My Summer Vacation: The Luna Update

Vet tech Mariko called me about 9:30 this morning about Luna; she was still not eating & had not pooped anything out but she did pee last night due to the IV fluids. Dr. Lau called around lunch time; the x-ray showed that only a small portion had moved a little. It also showed a very full bladder; Dr. Lau said that was likely caused by pain when Luna moved to get in to a position to pee so she was avoiding the pain. They will do surgery later this afternoon to find out what the mass is & whether it can be removed.

I made another kale proothie this morning. I sipped on it slowly again & ended up finishing it around lunch time so I skipped lunch again.

Dr. Lau called just before dinner. Once she cut through Luna's abdominal wall she was able to massage the obstruction out of her; it was a big hairball! Luna's intestines were bright red & inflamed but there was no sign of any tissue becoming necrotic. Her spleen was also inflamed & she was bruising more than she should be when they did the blood draw. She'll be staying for a couple of days so they can administer IV antibiotics the help Luna heal properly from the surgery.

For dinner I had lup cheong, steamed broccoli & kale, chipotle sauerkraut, & calamata olives.

Clockwise from top: broccoli & kale, sauerkraut, olives, & lup cheong.

This is the Citizen Forester Program training Module 3 from the training last night; yesterday's post was already quite long so I delayed this piece until today. Module 3 started out with binomial nomenclature and defining native vs introduced vs invasive species. It also discussed the Hawai'i Weed Risk Assessment System.

Then the training moved on to observational skills, outlining various features that help to identify a tree. A large part was then spent on Tree Species Bootcamp! Here Morgan presented photos of similar looking trees & led people through what else to look for in order to help reach the proper identification; this is the part I came for! I will include Module 4 with Friday's post. We'll do more of this on Saturday during the field session!

We have finished Module 3, now on to Module 4!

The eruption at Kīlauea continues to pump out lava at a rate raising the lava lake surface about 3 feet in 24 hours. Since they have not been covered by the rising lava lake, the darkest areas in the thermal image apparently are islands of cooled lava floating on the fresh liquid lava.

The Aix weather app forecast rain in Honolulu until mid-afternoon then partly cloudy skies through the evening hours; there were only intermittent drizzles in the morning before it became partly cloudy skies around mid-morning. I am now using the traffic cam at Waialale & 9th since the other one seems to be stuck on 10/04; there were raindrops on that camera lens. For Kapaʻau, Aix forecast rain all day; the Big Island Now online paper forecast scattered showers with a 50% chance of rain. The Honomū weather station recorded 0.01 inches of precipitation by 8:49 a.m. & showed no accumulation after that. For Marysville, Aix forecast partly cloudy skies all day; that appeared to be accurate.

Kaimukī looking easterly at 8:48 a.m.

Honomū lookig northerly at 8:49 a.m.

Marysville looking northerly at 8:49 a.m. HST.

Drizzle in Kaimukī looking easterly at 9:26 a.m.

Waves on the north & west facing shores continued to provide the best surf today. South shore swells were also good. The Pacific Tsunami Museum web cam was offline today so there are no photos of an east facig shore.

Laniakea (N) at 8:56 a.m.

Waikīkī (S) at 8:57 a.m.

Banyans (W) at 9:01 a.m.

There were 304 new cases of COVID-19 reported today, bringing the total known cases up to 80,886; it also revereses the downward trend in new cases. There were also 8 new deaths reported, increasing the death toll to 826; currently there are 3744 cases considered active. As of yesterday 2,059,716 doses of vaccine have been administered, providing 69.2% of the population with full vaccination and 77.4% with at least one dose. The 7-day new case count for Oʻahu is 166 with a positivity rate of 3.2%.