Archive for March, 2014

O.k., show of hands. How many of you have had the gosh darned honor of being interrupted during your early morning, calm, quiet, peaceful yoga session, where the dawn is breathed in and human life is honored with each exhale,  by the gosh darndest noise comin' from a small machine designed to buff the cement on oprahs road. Really??  Only me............. I was easing myself into paschimottanasana, breathing my way into a more relaxed and stretched forward bend, sensing my oxinium hips being more fully embraced by the surrounding muscle, when the sound erupted. Inhale, hmmmmmm. The front door was open to the morning chill so I just had to kind of roll to my left to see out across the deck to the road. The tops of the west maui mountains were glowing pink as the dawn crept over a cloudless crater and shattered the last remains of early morning muted tones. The chickens were including the intrusion in their wake up cluckings by looking over toward the noise and then at each other for a little chat n' scatch. When I figured out what was going on, I thought that her nibs must be onboard and so will have nothing to do with dirt or cowpoop stains on her road. Seriously. I then rolled back, breathed, stretched, rolled to my right and checked under my meditation pillow for a set of car keys. Heard it took seven thousand gallons of simple green. I was browsing a wonderful book by the remarkable Vonnegut, his last in fact. "A Man Without a Country". Don't usually share the stage here at blog central what with the massive case of swelldheaditis, however I would like to share the following: " Do you know what a humanist is? My parents and grandparents were humanists, what used to be called Free Thinkers. So as a humanist I am honoring my ancestors, which the Bible says is a good thing to do. We humanists try to behave as decently, as fairly, and as honorably as we can without any expectation of rewards or punishments in an afterlife. My brother and sister didn't think there was one, my grandparents didn't think there was one. It was enough they were alive. We humanists serve as best we can the only abstraction with which we have any real familiarity, which is our community. I am, incidentally, Honorary President of the American Humanist Association, having succeeded the late, great science fiction writer Isaac Asimov in that totally functionless capacity. We had a memorial service for Isaac a few years back, and I spoke and said at one point, "Isaac is up in heaven now." It was the funniest thing I could have said to an audience of humanists. I rolled them in the aisles. It was several minutes before order could be restored. And if I should ever die, God forbid, i hope you will say, "Kurt is up in heaven now." That's my favorite joke. How do humanists feel about Jesus? I say of Jesus, as all humanists do, "If what he said is good, and so much of is absolutely beautiful, what does it matter if he was God or not?" But if Christ hadn't delivered the Sermon on the Mount, with its message of mercy and pity, I wouldn't want to be a human being. I'd just as soon be a rattlesnake." I'd probably choose aardvark at Tin Cup's driving range. Not feared, but armored. For those of you familiar with the goings on here at the Rancho, you know that we bring meat birds in about three times a year. Give you two guesses.... The little pufflings are growing in leaps into adolescent eating machines. Running around like a Stuff Smith solo. They seem to show a fondness for slightly shredded blue tarp. I think it gets them loaded because they just stand there pecking at it and staring like they just walked into Winterland. Approaching two weeks now and about the same amount of time in the shed before allowing them into the massive forest of looming banana trees and the shade of the Inga and the tasty leaves and stems of the honohono grass. Did I mention a world of bugs? Think for a moment, if you will as to what it must be like to be a plump little broiler let loose in field of greens to find a papaya on the ground that it can't see over. Maybe a bit rotten on one side, kinda soft. Beak gets buried, covered in orange. Bird senses the frenzied rush of sweet fruit. Natures smacrack. No longer settling for bagged starter and straw floor the stomping minions wade through the tall grass to find tasty hono morsels and bugs running for their lives. Talk about a rave. We look forward to attempting to reduce the measure of food to bring them up to proper plump by keeping the grow out area succulent. The week in brief: road wash out after monumental, cesium soaked rain, missed Grimes party. DAMN YOU GRIMES. Don't remember the rest of the week. Looks like we got some stuff done though. About to order liner for the "lower" pond which is being prepped as we sleep. I put seventy two air breathing grass carp in the bottom to see if they would work their way up and out, get to weighing about eighty pounds each and feed us for about two and a half years if we dry it and salt it. Anyone want in? O.K., G'night. And good night to you Mr. Vonnegut. The more you show, the more we'll hide. with love  

