Clean Up Day

Because I spent most of yesterday dealing with the kitten and the aftermath, I did not do the things I had planned to do. Namely, finish cleaning the living room floor and getting the front bedroom ready for Sarah & Kaia. I did some of that today; because of my old back injury I can't do all of the floor cleaning in one day. That is, unless I want to spend the entire next day in a supine position wishing I had not done that! I first set the dresser upright and moved it to its temporary holding place and put the drawers back in; I put them in upside down so less dead critters or critter crap collects in the portion of the drawer that will be used by future visitors. It cuts down on the amount of cleaning I need to do to get ready for visitors.

I temporarily attached sliders to the dresser.

Temporary dresser holding area.

Once that was out of the way, I vacuumed and mopped the living room floor with the Bona Hardwood Floor Cleaner. I hope they never find out this stuff is toxic and remove it from stores; I like the shine it puts on the floors! After I move back I will do a side-by-side test of Murphy Oil Soap to see how it compares.

I also did a little clean up in the bedroom Sarah & Kaia will be staying in. Once the dresser was out of the doorway, I could easily get in and start moving things out to where they will eventually be or to a neutral place for temporary storage. 

Stuff on bed, stuff next to bed needs to be removed.

The Saffron Finch showed up again! But today it started singing close to sunrise, not its usual half hour or so before sunrise. I can handle this later time.

Birdrise at 2 minutes after sunrise.

I also spent some time talking to Sarah. First about some of Dad's old pants that she found in the closet where we put Susan's old dresses for her to look through to see if she wanted any of them. She will be taking some of Dad's old pants back with her! She also sent me photos of 2 cups that Mom had wanted her to take on an earlier trip but she didn't have any space. And she asked about some other bowls that Mom had collected. I told her to take them and create new memories of them with Kaia!

One of the bowls Sarah wants. (Photo by Sarah)

Another cool bowl. (Photo by Sarah)

One of the cups Mom wanted Sarah to have. (Photo by Sarah)

(Photo by Sarah)

Sarah wearing a pair of Dad's old pants. (Photo by Sarah)

I also talked with Laurel this morning; I wanted to find out how Maggie was doing. I had called the Kohala Vet Clinic yesterday to pay for patching Maggie up since Laurel & Bill were helping me out when Maggie got hurt; but Dr. Stang said she wasn't there and did not have an appointment. I figured they decided to wait until today when their regular vet was open. I called Kapaʻau Veterinary Center and found she wasn't seen there either. It turns out, Bill patched her cut up with SuperGlue. He said hunting dogs get cuts and scrapes all the time so it was nothing much.

I also did a load of laundry this morning. It was primarily the dish towels I used yesterday to mop up the tea I spilled first thing in the morning. I think I only got a few sips of it before I spilled it! Anyway,  before I could hang the clothes up I had to knock 3 mud dauber nests off of the clothesline. Fortunately, they were all old nests so I did not have to evacuate the area while the angry mud daubers cooled down.

Today both Wiley & the new gray mackerel tabby & white cat came to eat. I am trying to get Wiley to associate me with food so I call first, then if Wiley comes out from under the ramp I put 1/2 cup of food in the bowl. If no one shows up, I don't put any food in the bowl. I am now thinking Wiley is a female, she has not grown much since I saw her last July and is slightly smaller than the gray mackerel tabby & white cat, which might be a male since it is larger than Wiley even though it is younger than her.

I also saw the orange cat! It was sitting in Jessie's  back yard looking around. It did not come up to the food bowl but I am hoping it will once it sees its 2 siblings getting fed. It is an orange tabby and most likely male; it looks large enough to be a male especially since it is only half grown. It seems to be about the size of the gray mackerel tabby & white cat.

I also saw a lot of Cattle Egrets following the guy that was mowing the lot uphill of Jessie's place. They follow lawn mowers and weed whackers because they stir up insects like grazing cattle do as well as create injured small mammals. 

Cattle Egrets waiting for the mower.

Following the mower.

Susan called back at the end of her work day. (She's a teacher.) She will be coming to Kona to take care of some family business & wanted to know if she could hang out in Kohala. I said, Sure! Even though I might not be here when she gets here. The plan right now is for her to arrive the weekend after I leave, stay for a week, then head to Honolulu for a couple of days. Whether I stay and spend time with her here will depend on how much it will cost me to extend my car rental. If I don't see her here, I will see her in Honolulu since she will be staying with us there, too.

Near the end of the normal business work day, I got a call from the Kaiser Honolulu clinic! It was Dr. Pham's nurse calling to set up my annual physical with Dr. Pham. I set it up for mid-June.

I have now been here for 3 whole days including setting up my laptop on the kitchen table like I had last year. I have not been visited by Martina or Spot. In fact, I have not seen them in the kitchen at all. Nor have I seen any Gold Dust Day Geckos in the kitchen; I have only seen them outside. I was hoping to introduce Kaia to Martina. I am thinking they relocated since there would be fewer bugs in the house with no people around; since they can live up to 10 years in captivity, they should be able to do at least 5 in the wild. 

The Aix weather app forecast rain accumulation throughout the day. Don't know about Honolulu, but there was no rain here today during the daylight hours.

The eruption at Kīlauea is not as visually appealing as it was last December and January at the start of the eruptive phase.

There 128 new cases of COVID-19 reported today bringing the total known cases up to 32,922. There was also 1 new death reported bringing the number of fatalities up to 486; currently 1218 cases are considered to be active. The 7-day new case average for Oʻahu is 68 with a 2.3% positivity rate; we will remain in Tier 3 at least until June 3rd when the Mayorʻs office will re-evaluate progress made in reducing the number of new cases.

Hauʻoli lā Hānau e Gene!