• Tag Archives Kona

  • It’s Illegal

    Posted on by Charles Comment

    Mid-Summer                                                                                             Waxing Honey Flow Moon

    In to see Kate this morning after making some soup and killing potato pests by hand and soapy water.  Integrated pest management  suggests hands-on management for small crops.  It’s actually pretty straight-forward to keep pests in check if you inspect regularly.  Like the plastic bags for the apples.  The concept also allows that some leaves will get eaten, some plants will get lost, but that if you plan for these and don’t excited, you can keep pesticide use to a minimum.  I haven’t used any for years.

    Companion plantings helps.  Crop rotation helps.  Regular surveillance helps. Replenishing soil nutrients helps. Every bit of positive input reduces the hold insects pests can get on your veggies.

    Kate’s color looked normal this morning even though her hemoglobin is still a little low.  She’s ready to come home.  Her nurse yesterday tried to get her to wear little footies with a sticky pattern on the bottom.  Kate doesn’t like things on her feet.  “You don’t want to wear them even though it’s illegal?”  I knew who would win this contest.

    Back home for a nap, read a little, then got ready for Tai Chi.  Kona had been injured in the morning, but I couldn’t find the problem.  She held up her right front foot, which I checked carefully, finding nothing.  Mark found the wound.  It was a tear in her side just above the right shoulder.

    Uh oh.  This is the kind of stuff Kate makes easy. So. I called her and asked her if she could come home.  Nope.  Well, I figured.  Her advice though helped a lot.

    After a snappy, biting 10 minutes or so, I figured out how to do what needed to be done, Kona stood quietly and let me put a gauze pad on the wound and wrap it on with a sticky bandage.

    I missed the first hour of Tai Chi, but I made it for my class.  Be patient with yourself.  Relax.  Trust the process.  Cheryl, the teacher, is a calming influence in a learning curve that can be difficult.

    By the time I headed home I needed some comfort food.  A peanut buster parfait later, I felt calmer myself.


    📂This entry was posted in Aging Asia Garden Great Work Health 📎and tagged

  • We Inch, Slowly, Toward Spring

    Posted on by Charles Comment

    Spring                                                                 Waxing Bee Hiving Moon

    Kate comes home tonight.  Yeah!  I miss her when she’s gone. I’ll follow our usual procedure and pick her up at the Loon Cafe, conveniently located at the end of the light rail service 650-herb-spiralfrom the airport.  Makes the drive much shorter and I get a good meal in the bargain.

    After the biting and the barking and the adrenaline I figured out a somewhat complicated solution to the Rigel/Sollie problem.  It involves making sure that one set of dogs is in their crate before admitting the others to the house.  This way nobody trespasses on anybody else’s territory.

    It demands a careful watching of when Rigel and Vega are away hunting so I can let Sollie, Gertie and Kona inside.  Or, alternatively, when Rigel and Vega are on the deck and the others are out hunting.  A bit baroque I know but I have no more indentations in the leg.

    (pics from April of last year)

    As the Bee Hiving moon goes from New to Full, our yard will lose its snow and we will have several species of flowers in bloom, a few vegetables in the ground and as it begins to wane we should have our new bees hived and happy in their new homes.  There are things that need to happen before this last, not the least moving the hives to the orchard, cleaning all the frames of propolis and burning the old hive boxes and frames I got from Mark, the bee mentor.650-apple-blossoms

    Seeing the bulbs planted in the fall begin to emerge always heartens me because it reminds me of hours of labor spent in the cool air of late October or early November.  We won’t be here for that time next year, so probably no new bulbs this year.

    In fact, I’m declaring finished to our orchard, garden, vegetable, bee expansions.  We’ll stick with no more than three hives, the raised beds and other beds we have in the vegetable garden, the trees and bushes we have in the orchard and the flower beds we have in place now.

    We’ll always have to replace dead plants and put in new ones in their place.  We have to care for the fruit trees and bushes, plant vegetables and maintain the bee colonies so we’ll have to plenty to keep us occupied.  I just want to get good at the stuff we have and begin to slowly limit the work we do over the course of the year.


    📂This entry was posted in Bees Family Garden Great Wheel Great Work Our Land and Home permaculture 📎and tagged

  • Travel Agent? C’est moi.