I was out back in the orchard awhile ago. The sun was about thirty degrees from setting and the afternoon glow was in full bloom. So were the flowers on the Kahaluu avocado. It's in that stage where half the blooms have opened and the rest will come open within a week. Its a frenzied pollination party. Flowering panicles (much branched inflorescence) exuding scents that remind the common house fly (musca domestica)  of some kind of died and gone to heaven jihad. Counted twenty three flies on one panicle. They get right on top of the delicate little florette and stick their suck tube (technical jargon) into the tiny little nectar puddle hidden just beyond the anthers (balls). Stimulating the balls thusly causes the release of pollen which in turn finds its way to the stigma (a hairy tube connected to the ovule) and delivers its half of the key to the life of an avocado keiki. I have to say that this particular avo has been an enigma to me. It has held a bumper crop only once in the thirty odd years since planting. Other years, bupkiss. I mean maybe a dozen or two. The mystery is that it always sets thousands of small fruit, which is a complete gas to see, but then as the days go by, one by one they fall to their premature demise before even a dream of being smeared on toast with a fried egg and touch of mai ploy (maybe some grated Havarti). Sad really. So I just stood there, head tilted upward, gazing lovingly at this natural wonder. Ballet like, breeze swaying the branch, flies hopping from bloom to bloom, shiny new leaves fluttering, sunlight making it all vivid. The choreography, flawless. There was a nice exchange going on, with the tree seeming to sense that I was trying to find the right "words" of encouragement. Anything to get it to just hold on. To let those tiny avo embryo's develop into buttery red stemmed beauties ready to fill a couple of five gallon buckets a week for weeks on end with plenty left over for above mentioned open faced sandwich. I felt like a proud papa with his ear to the tummy of mummy feeling the life force expressing itself in no less significant a way than if it were my own offspring because, and lets face it, its the same messy little miracle going on ad infinitum. Super sized or small we are in the thrall of life expressing itself with a relentless and delicate fury. And no dish fee. Nurse Hillary of Tribe Van Hof departed the rancho to the chagrin of all present. Disgruntled over her former wwoof digs, she arranged to take refuge at the rancho for the remainder of her stay, and so she did. A farm girl head to foot she added a natural grace to the hard work she's born to do. She arrived with a full head of dreads framing her dutch features, which she decided to remove while here. These Wwoof's, you just never know what they're gonna do next. So the other day she comes out to where i'm working (?), tenderly cradling her dreads in her arms as though approaching an alter to offer a sacrifice. She felt that it would be appropriate to put this very expression of her individuality in the compost where it could merge with natures web and go on to feed a banana clump that would incorporate on a molecular level all that is Hillary in its luscious fruits. So we did. There it sits, layered into the slow cook compost where, by the time she returns next summer will have fed that banana (a double stalk Mahoy keiki I just got) and perhaps be eating fruit charged with essence of Van Hof. Thanks Hillary, your wonderful laugh resounds in the ripples in the pond. Been doing a bit of re-visioning at the rancho. Really just an evolution in a way. Frrinstance, used to be we had two separate enclosures for one group of leghorns and we'd shift them back and forth according to season and forage etc..Now we've done a couple of things. We've taken down the lower area, opening up lots of space and put the girls in their permanent digs up above where they are less bothersome in terms of morning noise and simply occupying space that had past its use as bird habitat. The other thing is that we opened up an old garden space used for easily stung crops. This space also had been chicken world, so well endowed. Used to be connected to a fence