Riley becomes an honorary hard core hog dog

One of the disappointing things I've learned about Maui is that there is not much in the way of hiking trails. Most of the hiking on the island is in and around Haleakala crater, which is fun to explore, but you don't want to go there every week...or even every month. It takes a while to make the 36-mile winding drive up there, and the main trails are long and can get really misty or even rainy.

Halemau'u trail - Haleakala National Park

Outside of Haleakala there are few options. There's the Waihee Ridge trail, which starts out on a steep paved road next to a cow pasture. But there's a nice view at the top and you can get your dog to pose in a picturesque manner in the foreground.

View of Maui's north coast from the top of the Waihee Ridge trail

I only hiked this trail once. Because even though the view was nice, you never really feel like you're away from civilization, which is what I crave when I go hiking. If you lose sight of the city below, there is sure to be a helicopter flying overhead within a few minutes.

Overall, Maui's few hiking trails are not really dog friendly. And what's a hike without your dog? So mostly, George and I take Riley for walks in the Makawao Forest Reserve, which is only about two miles from our house. At least Riley has a chance to be off his leash for a while so he can stretch his legs and get up a little speed.

There's a pretty substantial trail network in the forest reserve. For the most part, it's kind of dark in there amongst the eucalyptus and cook pines, and the trees sway in the wind and make eerie squeaks and groans.

Are you guys coming or what?

Trail through the trees

On the trail that we hike most of the time, there's a spot where we always like to stop for a few minutes and eat an orange. And give Riley a drink.

Nice logs for sitting and taking a break...

...and getting a drink.

Hikers, runners, dog-walkers, and bikers all like to use these trails. But the forest reserve is also a popular destination for local pig-hunters. You can recognize their pickup trucks in the parking area by the combination dog cage/pig rack in the back. And in case you miss that clue, there's always the full rear window sticker.

On one of our recent hikes in the forest reserve, Riley got a whiff of pig and took off like a bat out of hell. Down the hill he went and instantly disappeared into the shrub-choked gulch. Since he does this running off behavior fairly often, we figured we'd just hang around until he showed back up again, which is when he's good and ready and has nothing to do with how loud or strenuously we call his name. We heard some crashing through the brush and then nothing for a few minutes.

The next sound we heard was this god-awful pig squealing and then the worst kind of multi-dog barking and growling and a whole lot more pig sqealing. A couple of guys came running by in their orange pig hunter getup and I yelled out to them that our dog was down there. They took off down the hill and George went after them. I waited on the trail with visions of my dog lying in shreds, laid low by a wild hog and a pack of hard core hog dogs. But then the snarling and squealing stopped and I heard snatches of talking and laughing. When George reappeared he had Riley with him, worn out and panting like crazy, but not a scratch on him. George gave me a vivid description of the scene he came upon: Riley had joined up with the hunting dogs for a full-on pig attack. They had it on its back and were tearing away at it when the hunters showed up and killed it with a knife. I was so glad I did not see that.

And that was how Riley became an honorary hard core hog dog of the Makawao Forest Reserve. From now on, he stays on his leash.

An encounter at the post office

"What's your secret?"

That's what the little Hawaiian lady asked me at the post office. I looked at her blankly.

"What?"

"What's your secret?"

I looked at her closely, trying to figure out what she could possibly be talking about. She was about five feet tall, with a short fringe of wispy mouse-colored hair and a face like a freckled walnut. She took on a jaunty stance, leaning on one elbow at the table where I was sorting through my mail. Her flowered red muumuu was a splash of color in the drab post office lobby.

"You have such calm eyes. You must get a lot of rest at night."

"Um...sometimes." I thought about my eyes. They definitely did not feel calm or rested.

And that's how it started. For the next 30 minutes, the old Hawaiian lady (for lack of a name, I will call her Auntie) wove a fantastic tale, in chapter after chapter, while I stood there, completely at a loss as to how to extricate myself.

"Can science explain what I have seen, three times in my life? The first time when I was eight years old. I was in bed and I saw a milky white shape, with arms that beckoned to me. I was so afraid, but I couldn't speak. Then the legs disappeared. Then the hips disappeared. Then the chest. Then all that was left was the head, a white ball, that floated up to the ceiling where there were many other white balls, floating around. And then they were gone.

"...and then..." These were the words that I learned would signal the start of the next chapter.

