscript Oh Baby!

I just read through our recent road trip and become inspired and called Nina who is on the road going to work. And we talk about how it was on the road, with every day a new adventure, and how we felt bigger than our possibilities when we were at Disneyland, and she tells me that in the mornings she whispers to Baby D, “What wonderful thing are we going to do today?”

Thanks for reading, and for accompanying me on life’s journey.
Joyce aka Jewell D

Ni Hao "How Are You?

"I'm great thanks. Is there any other way to be?

It’s better to be disappointed by expecting a lot and getting nothing
than by expecting nothing and getting it.—Larry Winget

The sweetest couple looked at our house yesterday.

If they don’t buy it I want them as friends.

They had been looking at our house on the internet in China, came into town about a week ago, and showed up here looking for a log home.

They said that a house is fated. They still had to give this one “serious thought” but I loved their attitude, and that they loved the house and they love animals. Now it is up to the fates.

You know how it is when people talk about their animals, their stories are often horror ones? Not this couple. Their stories were happy.

The lady often rescues stray dogs, and one dog she picked up was sick and hungry and so ugly no one wanted it. They nursed it to health, and someone in Beverly Hills wanted it. Now it lives in the lap of luxury, in an aircondioned house and fed hamburger. The neighbors even think it is a rare breed.

And ferrets. (My daughter has ferrets, thus the ferret story.) Mrs. Buyer said that one day a ferret wandered into the school house where they were teaching. They caught it and were going to carry it away and turn it loose. The Chinese people said, “Oh you do not disturb a ferret. It is bad luck.”

“But we were going to carry it away.”

“No matter, the damage is done.”

When a storm came through they blamed the people who disturbed the ferret. Not a happy story? A cute story.

And I learned a Chinese phrase. Ni Hao Pronounced “Knee How.” It means, “How are you?”

Besides this buyer story and the cleaning frenzy around here—did I tell you we can now walk through our garage? I have been trying to de-idiot myself. (Too late, I gave hubby’s work boots to the Goodwill and how he is without work boots. Guess I need to go to Goodwill and see if I can buy them back.)

I’ve been reading Larry Winget’s book People Are Idiots and I Can Prove It!

A rude title yes, but he gives help on how we can overcome idiocy.

Now don’t be offended. You know that no matter how smart we are we all behave as idiots sometimes. Like we ask for advice, beg for advice, even pay for advice, and then don’t take it. Do people follow their doctor’s advice; do they follow a rich person’s advice on how to get wealthy? People smoke when each cigarette will take 13 minutes off their life, they drink and drive. People say they want more honesty in government yet 60% cheat on their taxes. Oh yes, the lottery, and $300 jeans. Some people even think the earth is flat and Elvis is still alive.

I know none of that applies to you.

I do believe we are like horses. A horse is athletic, can run a total of 25 miles a day, yet to reward them you let them do nothing. Well, we’re all a little lazy sometimes. Writes Jim Rohn, “What is easy to do is also easy not to do.”

It’s easy to eat healthy, and easy not to. It’s easy to spend more time with your kids, and easy not to. It’s easy to procrastinate, but probably feels better not to.

In The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, Mark Twain said this about Tom:

He had discovered a great law of human action, without knowing it—namely, that in order to make a man or a boy covet a thing, it is only necessary to make the thing difficult to obtain.

What if “they” have been lying to us and all those things we want—health, happiness, success, great relationships—are easy?

If you want to know more about not being an idiot, tune in later. I haven’t finished the book.

A bit of advice from Winget, “Stop worrying about might happen. It rarely happens anyway, so why worry about it.”

And one final word: Learn how to meditate. If that sounds too woo woo for you simply tune in to slowing your body and stilling your mind.

My friend John told me this story about his mother. She said, “You know that ratty old chair we have? Well that damn fool of a dad of yours dragged it into the garden. When I asked him why, he said, “I’m watching the garden grow.”

“And you know what? I dragged another chair in beside him.”

That’s meditation.

And from Joyce’s book, It’s Hard To Stay On A Horse While You’re Unconscious:

Horse Priorities
Horses like safety, comfort, play, and food—in that order. Safety—that is the reason a horse will run into a burning barn after it has been led out. He had been safe in the barn up until now. Comfort and food had been freely dispersed in that barn. What happened? The horse can’t comprehend that his comfort zone would turn on him, even if it was ablaze.

So, how much like horses are we?!

Celebrate the Solstice

We're in a cleaning frenzy around here. I'm even helping Mommey wash the car.

I just met a girl (lady 52 years old) named Melina who climbed Mt. Everest.

My mouth dropped. I knew she hiked, biked, traveled extensively, and looking at her I would figure she weighed all of 110 pounds. How she could tackle the largest mountain on the planet is beyond me. “I didn’t get summit fever,” she said. “I had decided how far I would go, and I stopped.”

She climbed the South slope, but I’m not sure how high she climbed. She said she walked across a glacier called “The Miracle Highway.”

People get blown off that highway, but for her it was spectacular—oh, she fell through the ice a couple of times, but training and the rope crew were there to put her back on track. At higher elevations there is no life, she said, and then as one descends, life would begin to appear, lichens as first. It was as though she was observing creation.

She told me about altitude sickness. (You who have been following my blog know I experienced that in New Mexico—coming down from Colorado.) There are three different forms—brain, heart and eyes. She said I would have adapted to altitude better if I was walking, a car takes a person up and down too fast.

Another fact: “Climb high, sleep low.” The climbers would add 1000 feet to their daily climb, and then descend those 1000 feet to sleep. She said when she came off the mountain she had so many red blood cells she could run marathons easily.

She is back to normal now, so this year she kayaked at the North Pole.

Lordy! I’m just trying to get my garage clean.

And I am endeavoring to keep a positive attitude. Metaphysically I know that is important, realistically it can be a struggle. I once asked Patch Adams how he maintained his positive attitude when he saw such suffering in the world. He said “That’s when I need it the most.”

I believe as my garage becomes cleaner, I am becoming lighter. Right now it is the refrigerator cleaning syndrome. You know how it is, first you empty the refrigerator and spread it all over the kitchen. Once committed, however, you're stuck. The completion, though, how sweet it is! The Real Estate Brokers are giving a luncheon this coming Wednesday for other Brokers to view the house, so Neil and I and our friendly helper John, are in a fever. They replaced 6 posts on the deck railing.

I see as we prepare to sell the house, it is as though I am writing it out of our experience as I wrote it in originally. Some on you old-time readers remember my journal The Frog’s Song, and the on-going log home building phenomenon.)

I’m up early. Today is June 21, the longest day of the year, Father’s Day, a Sunday, and our Wedding Anniversary. It was Sunday when we were married, the Solstice, and Father’s Day. How often does that happen?

My quote for the day from It’s Hard To Stay On A Horse While You’re Unconscious:

You will notice as you read through this story that the chapter headings are as though we are winding through a canyon and have no inkling of what lies beyond that next turning of the walls. “Watch out for Bears, Be Prepared, Dodge Wildfires.” Isn’t that the way it is? We begin, we muddle through, and then we find ourselves sitting in places we never dreamed.