going to a gate, both of which have been eighty sixed, leaving a nice open space walking up and down the path between houses. No more bottlenecks. Just like that, a whole new feel and lots of potential where there really wasn't much happening. Here's one way that i'm an idiot. I never really document any of this stuff. I mean we did get some shots of the pond installation, but this would have been a dramatic before and after effect. Here's what it feels like. Before: walk into fenced in, low slung deer netting roof, crab spider webs fucking everywhere, ducking down in an alley way separating an atemoya tree and a mango tree, avoiding roosts to get up into a bigger area with more fucking webs where bending down to get around was imperative. Big fun. After: Stroll between the above mentioned trees with head held high, not a web in sight. Walk with an ease unknown for years around an area ripe for designing. Breathe deep the potential. Good call. Now the fun begins because we have a sizeable area in which to grow more food. An area that has been years in the fertilizing, and although rocky (what else is new) richly endowed with cultured poopage. We can only do our best to move forward while embracing what has past. In so doing the farm takes on a more dynamic vision which continues to grow and refine itself. Open spaces, happy faces. The more you show, the more we'll grow. Peace, Jp p.s. first party of the season set for the 13th of April. The theme: disparage the tax man. Come dressed as an accountant. fiveish, pot luck.

Lucifer lay dreaming. Dreaming of popping the eyeballs of hedge fund managers out of their sockets to be used as garnish in her favorite cinnamon martini which she would sip ever so slowly while chuckling softly as these titans of wall street walked into walls made of stinging nettle, fell off cliffs into shark infested waters and became impaled on brimstone over and over again. It was a happy dream. A dream from which she was loathe to waken. A dream filled with cackle and hawking up hatred. The catatonic eyeballs floated in a viscous miasma of juniper and spice, turning slowly, looking out, then down then right at her. "Hi there eyeball of former scumbag doomed to wander the seven realms of hell (or was that nine, I forget), running into things and falling on sharp objects." At which point she would delicately place the sphere on her pustulating tongue, roll it around a bit and swallow it whole so that it could watch itself being eaten away by tummy juice. This all ended ever so abruptly when her retard half brother, Looey started kicking her in the head, you know, just to see. She arose in a rage measuring seven point two on the beeotch vector. No laughing matter. She put her thumb in her mouth, blew real hard and pushed her stoved in nose back out to normal ugly. Looking down at Looey with his goofy drooling face, she had a moment of compassion and a slight empathetic smile before kicking his toosh into the nearest lake of fire, you know, just to see. Now Looey was a vegetarian, so he floated on the fire with nary a singe. As he approached the shore he gestured his grief in having offended his big sister by pulling a knife out of his trousers and pointing to his penis. The hangdog expression on his face was priceless. Lucifer couldn't help herself, she laughed so hard that Jimmy Hoffa came flyin' out of her Kootchie. "C'mere ya big lug, she oozed." She gave her little brother a big bear hug as Jimmy crawled back up to continue his game of cribbage with hitler and freud. "Why I haven't had a laugh like that since I sent those dragons to toast the Sumerians (total smartasses). Is there anything your little heart desires, my sweet Looey? Just say the word and its yours." Looey looked puzzled. That's how he looked while thinking. Like he was watching a dog perform an appendectomy. This continued until flies started buzzing around his head. Finally, he fell asleep, but not before a single word passed over his puffy lips: "Cabbage." When he awoke, there, arrayed before him, was the most fabulous display of every variety of cabbage in the known universe. Round ones, flat ones, leafy ones, hairy ones, ones with six colors, ones that tasted like salted watermelon. He could barely contain his joy. Tears welling up. Hand trembling as it reached out for the first of the feast. Prior to this moment, cabbage was hard to come by in Hell. The climate does not favor such a crop unless it's the famous speckled maroon Venusian cube cabbage which grows in conditions very similar to Hell. Otherwise, shit outaluck. Lucifer had called in a few favors, and created a cool space around the tables so that Looey