    Posted on by Charles Comment

    Spring                                                      Waning Bloodroot Moon

    As travel agent for our house, I make reservations, check on them, plan itineraries and handle changes to travel plans.  Like several of my domestic responsibilities I have these duties because of misspent time over the last couple of decades + learning how to use computers, then the web.  Mostly I find it makes life easier, quicker, broader and deeper.  Once in a while, like this morning, it takes more time than a comparable activity would have a few years back.  When I made Kate’s travel plans for her upcoming birthday junket to Denver (Ruthie’s 5th!), I inadvertently clicked on an incorrect e-mail address, charlebellis@gmail.com.  I made this mistake years ago, but somewhere in this infernal machine, it helpfully brings back all my past sins against perfect computing.  So, I had to call the airlines to get them to resend the info.  Talking to a real person.  How 20th century.

    We fed five dogs this morning:  Rigel, Vega, Kona, Sollie and Gertie.  We’re used to this, but each collection of dogs has a different personality and require different food arrangements.  We’ve not got this one perfected quite yet.  But we will.

    Gotta go now.  A China tour to prepare and a legcom agenda to flesh out.


    📂This entry was posted in Dogs Travel 📎and tagged

  • Carpe this Diem

    Posted on by Charles Comment

    Imbolc                                                 Waxing Bridgit Moon

    OK.  Today is a new day.  I do not plan to torture my computers anymore today in regard to my legacy laserjet printer.  It has been a faithful companion throughout the last 19  years and I do not plan to give up on it yet.  Even so, I’ve experienced my tolerance level of geek futility since I tried to convert it from parallel processing to usb, so it will rest on the sidelines for a while as I install the new multi-function printer later in the day.  If I can find a new laserjet printer for under $300 I may just get one with a native usb connection.  Not sure I’d do with old faithful.  I might bring it in here (the study) and see if I can convince it to mate up with the Gateway in here.  I might give it to somebody with a parallel printer port.

    I know, too, that losing colonies is still common for beekeepers and that my experience is not unusual.  In fact, as I said a bit earlier, I was not surprised by the deaths of two of the colonies. Only the package colony’s demise surprised me, since it seemed to have plenty of honey and a healthy group of bees.  Another year is another year.

    With temperatures above freezing the dogs are frisky, staying outside longer, bumping, running, tails held high.  They both hunt between the honey house and the play house, noses to the ground, body alert.  Kona still finds the outdoors a bit too cool and no wonder, she no longer has any hair on her butt.  I know how it feels when there’s no hair on the head, probably a similar sensation.  And it is hard for Kona to put a hat or a scarf on that particular location.

    I’m inclining toward a Renaissance theme for the Titian tours.  This exhibit showcases the High Renaissance in Venice from its beginnings in the early 1500’s through its end in the 1580’s.  Venice held on to the Renaissance longer than the rest of Italy, though even its extension ended well before the Renaissance limped toward its end in the 1700’s in northern Europe.  The Renaissance gave shape and content to our era, actually doing what those embroiled in it thought they were doing, ushering in the modern age, shifting from the ancien regime to the days of democracy, individualism, capitalism and science, days within which we still live.

    Not often do we have the chance to experience such a clear visual record of this dramatic change in the lifeways of Western civilization, a record written not in words, but in the brushstrokes and vital imaginations of artists who distilled the time and painted it.  On canvas.  Using oils.


    📂This entry was posted in Bees Dogs GeekWorld Humanities World History 📎and tagged

  • Homecoming

    Posted on by Charles Comment

    Winter                                                                    Waxing Moon of the Cold Month

    I’m sitting here, waiting on Kate to come home from her retirement party at work.  It’s at an Applebees, noisy and with people I don’t know so I stayed home.  With my hearing loss a noisy room makes a party, not my favorite place to begin with, much worse.  Since we’ve never found anything to help my unilateral hearing loss, it’s important to know my limitations.  Still, I miss being with her right now, though our work places have always been separate.  A doctor can’t take her husband to work with her so he can see what she does.  As a result, I’ve not hung out there, gotten to know her colleagues.  We did go to group events in the first years, but those long ago petered out as the corporate side of medicine fragmented the docs.

