animals

Life in Hawaii- Palm trees, Beaches, Mai tais and Wild boars

The most interesting and stressful event for most of us who have farms up here in Kahalu’u lately is the massive visitations of wild pigs. I wish a were a gardener because they roto-till the land to perfection. Except that the places they choose are not great spots for a garden!

It’s crazy!

I see big families – Mom, Dad, teenagers and tiny babies roaming at all hours through my yard and macadamia orchard, rooting for grubs and eating the nuts on the ground. I’d rather sell those nuts – since that is the entire point of having a macadamia farm, but these pigs don’t seem to understand the economics of why those nuts are laying on the ground.

A giant boar with a curly tail often comes alone right under my bedroom lanai sliding door and enjoys his breakfast at dawn. Part of me feels frustrated at the invasion, and the other part feels fascinated, and slightly repelled, as I spy on him from my secret hiding place – my hog blind.

A family of 13 pigs visited for a Sunday afternoon snacking session. The older males were testy with the teenagers, and snorted and chased them away from the best rooting spots. One big boar…  well, how can I say this ……. tried to have non-consensual relations with a lady pig and was immediately rejected. He took it quite well, strolling away with his dignity intact. Or so thought! I’m actually a terrible biologist! I make up stories that are probably all wrong.

 

Mom Baby Goats

Goats

I often hike the Keauhou coastline, traversing my way through Kiawe thickets and making my way down to the red and black high-fired expanse of undulating pahoehoe formations along the ocean. One day I meandered along lost in my daydreams. Out of thin air a herd of goats bolted, flying in a swirl of delicate hooves, horns pointing skyward, grace set in motion skimming across lava, against the deep blue sky and ocean spewing white spray. I was stunned. I’d have never guessed that goats could embody the essence of beauty with such presence and power.

I thought I knew what goats were about. Not much about goats interested me – until that day. How can an animal whose hooves are no larger than the circumference of a tea cup race at that speed across tumbled and twisted lava? I experienced goats for the first time in my life. I now imagine that goats have senses and ways of perceiving that I cannot fathom. Is it too fantastic to propose that maybe they even may have sensors, like eyes, in their hooves that guide them across any terrain they care to traverse? And at any speed they care to traverse it. And with glorious confidence!

In my little box, when I thought “goat” knee-jerk images arose: barnyards, whiny bleating, rank smell, their reputation for eating anything that doesn’t move. Now the thought “goat” brings me a surge of happiness, blue sky and ocean, delicate, purposeful, power, and grace.

Art is a sure way out of the box. My opening step in creating art is usually a wisp of an idea that comes to me and seems to invite me to explore. So I step forward and I hear, I touch, I feel curiosity – wondering what will come. And then more comes. I see color I never saw before. I discern. I notice. And then usually at some point the image comes full force or trickles in through dreams or insights. This process calls me to pay attention and receive life in its infinite forms. It is this openness to life that gives me my deepest joy. Thank you my dear goat friends, for showing me how to be alive!

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