could eat to his hearts content without a leaf wilting. He commenced. Within minutes his fat little fingers were moving from table to mouth with blinding speed. Bits of leaf crammed into his pie hole like he was loading a juicer. Jaws grinding like a cuisinart. Masticated cabbage winding its way down the gullet on its way to a gassy breakdown. Lucifer looked on with curious amusement as Looey's stomach began to swell and the first of the gaseous effluvium made its escape accompanied by high pitched squeaking sounds akin to rusty old springs in a car seat on a bumpy road. It simply hadn't occurred to either Lucifer or Looey that the gassy wake left by scarfing up so much cabbage might pose a threat to Looey's health. After all, cabbage is rare in Hell. Then, the tipping point. Looey's girth had nearly doubled and his breathing was labored. He tried walking around to help move things along which only produced slightly more squeaky discharges. He felt dizzy. His knees were buckling. Then a searing pain as a bubble of flesh, like a hernia appeared below his belly button, then another a couple of inches away and another popping up his hip. Lucifer looked alarmed and started backing away slowly. Good thing too, 'cause when he exploded it was one glorious mess. Talk about coleslaw. Sheeesh. Lucifer was slack jawed. Nonplussed. Flabber gas ted. She didn't know what to do. Her beloved foil Looey was a shredded pile of gooo. She started pacing. Small flames started shooting out her ears and nostrils. Her complexion reddened even more. She raised her fists to the firmament and roared, "damn you cabbage, damn you to Hell." She dreamed a dream of wiping out all cabbage, everywhere. It made her smile. When she awoke she saw that she had drawn a picture of a delicate little moth in the sand with her claw. As she looked at it, it came to life, turned white with delicate markings, fluttered to her ear and said, I'll wipe out that fuckin' cabbage for ya'. And thus the cabbage moth was born. True story. So the next time you see the frenzied spring crop of this demon spawn fluttering about, think of Looey and have a side of slaw. That's right, SHE. I got an advance copy of Dan Browns new book entitled "Mona Lisa Smile". Just what IS she smiling about? You'll find out, soon enough. The more you show, the more we'll grow. Peace, Jp  

Anyone else out there having moments that can be described as confrontational yet totally surrendered? As though some super sensitive gene has awakened and signals an awareness of how completely twisted human life has become, how easily that could be remedied and how baffling that a tipping point has become more a metaphor for a possibility gone begging. The "totally surrendered" part of this nebulous feeling is not entirely clear to me as yet. And why would it be? Should we not be howling our discontent? Should we not be hurling foul smelling things? Should we not stop eating sugary snacks? Maybe not. Here's something the orchard taught me just recently. Farms been getting pummeled with winter rains. The kind that haven't been seen around these parts since the eighties. Frreal. So me, in my little human flesh suit and knotted up sensibilities conditioned by decades of WRONG! is being kept up at night by the sound of natures blessing to the earth, thinking oh fuck, the mango's and avo's and jabo's and lychee are all flowering and, and what if this fucking rain is ruining my crop, goddddammit. So the rain's rainin' and the wind is whipping up through the night and I can't wait for daylight to go out and get ready to manifest the biggest boohooohoooo I can muster, think about packing it in and start googling land in eastern europe. Something about the morning sun. Think about it. Wherever you are. How the first rays peeking over the rim bring the colors way up and gift you with the promise of renewal. Nice to be able to count on that. Even in a storm, you know its happening right on the other side of the grey. Simple as breathing. So I'm walking down the driveway, feeling the pessimist creeping around in the shadows and beginning to notice that although there appear to be plenty of unopened flowers littering the ground, the trees still have somewhere in the vicinity of a crap load of potential fruit everywhere. And as I approach the pond area to feed the chooks and make sure none of them have drowned in the deluge, I walk by a pope mango, already laden with early fruits and flowering like tomorrow may never come. Flowers, I might add with nary a trace of powdery mildew. I stop by the tree. Smile real big. Stoke its aura and complement it for its immense good sense in manifesting something so