Sunday: Cock a Doodle Duped
Saturday finished with a drive up my favorite stretch of road anywhere on Earth. On the Queen K highway, across an immense stretch of lava that extends from Mauna Loa, and then Mauna Kea to the sea. Golden grasses light things up and illustrate that life always finds a way. This is a babe island, and is what creation looks like. I cannot get enough. - HP
The evening before and morning of the start of a trip is always a little anxious and a little busy, but sometimes there’s a special kind of quiet that comes along with it.
Our yard and Beach 69 beyond are a quiet eden in the soft evening light. - HP
Not today. Our resident roosters started crowing around 3:30am, drowning out the soft cooing of the spotted doves we are used to waking up to. We don’t know where they came from, but these chickens are sassy. And I do not like the idea of them waking my already jet-lagged guests before they're ready.
Before I got out of bed, I started searching on YouTube about how to trap wild roosters. I keep chickens at home, and have chased down my share of roosters, but the wild variety is a tad more aggressive. I got the general idea from the videos (mostly made by cock fighters), then set out to find the proper materials for a trap by searching around our rental property. A half-barrel being used to hide a garden hose, a stick, and a long electrical cord were all I needed to become a serious rooster trapper, or so I thought. I set it all up and looked for some bait. We run pretty high-end trips, so all I could find was gormet caramel popcorn with roasted Macadamia nuts and organic blue corn tortilla chips with himalayan sea salt. Fine.
I set myself up, cord in hand, with a nice breakfast, and waited for the morning offenders to show up. A mongoose came along first, took a piece of popcorn, and went on his way. Some hens showed up, but I have no interest in trapping them, they’re nice and quiet. No roosters approached, but I could see them in the undergrowth, watching. Alas, time to pick up the guests.
With the help of our guides Kekau and Ryan, we collected Debbie, Kristen, Kyle, Melinda, Mari, Paula, and Miriam both from the airport and the King Kam hotel in Kona. We try to fancy things up a bit with oshibori (moist wet towels), cold drinks, and flower leis to greet them. By the time I realized that we had forgotten to place a flower on the oshibori, I was sitting in a seemingly barren parking lot, but because this is Hawaii there was a flowering tree nearby that saved the day.
Back at our Hale (Hawaiian for house), we got our guests settled into their rooms, then Heather and I gave them our little talks about what to expect for the week, how to stay healthy, our typical day, swimming safety, that kind of stuff. I spied a rooster under the trap I had set, yanked the cord, and missed him. This guy is smart.
We planned a short swim in the choppy afternoon water, just to shake the cobwebs out. Before we were even dried off, big-eye tuna sashimi appeared (along with catering team Clare and Dan), I mixed up some Mai Tais, and everyone caught up on each other’s lives. Many of us have known one another for over a decade, and have become like family, and the alumni guests quickly folded our new guests Mari and Paula into the group.
Miriam brought two pounds of Clares favorite tortillas - not sold in Hawaii - all the way from Texas.
Sack-steamed Mahi Mahii with vegetables and a dessert of pavlova - a heavenly meringue with berries and whipped cream - filled us to the brim. I didn’t quite get this blog finished last night but wasn’t too worried, I knew my nemesis roosters would wake me up again at 3:30am, and sure enough, they did. I’m not sure whether to thank them or suggest chicken stew be placed on our menu this week.
Hopper
