This Week's Wildlife

If you are a regular blog follower, you'll know that last week's wildlife story featured a show-down between "Team Corgyn" and a mongoose -- a pest especially prevalent here in Puna's thick forest and jungle.  Another wildlife creature we deal with, especially in the winter months, are Norwegian RATS!!

Emptying and resetting traps daily is part of our winter maintenance, faithfully administered by Phil.  So far this winter, our rat catch is up to over 20!

Rats originally got to the islands on 18th and 19th century sailing ships.  Once here, where they had no natural enemies, they flourished on the islands.  Since they are voracious eaters, they began to decimate the cane and pineapples fields, so the local American and European landowners imported Asian mongoose to kill them.  The only problem is that the rats are up at night and the mongoose are active during the day.  Now we have two pests!

Paul's Repair sent us this photo

Last week as we drove the truck for the weekly recycle and dump run, we notice the the fan made a rhythmic clacking sound -- similar to the sound made when we paper clipped cards to the spokes of our bikes as kids. We dropped the truck off a couple days later at our local auto repair guy who immediately suspected a rat nest.  And, sure enough, within an hour, he emailed us the following photo -- and said the filter and fan were clean and ready to go.


These prevalent rat episodes reminded us of a great story by a friend of ours whose stories in pidgin are well known and appreciated locally.  We met Jozuf Hadley in 2011 -- a year before we bought our house.  "Bradajo" as he is known locally, tells the story of the neighbor's cat "Ehu" who visits his house to catch rats -- and they all end up with a colorful encounter.  Hope you'll take time to click on this link to hear the story. Bradajo's "Ehu and da rat" story   (PS if you are new to Hawaiian Pidgin, you may need to listen again...but it is worth it.)

Holiday Story About the Rat

As we pulled out our Christmas decoration, we realized we had reduced the number of boxes for our relocation to Hawaii -- in fact, there was just one small box with a few strands of lights and only the most precious ornaments.  However, while doing so, we noticed a strange odor coming from the storage area, and the decorations were set aside until we found the source -- a dead rat.

Phil has been diligently putting rat poison out for a few days hoping to catch the "one" before they became "the many" -- unfortunately, the dying rodent managed to squeeze under the fully loaded freezer to find a place to die.

After successfully removing the carcass, we remembered a charming pidgin poem written (and performed) by our friend Jozuf Hadley -- about the cat "Ehu" and how effective "Ehu" was at catching 'da rat.' 


So, for your amusement and enjoyment, here's the link to BradaJo's reading "Ehu."
(just click on the link below)
 
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iSGEtkVOLTk

Bradajo (Brother Jo)

Over two years ago, on our first visit to the big island, we were delighted to attend an assemblage exhibit hosted by SKEA, a lovely small art association in south Kona, just a few blocks away from where we were staying with our friend Yani near Honaunau.

Out of all the exhibitors' assemblages Lunel was instantly and singularly drawn to the art of one man who signed his pieces "Jozuf."  As she was standing in front of one piece with a big grin on her face, she was surprised when the man who was standing beside her turned out to be the artist!  He asked what she liked about his art, and she shrugged and replied, "It makes me smile."  He grinned, gave her a hug, and said, "Then, you 'get it.'"

This month, two and a half years later, she was over on the Kona side again, this time to stop at the vacation rental where our Blue Lake friends from Humboldt were staying, and to visit Yani again.  When she walked into the house (where she had never been) the walls were covered with Jozuf's art!!

Also, on the coffee table were books of his poetry -- all in Hawaiian pidgin!

The home belongs to a lovely, energetic woman named Betsy who operated a kayak business for many years.  When Lunel sat down in her living room for a chat, it was like meeting an old friend.  Betsy informed us that Jozuf (whose literary name is Bradajo) was doing a reading of his poetry at Basically Books in Hilo on August 17th.  We invited both of them to supper and talk-story after the reading, when we found out that Jozuf and Lunel had the same birthday -- August 14th.  Phil and Jozuf had much in common including their passion for wood and both having taught sculpture for many years.  We're thrilled to meet such folks and plan on seeing more of them.

We invite you to visit Jozuf's website, and/or....


www.jozufhadley.com


Visit this link to listen to samples from several of Jozuf's bemusing poems.
 http://www.cdbaby.com/cd/bradajo3