totally amazing, year after year after year. For having the stability that comes with longevity. For hanging these edible ornaments for the world to delight in. The colors. The flavors. Year after year. All I have to do is make nice. And I'm thinking, there's nineteen varieties of these on the land and to imagine that some wind and rain is going to do anything but make this seasons growth spectacular and next years fruit set a wonder to behold is to forget that I don't have the slightest bit of control over any of this and that if I just surrender to the wisdom inherent in each moment of sincere observation of Natures complex simplicity, I may just die a happy camper. Thanks orchard. I love examining the flower panicles  for new fruit set. There are hundreds of pretty little perfect flowers per spray. Light golden color and ready to make magic. The housefly is the main pollinator and dances about sucking up nectar and shuffling pollen to pistil and making mango's. Thanks man. I've taken to putting a chicken carcass or deer parts, when available under the trees that prefer the fly as pollinator. A slick little permaculture trick brought to you by the minds at "all you hafta do is plant stuff and pick stuff and make nice"; a limited liability corporation headquartered in the Bahamas. There's always something stranger than you've ever seen before. The past couple of weeks it's been the discovery of two barred rocks, in separate areas, found dead. The strange part is that one was decapitated (sort of surgically)and the other was totally eviscerated but had its head in tact, innards picked clean. Strange indeed. In all my days of tending the flock, I have never witnessed such wanton brutality. Troubled I am, young skywalker. Now, even though nurse Amanda and hubby Jason seem nice enough, one can't help but wonder given that the horrific slayings began with their arrival, whether they have some macabre need for chicken blood and entrails, and if so, what kind of Heironymus Bosch  ending this episode may come to. A calmer look at things might suggest a particularly aggressive and Large mongoose, or a nasty, mangy, treated poorly as a kitty feral peckerwood with acquired feline sociopathy, a condition normally seen in urban and overcrowded areas but on rare occasions seen in the boonies. We're thinking night vision youtube video that will freak cat lovers out the world over. Live streaming bard rock snuff film. How's your cuddly little pal look to you now? There but for fortune...... So the mysteries mount up and there's not enough time in the day or people on hand to monitor the goings on of some psycho cat who's decided to make itself at home and whittle its way through your flock of faithful feathered freakshows. Fact is, the one that was eviscerated probably died of natural causes and was eaten, in tribute by her sisters. I'm pretty sure the one that was decapitated was me when I was sleep walking the other night. I woke up in an inia tree with some feathers sticking out of my mustache and a piece of beak lodged between my teeth. Didn't think much of it at the time. I'm gonna just leave it at that, and the next time it happens I'll blame Tyler. I have a new stage name. It's "side dish". Miss Meaghan Owens, who will be playing along side me at the Hana Hou cafe this very saturday evening between six and nine pm, has agreed that "side dish" suits me and fits perfectly with the creative interplay generated by her loveliness and nutrient dense musical offerings and my mashed potato like consistency and buttery oozings. So the entire time I've been writing this, the bufo's have been churning out a constant tapping sound characteristic of some Facebook chatter gone viral. Used to be that the sound of just one of the gnarly little amphibs would get the heart rate jacked up a bit and after awhile have me taping a flashlight on to the barrel of my .22 while doing my best Elmer Fudd impression and, on tippy toe, hunting the noise maker down. Splaaattt. Phew..... back into the house for some rest and within ten minutes another one would start sounding off. I'm not sure when I noticed that at a certain point they go to sleep, but whenever it was, I realized that I could let my zest for splattering them on the rocks slip away. I could accept them as background noise and let them continue to act like horny frat boys responding to the scent of a woman, and accept that around tenish the tapping will give way to a silence more profound for the tapping it replaced. Its all slipping away. One can be grateful for the stillness born of surrender and the calm born of short odds. The more you show, the more we'll grow. with aloha, Jp