Rest in peace, Zoomie

Tsume, aka Zoomie or Mr. Flufftail was almost 12. He passed away last week Wednesday (the 23rd) in the very early morning at our veterinarian's where he spent his last few days. He was stumbling and listing to one side the previous week Monday, but being the outdoorsy cat he was, when he needed to go out he needed to go out - and you'd hear it loud and clear. I suspected that it wasn't a good thing when he didn't show up for breakfast that Tuesday morning, but he came home briefly in the afternoon when I went to check, only to disappear again. When he didn't come home the next few days we didn't expect to see him again, but there he was in the walkway, finally on Saturday. I called the vet and took him there, and was told right away that this wasn't a case of Pedialyte with a syringe, he needed IV fluids, and antibiotics for his ear infection, the only thing they found wrong with him, and which of course had caused his stumbling and listing to one side, so we left him there for the weekend. We were updated twice on Monday and he appeared to be getting better, but relapsed Tuesday. I went to see him as soon as I could get a break from work and saw him deteriorate during the hour I was there. Norman went a little bit later and told me he had deteriorated more. We decided that night that we were going to take him home Wednesday so that he could pass away in his normal surroundings with his normal humans and co-cats but he didn't live that long. Dr. Alan called early Wednesday morning to let us know that Tsume had passed away. Thank you Dr. Alan and staff for all you did!

It took until now until I was able to write this down. I was the one who found Tsume, in the bushes on the corner by the Sack&Save parking lot Downtown, when he was a tiny kitten, almost 12 years ago, when his body wasn't much bigger around than his tail.

Clove seeds - small orders

The clove seeds are coming in slowly. I emailed 3 people on the waiting list who wanted small numbers of seeds but didn't get any takers yet. I positively cannot drive to agriculture inspection and charge for only mileage (I have a full time job. I also have a side business - or 3, seeds are one of them) for fewer than 10 seeds. I put a listing for 10 seeds in my Zibbet shop, and that's about what they'll stay at. Those of you who follow my blog and are interested in more than 10 seeds, they'll happen and I will email you or contact you on the medium you used to contact me when I have them. Please keep in mind that more than half the price for 10 seeds is overhead (ag inspection and shipping). I won't list fewer than 10 seeds but I will probably list larger numbers - and may copy listings to my Artfire and Etsy shops.

Found the first clove seed!

I think it was Wednesday, actually. I went out in the back yard for my Wednesday morning round, pick the lilikoi from the back yard - my lilikoi get picked up on Thursdays -, do some weeding, check whether the one avocado is still on the tree (it was, I got to check again, I don't want the rodents to get it, I want it myself), and pick up whatever cloves the tree dropped (not good enough for selling but good enough for me). And there it was, a big brown clove seed with all its pulp. I don't know how soon there will be more but it looks like there will be an end to the wait that's already over a year long for some. As always, I'm not going to go strictly in order of the waiting list. Larger orders will have to wait until there is a good number of seeds coming in daily, and those who are going to have frost sooner will be notified sooner.

In other news, Team Hilo Etsy is getting a bit more active again, I ordered some new seed beads and some brass cable chain as well as some amethyst fan bead sets but neither of those have arrived yet, and work has me as busy as ever (I was going to put a smiley here but I'd have to use somebody else's script for that so: :)). I didn't make the Trash Art Show this year (haven't even looked at it yet) but I hope to be at the Hilo High School Craft Faire again, it's on Dec. 7 this year, but I haven't sent in the paperwork yet.

Still no news on tiare seeds but there are some pods getting bigger.

And an Etsy Treasury by my fellow Team Hilo Etsy team member Marsha Swanson:

'Team Hilo Etsy Part Two' by MRSButtons

More samples from the shops of Team Hilo Etsy, a collection of East Hawaii Island artists/crafters/curators.

