We are Home!

 

It is funny how when we return from a vacation our house feels more like home each time.  Yesterday we returned from a 5 day excursion to Utah that included at least 32 hours of driving, getting caught in a snow storm and my dress magically shrinking in the suitcase or my body mysteriously growing with the altitude.

Nutmeg took this great photo of the Logan temple

We were all so happy to be back at Starlings, Boba Fett said even the air smelled better, it was a fine sunny evening so we spent some time in the yard and enjoying the spring.

Me and Janie

We visited with many family members, celebrated, shopped, played, rode horses, shot guns, played with bunnies and chicks and worshipped.

This is not trash but the door from my grandpa's truck at my uncle's very nice home.

We drove by the relics of my past.  My maternal grandparent's home is now a parking lot as is the hospital where I was born, and my paternal grandparent's homes is a dilapidated shack with junked out vehicles and trash all over the yard.  It is so covered with trash that the neighboring fields were littered with the refuse.  It was heart breaking to see.  It used to be a small tidy little farmhouse. I don't know who the owners are now but they should be ashamed I am sure that my grandma would have died of shame before she let her house look like that.

Maddox Steak house where we like to eat

It was nice to visit my roots but I am glad that my tree is planted in Portland.

Cfengine and Otherstuff

Today is (National?) Systems Administrator Appreciation Day. Since Moose is my number one SysAdmin I just wanted to give a little shout out to all the blokes (and gals) who work hard to keep systems up and running so people can get work done and watch funny things on Youtube. (BTW those are NOT Moose's feet, he ALWAYS wears socks and never wears cool shoes like that.)
In other news I spent 40 minutes and several miles today getting farm fresh eggs but it was worth it because I save $1.50 per dozen compared to other farm fresh eggs and they have Aracauna eggs, which are blue green and make my heart leap every time.
Also, my super sweet friend has offered to let me use her pool everyday so that I can get my kids swimming. So this week, I donned a new hat, that of swimming instructor. We are planning to go every day but beach day and Sunday until Nutmeg and Boba Fett are little fishes.

"I woo'd thee with my sword, And won thy love, doing thee injuries; But I will wed thee in another key, With pomp, with triumph and with revelling."

Last night I dreamt there was an invisible beast roaming the neighborhood. We discovered him after 2 white and one black sheep came to the door. We followed the trail of chickens, half chickens. He was invisible, a special effect movie's dream beast. Sometimes you could see invisibility moving, occasionally he lost his cloak and you could see a flash of white with spots, like a dalmatian/ polar bear/ tiger.
I vanquished the foe by using Tanya's cross bow that was more like a long bow than a cross bow, a long cross bow of sorts with only a splinter of wood for an arrow. I shot him in the back of mouth piercing him fatally. I am Diana, an Amazon, protectress of the land.

Kauai-day 4

Wednesday June 18, the we headed down to Poipu to try and locate a letterbox and to see Spouting Horn. Spouting Horn was very cool and we endangered ourselves by ignoring the warning signs and walking down on the rocks.Whilst at Spouting Horn we fed Nicki to a rooster for a good photo op, the rooster pecked at Nicki but discovered he was not food and ignored him.We did not find the letterbox but we really liked Poipu and thought that next time we will spend some more time down there . . . we could not tarry long because we had a sunset cruise scheduled with Captain Andy's.
We loaded up with about 30 other people on a catamaran and set out for the Na'Pali coast. We stopped and snorkeled for quite a while and then saw the beautiful views of the coast.
Mark Twain called these "the cathedrals of the Pacific." When we could see Ke'e beach we turned the boat around unfurled the sails and sailed back. We were served a tasty dinner on the way back and saw a lovely sunset. It was a great cruise and we thought it was certainly worth what we paid (two for one) but maybe not worth full price. We would also like to take the morning cruise sometime and have a better time of the day for snorkeling, but we would not have traded the sunset cruise.

A Word About Chickens

As promised A Word About Chickens...

As I mentioned yesterday there are 2 defining characteristics about Kauai, the first is the persistent red dirt and the second are the chickens (which if not persistent are certainly bountiful.) The chickens are every where, on the side of the road, at the park, at the Secret Waterfall, in the parking lots, at your resort, on the golf courses, browsing at the Farmer's Market, inside the stalls at the farmer's market, behind the tables at the farmer's market, everywhere. We are talking pigeons in Central Park. At Secret Falls we saw them in the trees.
The roosters have no concept of crowing in the morning, oh no, they crow all day and all night whenever they feel like crowing. As you drive down the road (with the top down) you will hear several roosters crow as you pass by.
There are conflicting stories about the reason for the prolific number of the chickens. The first one we heard was that the Polynesians brought them to the Island for food and there are no natural predators on Kauai. In the 18th century when mongoose (mongeese?) were brought to the Hawaiian islands to control the rat population in the sugar cane fields, inside the cage that was sent to Kauai there was a mongoose that decided to bite the dockworker so said dockworker tossed the cage into the ocean and the mongoose drowned. No mongoose means more chickens than the other islands.

The other story is when Hurricane Iniki hit Kauai it set free the chickens that people were keeping for eggs and the people could never round them all up and the chickens just took over.

I find the hurricane story less romantic and so I tended to think it is probably the real story, but Moose insists that there are too many chickens for them to have been set loose only 16 years ago. Perhaps it is a combination of the two?

All of these chickens brought many questions. To whom do the chickens belong? If I harm one in a national park am I committing a crime? If I am hungry can I just catch a wild chicken and eat it for supper? Do people collect their eggs? If I catch one will it be tame like Pam's chickens or will it peck me to death in a reenactment of a scene from "The Birds?"
***update***
That last one disturbs me a little. This could be really dangerous if it did happen. I suspect the chickens if organized could take control of the Island in a matter of days. Those lobbying for Hawaiian independence may use them as a mercenary force. It could be a horror movie "The Chickens of Kauai - the tourists thought they were cute - muahahahaha!"

Ok, so I like SOME poetry

Mi amiga takes exception to my feeling for flowery rhymes I seek to vindicate myself.
I really appreciate carefully crafted prose. If you want to say something just say already quit pussyfooting around it like a wimpy old lady. I am aware that this is a shocking revelation in my personality, it shocks me too. A girl who likes period dramas and embroidery would seemingly be a fool for poetry. I, however; skip whole sections of books where a poem or song is retold. I do like some poetry like the kind that don't use sentences but just string words or phrases together.

Here is poetry I can handle

So much depends
upon

a red wheel
barrow

glazed with rain
water

beside the white
chickens.
-William Carlos Williams

Edna St. Vincent Millay
Haiku ( I really love haiku)
The Highwayman - Noyes
and I can indeed enjoy a rhymed couplet (they aren't long enough to make me glaze over)