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.