"And then...the next time I was a teenager. I was in the kitchen with my father, washing the dishes. I looked out the window and I saw a white shape and it was beckoning to me. I told my father to quick come and look, but then it was gone.

"And then...the next time, was just after I was married. We didn't have indoor plumbing then. I got up to go outside to the outhouse and I saw a white shape, beckoning. I was so scared. I ran back inside and my husband said, 'Why are you afraid? You've been going outside by yourself for months!'

"And then...after that, I was never afraid of anything again. Because I knew there was something else out there."

I don't remember what I said at this point. I shuffled my mail. People came and went.

"I've been in 18 car accidents," she added.

"I was driving from Lahaina one day and a devil wind blew down the mountain, just as I was about to drive into the tunnel. It lifted my car right off the road...one...two...three times it lifted me up. On the last time, my car slammed back down and the police came. I heard them talking...'is she okay?' I thought, 'Why are they saying that? Can't they see I'm alive?' Then two nuns came to my car. They said, 'It's a miracle!' I thought, 'What is the miracle?' And then I saw my car. The windshield was smashed. The front and back were pushed in like an accordian. I went to the hospital and I was unconscious for three days. When I woke up, someone showed me a picture of myself that was taken right after the accident. My face was black. My neck was black. My hands were black. I looked like a corpse."

I wondered if I was going to hear about the other 17 car accidents and I started to get worried. I took Auntie by the elbow and walked towards the door.

"Those are amazing stories," I told her.

She nodded. "My son told me I should write a book. But who would read it?"

"I would," I said.

She smiled and waved and got into her car. It was an SUV. She couldn't possibly have been tall enough to see over the steering wheel. It would have taken a miracle.

Stand up, sit down, fight, fight, fight

Every once in a while, a friend talks me into trying some new activity that they are convinced is the most fun ever. This accounts for my attempts at water skiing, snowboarding, windsurfing, scuba diving, inline roller skating, and jumping off the high diving board at the community pool. In spite of the good intentions of my friends, and their valiant but futile attempts to instruct me, I have been a spectacular failure at every one of these. But it's only after they have actually seen me fall, sink, face-plant, crash, tumble, sputter, or keel over while standing perfectly still, do they admit that I must have some genetic deficiency that makes me better suited for sitting under a beach umbrella with a beer. And yet, thanks to human ingenuity, there always seems to be some new athletic challenge that just might turn out to be my thing. Last weekend, that challenge was stand up paddling.

For those who are not familiar with this activity, stand up paddling involves a really big surfboard, a really long paddle, and for most people, really flat water. You put the board in the water, you stand on the board, and you propel yourself around with a sweeping stroke of the paddle. Real surfers don't think much of stand up paddlers. I heard one refer to them derogatorily as beach janitors because of their slow, sweeping motions with the paddles. Real surfers hate it when they're riding a wave and a beach janitor sweeps by right in front of them. So mostly real surfers and stand up paddlers stake out different territories on the ocean.

 Stand up paddling - fun for the whole family!

In Maui, you can go to almost any beach on the south or west sides and see all kinds of people, of all different abilities, young and old, cruising around on their stand up boards. According to a recent article about stand up paddling in Connecticut, of all places, "anyone can stand up on the board and paddle on the ocean." I beg to differ.

My friend let me try stand up paddling on her new, lightweight board, which was probably a mistake (I saw her checking it out for damage after I returned it to her). It took me approximately 10 seconds to fall off for the first time. That pretty much established the pattern for the rest of my relationship with the board. There is something misleading about the term "flat water." Water is not flat. I will put money on that. Several times, as I was heaving myself back onto the board after cartwheeling into the ocean, some well meaning soul, a 90-year old geriatric or a kid with one leg, would paddle by and offer me words of encouragement. "Everyone falls off the first time!" "Use the paddle to help you balance!" "Don't look at the board, look at the horizon!" I felt sorry for them. They had no idea who they were dealing with.

I looked like this for about 30 seconds, max.

All the while I was trying to give it a go, my friend was paddling slowly around me, telling me how well I was doing, and actually keeping a straight face while she said this. I finally called it quits when my legs started to shake and a fair amount of the ocean had gone up my nose. By this time I had drifted almost out of sight of the place I had started and the only way I could get back was to paddle laboriously from a kneeling position, which made paddling feel like I was waving a flag pole.