    Kate came home while I was writing this.  She had a wonderful evening out and received several gifts, including a pricey bottle of champagne.  Which, of course, I can’t help her with.  Darn.  Excitement still radiated from her polished, sprinkled fingernails to her equally polished and twinkly toes.  Now she’s up and we’re getting ready to take Vega, Rigel and Kona over to Armstrong Kennels, their home away from us while we fly to Denver.

    Guess what?  5-10 inches of snow predicted for Denver on the day we arrive.  Oh, joy.  The good news is it will be 25 degrees warmer than home at 26.

    Today is a get ready to travel day.  Stuff to do.  Talk to you later.


    📂This entry was posted in Aging Dogs Family Retirement 📎and tagged

  • Hilo: Grief Is A Price You Pay For Love.

    Posted on by Charles 2 Comments

    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, the side of the Big Island which has some of the most luxurious resorts in all of Hawai’i.  Hilo, the smaller girl by about half, took her name from the east facing island town of Hilo, a blue collar town of Japanese and Hawai’an workers, a bit rough around the edges and the site of more than one tsunami, the most recent in 1964.

    We held them on our laps a lot when they were puppies and even after they were grown they would, from time to time, lobby for us to hold them that way again.  Hilo would 600hilogarden_0128hop eagerly into my lap, sit there for a minute or maybe less, then stand up, moving here and there, trying to achieve some location that felt right to her.  Most often she would jump down.  She had her opinions about all sorts of things and acted on them.

    In the morning before we opened their crates Hilo would lead Kona in a high pitched whining chorus with dips and doodles, plaintive and loud.  When upstairs she would bark to be let out and to be let back in.  Though the smallest of all our dogs, she let none of the others take her spot on the couch or get near her food.  She was not ornery, but she was clear about boundaries.

    When I went outside to garden, Hilo went with me, sometimes standing right where I wanted to work.  I would gently lift her out of the way and continue.  After I got the bees, Hilo would come right into the bee-yard with me while I worked.  She would stand there, bees buzzing all around and watch me, sometimes lying down in a sunny patch.

    An enduring memory from her young puppy hood came when she and Kona dug under the southeastern corner of our fence.  I discovered her not long after they escaped, but she was on the other side of the fence.  I called her name, Hilo.  She looked over her shoulder, gave me a sweet, delighted look, and took off on a path through the forest–away from me–at a full suspension gallop.  She was so happy.

    She had some negative kidney function numbers earlier in the year and by the time of her physical in June, they had gotten worse.  Roger Barr told us she had probably two months, nothing to do but allow the disease to play itself out.  We changed her diet, starting giving her rimadyl for pain when she started wicketing.  We extended his two months to three, but she died this morning, just over 9 years old.

    Hilo was my friend and close companion.  Often, she would take a nap with me and curl up in the crook of my arm.  When I was outside, she was, too.  She came when I called her, after those early days, and sat with me while I read.  She was a vital, distinctive voice here and I’ll miss her.

    Grief is a price you pay for love.


    📂This entry was posted in Dogs 📎and tagged

  • Holes in the Fabric

    Posted on by Charles Comment

    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 fine.  Kona and Rigel were a bit nervous, panting and walking around in the exam room at Foley Blvd. Animal Clinic.  Hilo sat on my lap and Vega, still a bit dopey from the stings, I think, laid on the floor as if she lived there.  Or, as if, as Kate suggested, she hoped she was invisible.

    The exam went well enough.  Vega came in at 115 lbs and Rigel at an even 100.  Kona had gained half a pound and Hilo had lost a pound and a half.  During the results, Dr. Roger Barr, a friend now after 16 years of Irish Wolfhounds and Whippets, said he would, “save Hilo for the last.”

    Our littlest girl and the dog most devoted to me has some form of kidney disease.  Roger says within two months or so she should start to show symptoms as her kidney functions slowly shut down.  There’s not much to be done about it.  A round of antibiotics could, but probably won’t, knock out a pyelonephritis, if it’s there.  If it is an infection, then her kidney function tests will return to normal.  It’s possible, but not likely.

    Hilo is 9, so she’s not a young dog, but Emma was 14 when she died a couple of weeks ago.  Hilo’s not gone yet, we have some time with her, in some senses as we always have, but now with a knowledge that those times are nearing an end.

