Hilo: Grief Is A Price You Pay For Love.

Lughnasa                         Waxing Back to School Moon 9 years ago Kate and I bought two small whippet puppies, sisters, and named them after two towns on one of our favorite spots on earth, the Big Island of Hawai’i.  The larger of the two, Kona, took her name from the west facing town on the Kohala-Kona coast, […]

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Feeling Better. Me. Dwindling. Hilo.

Lughnasa                                    Waxing Artemis Moon Ah.  It seems the nasties have journeyed on to other warm bloody creatures, leaving me in peace for now.  I hope my body now recognizes and will fend off these creatures that live only to replicate and in so doing make us feel bad.  But they don’t care. Groceries this morning.  […]

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Not Good News

Summer                                    Full Grandchildren Moon Not good news for Hilo.  She is now in end-stage renal failure.  Roger Barr said that since her decline has been gradual she may  tolerate values in her  kidney functions that a dog with more rapid onset may not.  Translation, she may live a bit longer this way.  Right now you […]

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Getting the Week Underway

Summer                                               Full Grandchildren Moon Vega the wonder dog update.  Now the focus shifts to Vega.  Who has learned to open the patio door, both ways, with a quick twist of her super strong neck.  Last night Kate and I sat outside reading and talking, a pleasant evening.  Vega looked inside, saw her sister Rigel and […]

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Pictures

Summer                                                 Waning Strawberry Moon The scientific theory I like best is that the rings of Saturn are composed entirely of lost airline luggage. – Mark Russell You can go a long way with a smile. You can go a lot farther with a smile and a gun. – Al Capone I didn’t know there was […]

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Another Northern Summer Day

Summer                             Full Strawberry Moon The full strawberry moon, evocative.  Our strawberries have wound down  for this season, but we enjoyed them while they ripened.  I had blueberries on cereal this morning, blueberries from our patch.  Finished the  planting for a third harvest:  beans, spinach, swiss chard, beets:  golden and detroit red and carrots. Kate has […]

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Kidneys and Bee Stings

Summer                                Full Strawberry Moon The dew-point and the temperature are one, 67.  That means a cloud hangs not above us but around us.  It’s a drippy, soggy Saturday fit for neither garden work nor bees.  And I have work to do in both places.  There’s always Latin. Hilo now takes naps with me every day […]

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Holes in the Fabric

Summer                              Waxing Strawberry Moon It seems the gods of fate have not left our pack just yet.  Today was the annual physical for all of our dogs, a process that begins with luring Vega and Rigel into the back of the truck.  Hilo and Kona just jump up into the front seat.  That all went […]

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Leeks, Shame and Ancestry

Spring                                                           Waxing Flower Moon The new dog food must be a mistake.  The whippets did not eat at all this morning, the big dogs ate little.  Hilo (our smallest whippet) is in her crate with what I take to be a belly ache since she doesn’t look seriously ill.  How do I know?  Well, I […]

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Caution: Dangerous Rodent Ahead

Spring                                      Awakening Moon We have an injured dog.  Hilo, our smallest whippet, and a friend for many years, got in a scrap with an animal, a squirrel or a rabbit, and got a nasty wound below her right lip and another, larger one underneath her jaw.  She didn’t come for quite a while yesterday, we […]

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