And so I add another attempt to my scrapbook of (to borrow from David Foster Wallace) supposedly fun things I'll never do again. Well, maybe one more time. Just to be sure.

Getting used to a new home

So I got a little sidetracked in May, what with the end of the semester and our decision to move to a new house. In April, my friend Lee from school asked me if we might be interested in renting the upstairs of her two-story rental. We weren't really looking to move, but after visiting Lee's place, we immediately agreed. The timing was perfect - April was the last month on our six-month lease, so in a frantic rush, we moved everything over in a couple of days and set up our new house on May 1.

Lee moved to Maui in the 70s when she was a wild young hippie chick. She and her (now ex-) husband bought some property and built their dream house. Now, more than 30 years later, Lee and her partner Cynthia live in a newer home that they built together on the same property, and they rent out the separate upstairs and downstairs of the older house. There is also a tiny cabin on the property that is rented out too. So here we are in a little Maui commune with Lee and Cynthia in the new house, Margie in the cabin, Mary downstairs, and us. The whole property is about three acres at the end of a winding dirt road, bordered by huge eucalyptus trees. And we even have an ocean view from the big front deck.

 Our new house peeking through the trees

One of the many fabulous things about this place is all the mature fruit trees: bananas, papayas, oranges, lemons, guava, and more. I walk outside in the morning, pick three or four oranges and have fresh-squeezed juice for breakfast.

 Backyard fruit basket

I never picked bananas before. They are the wildest things. A huge flower blooms on the plant and then all the bananas form on a long stalk. When they start looking plump (but still green) you cut down the whole plant because after one banana stalk grows, it's done. But they grow pretty fast and it doesn't take long before another tree grows out of the old roots.

Banana flower

Banana stalk

Another prolific fruit tree is the papaya. They are the funkiest looking things - just a few leaves at the end of a long stem and a bunch of bulbous fruit clinging to the top.

Papayas

I think Lee said there were nine orange trees on her property. They are amazing - full of fruit and the blossoms are so fragrant.

Oranges!

Oh, and I can't forget the avocado tree that grows right next to our deck and is taller than the house - it is HUGE and has dozens of avocados - maybe hundreds. But I'm afraid I'm going to be away when they finally ripen. How disappointing!

And I can't forget the goats! On Maui, homeowners can pay lower property taxes if they use their land for agricultural purposes. Which seems like kind of a racket, because all you need is one animal to claim your exemption. So lots of people have horses or goats. Lee chose goats.

Mama goat with her two kids, Cinnamon and Nutmeg. The black sheep (goat), Shadow is adopted (but don't tell her!).

It is almost paradise...but I wasn't exaggerating about the commune-like feel of the place. And after having 14 acres and a 2,700 square foot house all to myself in Idaho, having someone living downstairs is taking a little getting used to. Part of it is being able to hear another person, although Mary is as good a neighbor as anyone could ask for. But the other part of it is knowing that someone else can hear YOU.

It's all part of the big Maui experiment.

Many Maneki Neko

One thing I started noticing almost everywhere I go in Hawaii is the Japanese good luck cat - Maneki Neko. When I went into a store or restaurant, there was Maneki Neko waving to me. At least, I thought he (or she) was waving until I learned that Maneki Neko doesn't wave, he beckons. In fact, Maneki Neko, or まねき 猫 translates as Beckoning Cat. Also known as the Money or Fortune Cat, Maneki Neko is ambidextrous - right paw for beckoning money, left paw for beckoning customers (which I assume also means money, does it not?).

As soon as I started noticing Maneki Neko, I also started feeling like my life was sad and empty without my own Beckoning Cat to make me feel lucky. I needed to find a Maneki Neko of my own. But there were so many to choose from!

Traditional...

Samurai...

Sumo...

Holiday...

I started feeling confused. Was there really any difference between Maneki Neko and Hello Kitty?

And what about those cat clocks? Were they really Maneki Neko...without paws?

And when it came right down to it, maybe I was just feeling nostalgic for Felix...

After all, Felix didn't need magic. "Whenever he gets in a fix, he reaches into his bag of tricks!"

In the end, I think I got the best of all the lucky and magic cats. A black Maneki Neko. Who now holds a place of honor on my dashboard. I think I'll call him Maneki Felix.

