January 1, 2025

Back in January 2022 I’d decided, with the great input from you folks, to do the 365 Days challenge, posting at least one photo a day for each day, chronicling my year. As you know, I got ‘way behind a lot of times, probably because instead of posting one photo a day, which was my original intent, I ended up posting a lot more than that, which took a lot of time, cropping and editing the photos, typing out captions, etc., and then posting everything. I think I got burned out and discouraged because I couldn’t keep up. I have a fairly busy life to attend to, also.

I am basically a storyteller, really. But I was so busy posting daily photos that I didn’t have time to post about our various road trips (witness the fact that I never did finish our autumn drive up the mountain from a year and a half ago!). I’ve been doing a lot of thinking about what I want to do with this blog this year, and I think that I’m going to cut down on the number of 365 Days photos I’ve been doing for the past three years, and concentrate more on storytelling, if you can call it that. I’m still going to work in the Daily Hummingbird, though, and I still want to chronicle each day, but on a smaller scale.

So without further adieu…

I hardly ever see two of them together at this time of year!
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365 Days 2024, December 26-31…and pau.

Daily hummingbird.
One woodpile from the tree cutting.
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365 Days 2024, Christmas Day

Ridgefield National Wildlife Refuge

Going to Ridgefield has become an annual tradition for Nolemana and I. We almost didn’t go today because we knew it’d be raining all day long. But in the end, we decided to go and were glad we did.

I must admit that it was a stressful drive up. Even with the warning signs every few miles, cars were passing me going at least 65 mph. I don’t get the sense of entitlement of their drivers.
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365 Days 2024, December 24th

Christmas Eve

We drove out after dark to look at Christmas lights; as I said before, our usual wonderful display wasn’t open to cars, so we missed that one. But here are a few that we saw around town.

Our across the road neighbors put this up every year; isn’t it great?
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365 Days 2024, December 21-24

December 21st

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365 Days 2024, December 11-20

The duck pond at Big Valley Woods where I met with the Gathering this morning before heading to the vet’s office.

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365 Days 2024, December 1-10

December 1st

A frosty morning.
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365 Days 2024, November 21-30

I think what I’m going to have to do is just post photos without a lot of comment in order to catch up!

November 21st

The guys from AMEN, where we get our food for deliveries from, helped us out today because Chris’ pickup was in the shop.

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365 Days 2024, November 12-20

I’m so far behind so will have to make my posts short in order to catch up. If I ever do. November was a really hard month for me.

November 12th

Daily hummingbird.
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365 Days 2024…Aloha e ʻoukou, daily pīpī.

November 12th

Daily hummingbird.

Today I drove into Sandy for a dentist appointment, and when I got home, Jake and the trailer were back at the pasture. What? I’d had no idea (again) that he was coming over. The trailer was just leaving, and I backed into our neighbors’ driveway to let it go by. I saw Bessie and Lani Moo in it and was only able to get this photo as it left. I wasn’t prepared for them leaving as well as their keiki, and was sad that I didn’t really get to say goodbye to them.

I drove up to where Jake was, and he told me that the calves were bawling so much for their mamas that the guy who’d bought Hōkū and Kiko wanted to buy their moms, too. And Jake said that he just didn’t have time or finances to keep coming over every day during the winter to feed the cows and to keep repairing the fences (fair enough). He said that he hadn’t realized how much it’d take to have them, that it had been a great learning experience for him and Sara, but now it was time to let them go.

My first thought? Oh no!! No more daily pīpī for AFK!! My second thought: I am really going to miss having them here. Even now, as I write this a month and a half later, I still look for them out in the pasture. But that last escapade of theirs was such a hassle and took so much time and energy from us and our neighbors kinda did us in, too. So now we have to figure out what we’re going to do to keep our farm deferral.

It was a good experience for all of us; we made new friends and it’s been a good adventure for the past year. I miss the cows and miss hearing them moo. I miss their sweet faces and their ears.

I wish it had worked out; Jake was fantastic in the help he gave us around here and I totally understand where he was coming from. And we’re grateful for the time we all spent together. I’ll still try and get pīpī photos for you, AFK. But sadly, they won’t be of ones in our pasture.

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