Happy 94th Birthday, Uncle Kazu!

Today is Uncle Kazu's 94th birthday! It is also PT Sugi's birthday; he is 55 years younger than Uncle Kazu. I took Uncle Kazu ice cream to celebrate his birthday; we will go out to lunch tomorrow when Sugi is around to help Uncle Kazu get in to the car. I got an ice cream for Uncle Kazu's new friend who was there when I went to ask him what flavor he would like. Before I got back his "friend" had disappeared; Uncle Kazu said he had never met him before. I am wondering if he escaped from the emergency room, although he was not in a hospital gown he had some tubes hanging out of his arm.

I asked him to smile; this is what I got.

L to R: Macadamia nut crunch, Mango & cream, and Premium chocolate.

This construction is cramping Uncle Kazu's style; he can't exercise like he wants to.

By the way, here's what I have come up with to help Uncle Kazu with pivoting on his leg to get in to the car. I will attach a furniture slider to the bottom of a disposable slipper once I figure out where the ball of his foot rests in the slipper. I will be using blue tape on this prototype. Later I will get a larger slider and use the self-stick adhesive to attach it to the slipper.


During my morning walk I saw another species that I have not seen yet on any of my eBird checklist walks; the Yellow-billed Cardinal. It does not occur in Honolulu; it sort of replaces the Red-crested Cardinal which is rare here.

Three minutes before sunrise on Kynnersley.

During my morning walk through to check for pig damage I actually saw a small feral pig running around in the back yard. Since I was near the trail it used to get in it was panicking and running all around; I was unable to get a photo of it as it ran along the northerly property line and out of sight. On that side of the house I found that they have started to eat the blue ginger and syngonium; I am glad the fence is going in soon. I don't want them to run out of other things to eat and start pushing over the hāpuʻu to eat out the starchy core.

The feral pigs have been in the anthurium garden eating the blue ginger & syngonium.

They also knocked over the bricks meant to contain the organic substrate for the anthuriums.

I had been intending to throw away the white plastic pieces that someone had used to block access to under the house. I had removed several pieces when I was weeding and installing the concrete block pad under the meter. But this morning I found a great re-use for them: pig excluders! I used one at the new trail by the macadamia nut tree and another at a large gap behind the old tub; I'm sure they would find that hole after I blocked the previous one.

I was going to throw these out on this trip.

Glad I didn't; they're being repurposed as pig excluders.

There's a really big hole behind the old bath tub.

After I got back in the house I heard a noise and went to investigate. I saw a cat leading a kitten out of our yard and across Jessie's back yard. Later I heard a cat meowing and quietly sneaked up to the front porch where I have been leaving cat food every time I am here. I saw the same cat I saw earlier! I think she was calling her kitten to come and eat. I saw this cat in September 2018 when I was back meeting with ProVision Solar. It is the only 1 of the 3 kittens that Kai and I saw back in July 2018, that I still see around. I will continue leaving food while I am here to encourage it to stay; hopefully it will discourage the rats!

Mom cat waiting for her kittens to come and eat.

Mom cat when she was half grown. September 2018.

At 7 pm I could tell they had been here to eat.

In the afternoon I worked on putting Jenny's old bug zapper up; earlier I just had it sitting on the counter in the garage. It did zap some bugs there but I wanted it hanging closer to the opening so it would get bugs as they started to enter the airspace, rather than attract them to come all the way in to the garage before zapping them. I put it on a timer so it will go on before sunset and turn off after sunrise. I will rely on the mosquito coil during the day.

Dead bodies from last night. The big moth is actually still alive, just not moving much.

Before the installation.

After installation.

Close-up; I mounted it so if the wind blows it won't fall off.

I also put out rat bait; last time I did it just before I left since I started hearing noises in the attic towards the end of my visit. So far I haven't heard any noises but I decided to do it earlier so I can observe if there is still rodent activity nearby. I put bait around the persimmon and pua kenikeni which is how they are most likely accessing the roof to get in to the attic. I also put bait around the macadamia nut tree which is one of their favorite food sources here. Last time the pigs ate the bait around the mac nut; with the excluders up may be the rats will have a chance to get the bait.

Bait around the persimmon.

Bait around the pua kenikeni.

Bait around the macadamia nut.

A rainbow came out as I was finishing off spreading the rat bait. Hopefully it is a good sign.


I also checked the shower in the garage to see whether any spiders had taken up residence; they had not! I texted a photo & the good news to Tomiko. Hopefully, they will stay away until after Obon, or if they do move in there won't be too many of them.


Here's a future project; I need to move the mondo grass to make a path. This will be the end of the path from the stairs out of the enlarged sewing room to the ground level. The intent is for the stairs to also be the access for the cats to the anthurium garden, which will be fenced as a cat run.

Hmmmm, I just noticed you can't see the mondo grass in this photo, just the weeds, which will also be removed.

For dinner tonight I ate a piece of chicken I found in the freezer; not sure how old it is because there was no date on it. But it can't be too old; it wasn't freezer-burnt! It tasted okay, too; that is, after I removed all the breading & skin. It kinda got smaller, too.

Ants are a big problem here so remains are stored in the refrigerator until dump run day.

Here are the before photos of the kitchen boxes I will be working on for this trip. In the early morning right after my birding walk, I will work on spreading the cinders & other outside projects. Later, when it heats up, I will work indoors on getting the kitchen boxes unpacked, washing things, then putting them away.

Boxes along the north wall of the kitchen.

Boxes along the east wall of the living room.

Boxes in the southeast corner of the living room.

Hauʻoli lā Hānau to Uncle Kazu, Patricia, Ken, Janet, Marla, PT Sugi, & Fatima!