WILD Day

For Hawaii's seven community colleges, the first Friday in March has been named "Wo Innovations in Learning Day," in honor of the Wo Endowment. The primary function of the endowment is to support faculty professional development in the form of the Wo Learning Champions - one or two faculty or professional staff members who are selected at each campus. Every other year, the Wo Learning champions plan and coordinate activities for a WILD day of community sharing and professional development activities and workshops for each campus.

I was lucky to attend Maui College's WILD day 2010, which was held at Kanaha Beach Park in Kahului. We started out with a conservation project within the beach park boundary, planting native plants and removing invasive weeds.

 

Planting native plants at Kanaha Beach

 

  

Removing invasive grass

After the restoration project, we divided up among a number of different activities designed to teach us about Native Hawaiian culture.

First I got to try paddling in a 6-man outrigger canoe. Five of the seats were taken by me and my co-workers from Maui College (all novices), and the last seat, which was the steering position at the rear of the canoe, was expertly commanded by our coach, Puka. Puka taught us the Hawaiian names for all the parts of the canoe (which I've forgotten, but can remind myself here). He also told us what to do (and what NOT to do) if we tipped over! Fortunately, we didn't have to remember this since it didn't happen. It was also reassuring to look over the side of the canoe and see that the water was only about 5 feet deep. I don't have any photos of us in the canoe because I didn't want to get my camera wet, but I like to think we looked like this:

 

It was great fun! I was in seat number three, which meant I had the duty of calling out when everyone had to switch their paddles to the other side of the canoe. My job consisted of counting to twelve, over and over. Each time I got to eleven, I was to call out, "HUT!" At twelve, I called out "HO!" and everyone switched, and I started counting again. Naturally, I took my job very seriously! We paddled around for about 30 minutes, then landed safely on the beach again. Thank you Puka!!

 After paddling, there were several other activities to choose from, but I was still savoring my ocean voyage, so I just wandered around and watched.

 

Lei making

  

Husking coconuts

  

Cleaning and smoothing out coconut shells to make 'awa cups

  

Pounding bark to make kapa cloth

  

 Printing designs on the kapa cloth

WILD day was so much fun - do I have to wait two years til the next one?

I fear the deadly pods

There are lots of lovely plants in Hawaii, some native, many not. But one non-native plant that seems to grow everywhere, including my own back yard is the castor bean, or castor oil plant. Sure, everyone's heard of castor oil, and if you're my age and grew up watching cartoons, you may even have heard of Castor Oyl (Olive Oyl's brother).

The Oyl family

But what I did NOT know, and now do, is that the castor bean is one of the deadliest plants and the source of the extremely toxic poison, ricin. Maybe if I had heard the latin name, Ricinus communis, I might have guessed. According to the online natural history information source, Wayne's Word,  "it has been estimated that, gram for gram, ricin is 6,000 times more poisonous than cyanide and 12,000 times more poisonous than rattlesnake venom." These kinds of comparisons are beyond horrifying to me. I imagine on the one hand, being bitten by 12,000 rattlesnakes, and on the other hand, getting stabbed in the back of the leg by an umbrella tip dipped in ricin, like Georgi Markov.

Although the castor bean plant is as common as can be here in Hawaii, apparently it is cause for great suspicion if found growing in Utah, as an Orem man discovered when the plant growing by his mailbox was investigated by Homeland Security. It seems that quantities of ricin have been found in Al Qaeda caves in Afghanistan so I guess it follows that a castor bean plant growing in Orem, Utah is probably a sure sign that a terrorist is nearby.

Now I have a horrible fascination with the plants in my back yard, imagining the sinister-looking spiky pods brimming with poison, just waiting for an innocent passerby to accidentally ingest a seed and die a terrible death. (Although how that accident might come to pass, I'm not really sure - maybe something like how the King of the Elephants ate a poison mushroom and died in one of the Babar stories. Which story, I might add, was accompanied by a drawing of the shriveled green dead elephant king that scared the life out of me as a kid, and made me fear any mushroom not bought in a store). In their FAQs about ricin (??) the Department of Homeland Security assures me that accidental exposure to ricin is "highly unlikely," however, I remain respectfully apprehensive.

The PODS in my back yard!

 

Close-up of the Deadly Seed-bearing PODS!

The PODS try to fool you by disguising themselves with flowers.