our neighbor Boolcow
The day is breathless. Tiny green buds on the windward side of a stark Stemmadenia unfurl quaking, tender leaves. Dogs lounge in the morning sun while horses and cattle graze languorously in neighboring fields. Cardinals whistle and trill while doves bob in mating ritual on high tension wires. It is uncommonly quiet in North Kohala, an acrid volcanic haze tingeing a normally bright blue horizon to dull grey. Day-long sneezing jags and aching lungs mark the passing of yet another Kona front, but Nature seems not to take affront. When stalled tradewinds fail to strip moisture from the soil, grasses soak in dew, palpable right down to roots.
Paklan
For all our winter precipitation, landscapes still thirst for water as long as trades are up. Knock these gusts back for a week or two and even without direct rainfall, shrubs, trees and grasses explode in growth and raging color. A stately mango maturing into its fourth season burgeons into rosy dreadlocks of flowers as it prepares to fruit in profusion. Pink grapefruit and Meyer lemon waft heady aromas. Delicate paklan blossoms saturate the night air while passionfruit weep from vines like goose-golden ova. Two acres of field grasses, untouched by blades for over six months now, are in need of weekly pruning. A normally tempestuous ocean lies flat and listless, save for humpbacks breaching and slapping offshore. Still the most striking feature is the absolute motionless air. The flat aching quiet.
horse lips
Voices are gone – those normally careening on crosscurrents, whether human or netherworld. Vog seeps into the tiny folds of my aging brain; thoughts are difficult to form, physical movements are dull and laconic. Yet I remain a child of the earth, my body attuned to her heartbeat and pulse. Change is undeniably afoot, and after the flurry of the past few days, syncing myself with her rhythms allows me to pause and regroup, even as my sinuses rebel. I will know – as has happened time and again when the trades pick up – to make ready for whatever lies ahead. But for now I may lay down the inner yoke, only to shoulder it willingly once again when the time is ripe for harvest.
Kona-hazed sunset
Bela,
Your photographs are lovely, (and humorous too, if you consider the horse lips), and you prose is poetry. I feel so mellow after reading one of your posts.
Ronnie
… as I feel all warm and fuzzy each time I witness your lovely self posting a comment to one of my posts 😉
Thanks, Ronnie.
Breathless indeed and I love that cow! Such a lovely page. the sunset was perfection. i only wish i had been there too.. c
Boolcow, so named by my daughter as we watched this bull become a steer, is the sweetest! He has such a great loving relationship with our hounddog Susami (and with us). The old Japanese man who cares for him cannot send him to market – he hand raised him from a pet. The rest of his friends are gone now, but he grazes on.
You share and delight – in grand manner, Bela. Many thanks for a lasting impression of a pair of fine lips! Teeth…well… 😀
My pleasure! Glad you enjoyed my horsey lips 😉 Teeth, yes! We had an old boy we had to put down in the past year, and he used to let me feel inside his mouth to see if his teeth needed attention. Such a sweet soul – we miss him terribly.
Again, damn!
😉
What a nice break it is to take a few minutes from work to read your latest entry and view the beautiful pictures that are so exotic and different from our bleak winter landscape. I often think how everyday realities can differ so vastly from someone else’s or somewhere else. What a wonderful thing it is to immerse myself in an alternative universe if only through words and pictures for just a few minutes. Thanks for the respite.
So glad you enjoyed the post! Believe it or not, I miss YOUR view this time of year – the beautiful parts of it – not the salted dirty road banks, but the woods and trees laden with snow and/or ice. Foxes running across the crust; chickadees appearing at feeders. Strictly visual, not of course functional when one must navigate through that kind of weather!
I love contrasts – and agree about how different our everyday worlds can be. That, for me, is the joy in connecting with others, and my sharing just happens to come in words and images. So glad you appreciate them!