    Each dog is different and special.hilo600 When they die, a unique aspect of our life here comes to a finish.  It is the unique and the special traits or memories we recall when we speak of them in later years.   Celt’s stepping on my snow shoes, barking at the flapping black plastic bag, receiving attention at the St. Kate’s Art Fair as if it were his due.  Buck’s careful positioning of the pillows and blankets so he could lie down on the perfect spot.  Iris retrieving and shredding tissues.  Emma standing on the tree.

    But in the immediate aftermath of a death it is the hole in the fabric of our life that tears the heart.  We were seven and now we are six.  Soon, if Roger Barr is right, we will be five.


    📂This entry was posted in Dogs Faith and Spirituality Memories 📎and tagged

  • Dogs and the Night

    Posted on by Charles Comment

    Spring                                    Awakening Moon

    Some nights.  First, Kona had to get out of her crate about 10:30 pm.  She never gets up until morning.  She ran outside, ran around the shed, came back inside and went back in her crate.  Then, around 1am Vega starts whining.  Won’t let up.  So, I get up, let her out. Again, this is very unusual.  She also sleeps until morning.  When I let Vega out, Rigel wanted to go, too.  They ran around a bit.  Vega came back and laid down in front of the door.  But. Rigel wanted to stay outside.

    15 minutes or so later, we’re at around 2am now, I decided enough.  So, I got out the flashlight and proceeded into the woods.  This is not easy at 2 am with no moon light.  Overcast.  The best route around the woods is the path running alongside the fence all round our property.  Only.  I put up an electric fence and the path runs uncomfortably close to it.  One trip over a root or fallen branch and I’m a cow that needs to go anywhere but close to the fence,

    Anyhow.  I gave up after 10 minutes of wandering and stumbling, the flashlight a poor substitute for clear light.  As I headed back toward the house having decided to let Rigel sleep outside, she came up behind me and to my right.  Suddenly.  Scared the bejesus out of me.  So, around 2:15 or so all dogs in bed and me, too.  Of course, getting to sleep after all that putzing around is not so straightforward, at least for me.  One of those nights.


    📂This entry was posted in Dogs 📎and tagged

  • And then, another escape!

    Posted on by Charles Comment

    Spring                                    Full Awakening Moon

    I spent a good part of today carrying former split rails from their storage place to positions along the bottom of our chain link fence facing north.  After I placed them one by one, end to end, I took out a roll of baling wire–it really is an all elecfence09purpose fix it tool, like duct tape–snipped off 12-18 inches pieces and wired the rails to the fence line.  At some point while I had this task underway, Vega came out and sat down on my feet, not at them, between me and the fence.  She just wanted to help.

    (pic:  this electric fence is still working.)

    After moving and wiring, I let the dogs out for the afternoon because I have a meeting tonight in the city.  So, I’m reading my e-mail, I look up and there going past the patio door is Kona.  Uh-oh.  If Kona’s out, where are the big dogs?  I moved upstairs,  fast, got to the deck, only to see Vega and Rigel  both standing there, looking around.  In this instance Kona had removed the board I used to block the gate from the fence to the lower perennial garden, the one right outside where I work on matters like e-mail, etc.

    So, on the first nice day of spring, both of my inmates who tend toward escape have tested the system and found it wanting.  Geez.  What will next week bring?


    📂This entry was posted in Dogs 📎and tagged

  • The Week So Far

    Posted on by Charles Comment

    Imbolc                                       Waxing Wild Moon

    Another day in the world of ancient Rome.  Translation continues to be fairly easy for me, though there are certain cases that give some trouble.  So far my learning has kept pace with the chapters.  I hope that continues.

    Kate got pretty weary at work on Monday.  She saw too many patients.  She’s rebounded today, though and I think that’s a good sign for the future.

    Kona, our largest whippet, has a fancy yellow bandage on her right rear leg after having what we believe is a benign growth removed yesterday.   She also has a water resistant sleeve over it, the Medi-Paw, that allows her to go outside.  A good thing.  Like most dogs I’ve known she simply ignores whatever discomfort she’s experiencing and does most of what she did before.  I was laid up for two months plus after my achilles surgery.

    Now a bit on the novel.  Decided I had to start writing again, even though I’m revising, too.  I feel too disconnected from its flow.  Revising is important, but it doesn’t feel like an organic part of the process for me, at least not yet.


    📂This entry was posted in Dogs Family Humanities Letters Writing 📎and tagged