Aloha - Love - Driftwood - ... TheWhatNaught $16.5	Turquoise & Shark Teeth Earr... stoneandbone $45
Hawaii Island Coconut Mango ... SapphireSoap $12	Men's Boxer Briefs X-Lar... 2tiedye4 $16
Black Spinel and Fine Silver... FinchandFlower $52	Hawaiian Hula Dance History ... MaiAloha $12
Czech Glass Button - 31.5mm LavaLampwork $6	Slimline Koa Hand Mirror UpcountryDesig... $70
CUSTOM FLAG BANNER - Made to... STUDIOofWHIMSY $25	LAUHALA Woven Flower Pendant... /span> SmittenForYou $12
Men's Shirt Infinite Cir... HexAppealCloth... $20	Cat's Eye Marble origina... Hokulewa $125
Hand Carved Hawaiian coconut... DesignsbyGypsy... $24	Solid Curly Koa Cutting Boar... rightanglewood... $99
Burgundy and light gold colo... hilobeads $45

Sponsored by send bulk email from excel.

Brief update, and I thought I'd post at least a treasury ....

Just a very short update: if the bees are doing their job there will be clove seeds some time this fall or winter, but they're still months away. I'm also waiting for a few tiare seed pods to get ripe but I don't have any of those again yet either. I'll probably post here, but definitely on Facebook when that happens.

In the meantime my lilikoi seeds made it into another treasury:

'Passion Fruit Salad' by BlueMagpieDesign

PASSION FRUIT - Leather clut... LeahLerner $80	Beaded Beads Necklace Four L... SarahRobinL $35
Hawaiian Lilikoi seeds - yel... hilobeads $7	Brooklyn Fine Art Print 8x10... GwenMeyerson $20
Orange Peel Square Knitted C... knitBranda $26	Kraft Tartar Sauce Art on 5... PeyLu $28
Orange Silk scarf hand paint... DEsilk $75	Art nature print Flowers - f... LouiseArtStudi... $25
Purple Weeping Willow with a... Intres $59	CIJ ChristmasInJuly SALE Ame... KapKaDesign $91.8
Hexagon Necklace Violet Purp... JoannaFelt $12.5	Art print, Time is Running, ... TheJoyofColor $21
Passion Fruit Fragrance Oil SaharasSupplie... $9	Passion Fruit Rose Soap Vega... KiyiKiyi $3.5
CIJ Sale 10% Passion fruit N... svsoaps $4.05	Original watercolour paintin... DaffodilStudio $160

Html code by http://www.whalesharkwebsites.com/tools/treasury.php, extra spaces removed by me (it cuts the file size about in half)

Yes, I'm back

I'm back, have been for over a week, and we did visit with our daughter for a few days (finally publicly admitting that we went further than Kona this time :)), but I can't really say I'm caught up yet. Getting back sick and having to do some extra work at work doesn't help :) I'm working on it ... I am planning to order more seed beads, really this time as I'm running out of some colors, slowly getting caught up on drilling mgambo seeds, but no new tiare seeds or clove tree seeds yet. And no pictures this time, but I hope to post some vacation pictures sooner or later.

I'm going to be away again ...

Late notice, sorry. I'm going to be away again from the 15th (Wednesday), in the morning, so I won't be able to ship anything then, may still be able to get to Ag inspection tomorrow though, and possibly later than "before work". I'm coming back on the 29th and will try to get all orders that came in in the meantime on the 30th. As I have been included in an Etsy Treasury again, yellow lilikoi seeds this time here it is:

'Aloha!' by mamushkahandmade

Cute Little Brooch ... IrenkaR $30	Lampwork Earrings Y... hawaiibeads $39
Toe Thongs (pair)- ... TropicalToeTho... $32	Yellow Hawaiian Flo... LisaKerleyJobe $24
Vintage Hawaiian Ma... zestvintage $68	Sugar Scrub Soap - ... Sunbasilgarden... $5
Vintage Ralph Laure... downhomedarlin... $22	Wire Wrapped Hair S... Nikita551 $29.9
Nuno felted flower ... feltinga $19.9	Fun Vintage Yellow ... thelittlegrass... $28
White blossom hair ... BeautyJewelryG... $19	Dress 1960s Vintage... BombshellShock... $34
Backpack Purse in O... Flowercreek $10	Vintage Brooch Enam... vintagebythese... $18
20 Lilikoi seeds - ... hilobeads $7	Beaded crochet neck... DolgovaSvetlan... $117

Treasury tool supported by the dog house

Some whitespace removed by me - manually, which is tedious. I wish people would learn that blanks take up disk space and bandwidth too.