Category: Animals!

Full Day 12 – Thursday

~ monkiyo ~ Leave a comment

Velskov …

This was the best experience and I absolutely recommend it. Look up the word geogastronomy (taste of place).

I planted a tree, helped set the table for the event, helped make our meal, and met Mamakan. She was amazing.

Velskov

She also took us out to the moss garden. She talked about how she finds meaningful, with sacredness in the spot and feel it, she shared how you can see time there; moss and lichen, to fern growth, and then to fruiting flowers. She played a song from her heritage and we shared e ho mai. It started to rain which wasn’t great for the outdoor cooking but a blessing in Hawaiian culture.

The food was wonderful and we saw Qunetin again. He stopped by to say hi and I was able to give him some candy for him and Sammy.

It was pretty perfect.

Some observations:

Kai = mea’ai = food

Mahi = hana = work

The reserve is meant to bring a few plants back to life. She is hoping to plant 80 different species to the forest.

New Zealand is the first place to create persons for natural places, e.g. mountain. Therefore it can sue. I love it.

Our furbabies

~ monkiyo ~ Leave a comment

So I realized that I did not share a couple of things that I love about living in Waipiʻo now. Pets!! We have a yard and bought a couple of puppies as soon as we moved a couple years ago.

Below the babies just got home and were about ten weeks old.

Brand new furbabies, Pō (night) and Lā (day).

They obviously have grown up a lot since then and are nine and ten pounds respectively. Pō has a lot of white hairs that make her look distinguished and Lā is still as charming as ever.

We never had dogs so we went out to Petco for training courses. It was good because it taught us a lot in terms of how we needed to act and the level of consistency and praise we should be giving to them to positively reinforce the training. It worked, we still have to work on getting their attention, especially when they see their friends from the park.

Pō and Lā today.

Princess Pō (night)
Lord Lā (day).

And as an added bonus, we also received a cute kitty cat to grow up with them, she came with the name Onyx and it stuck.

Such a full house of fur.

Learning about life

~ improvunderdogs ~ Leave a comment

Hi, Everyone.

I have been remiss and lost in work. This year has gone by especially fast with new responsibilities. I love it and don’t shy from challenges but I am glad that I now have the time (to take a day off) and share my thoughts in a random fashion.

Cecil the Lion has made me realize a couple of things. If you don’t know the story you should definitely google it. It has amazed me in the public outcry has been so negative and in a sense people have been flagrant in their distaste of him with no care for the other people (like his family) that are being caught in the crossfire. I asked my friend about this and she emphatically told me, “No, he is the one that put his family in this situation,” and that is what stays with me. We all should have an obligation to the people around us, that love you and you supposedly love to not do things that would negatively impact them. Killing (call it what it is) impacts people no matter what.

So 1) all of this blowback, etc, really is his fault and 2) it is hard to think about killing something that you have pet before.

A few years ago my husband and I went to Thailand and in Chiang Mai we went to Tiger Kingdom. We had the opportunity to pet a few of the tigers. But when I heard this story I thought of being able to touch such an amazing animal and the complete sadness that this person didn’t see them that way and chose to make it’s death a defining memory.

Something for me to remember and document I guess, especially since I will be able to go back to Thailand in 2016. I can’t wait!

I Heart Turtles

~ improvunderdogs ~ Leave a comment

turtle

So we’ve been lucky enough to get to the beach when we got home from our trip through nine states. It was very restful and I really enjoyed taking my cousin to all our favorite island stops. The best part was we were not disappointed at our favorite turtle watching spot.

Turtle closeup

There were at least ten of them and we got to see a couple go in and out of the water.

turtle heading to the beach

Hi Turtle!

He had something to say and Squire was lucky enough to catch it.

turtle talking

I have no idea what he said but I think that they were just chilling and staring at the ocean just like we were.

turtle staring at the water

Home Sweet Home.

turtle going back to the water

Photos Taken by Squire and Monica