Tales from the dry side
By Shri Swami Permananda
Lets climb into the wayback machine and wind the clock back to this time last year. It was a nippy mid winter, unseasonably dry. A winter full of marauding deer and ring barked trees. A winter in which we rejoiced in the fact that we had been granted agricultural water rates just months before the drought hit.
It was a great winter for fruit. White sapotes up the proverbial wazoo, buckets of anona’s, citrus and avo’s as well as a smattering of late mango and longan. It was the kind of winter that appeals to me because of it’s “low maintenance, high yield” profile.
Fast forward to now, as I spray a mild fungicide on my computer screen in an attempt to keep up with the mold growing there. As I fondly reminisce about the days when a large glowing orb moved lazily across the sky and gave me a reason to live.
As I carefully maneuver several pots and pans to collect the roof leakage. As I constantly swat at mosquito’s, for which we drysiders are ill equipped, and as I am slowly coming to realize that the spirit of Huelo winter has come to taunt us. Has come to show us what whimpering pussy’s we really are.
The fact that my water bill for the same pay period last year was nearly three times as much as this year is little consolation. You see, we here on the dry side are here ’cause we like it dry’n hot. We lose our sense of equilibrium when liquid falls from the sky for days on end. It all becomes too dynamic, too rampant like Oprahs latest weave or King Kong actually banging Dwan.
You go outside one day and turn your head to see some vine of unknown origin or species has covered your shade house overnight and is emitting a sound that can only be described as sadistic snickering.
The chickens have developed a croupy little cough and the ducks are hiding under the house until the weather clears. The sound of the weed whacker cuts through the rural serenity on a daily basis and can barely keep up with the surging sea of green. The sock bucket has become an experiment in genetic engineering, spawning all manner of bacterial malevolence. My vision blurs. There is a ringing in my ears. Can I get a witness?
We don’t have things like clothes dryers or mosquito coils or well-built roofs. We believe in the power of the sun to bring us warmth and dry jeans. We believe that mosquitoes are the curse of misbegotten north-shore dwellers who, like the cave people of old must hole up at night in fear of swarms of tiny blood sucking fiends and four foot fanged centipedes. We believe that well built roofs are for people who don’t like the occasional indoor shower and that no matter how bad the dry rot may get, that it will probably hold up until you croak and pass it on to the kids.
Damn you La Nina…………..
On the bright side, everything is growing cuckoo nuts. Even if the winter rains knock some flowers off and diminish the fruit set, the vegetative growth bodes well for future crops increasing substantially. This is good. Another bright side is that the bananas that are flowering now have well over a hundred fruit on each rack which keeps us on track for our goal of growing a stalk that weighs as much as Ken Pinsky.
So, we will continue to persevere in our belief that even though a billion people will bed down near starvation tonight and that the permafrost melt is soon to release untold volumes of methane into the atmosphere and that the Plutonomy of the greedy is consuming what is left of any chance of a sustainable existence and that the industry of War is the only investment worthy of making and that the planet Nibiru is on a collision course with earths orbit, that it’s still o.k. to piss and moan about the weather. Amen brothers and sisters, Amen.
Short URL: http://mauimoonnews.com/hawaiinews/?p=1435
Posted by Shri Swami Permananda
on Mar 1 2011. Filed under Columns, March 2011.
You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0.
You can leave a response or trackback to this entry
