...creating a wee bit of paradise...

Four legged friends

2011-10-09T13:18:00.002-10:00

So Joni's been living with us for a couple of weeks now. So far, so good! She spent the 1st week or so tethered near a big grass pile. But I was worried that she was a little lonely there. I know I was anthropomorphizing, but I just felt like she needed a few friends.

So on a rainy day, GB, Luka and I went down to retrieve the goats from the lower property.

Luka did a fine job leading them up the hill

GB and I took Joni on a walk to meet her new friends. Sometimes the walk is a bit of a struggle. I think GB had taken over for me at this point. There's just so much yummy food to eat along the way...

Taking a little snack break while Luka rides up and down the driveway.

Meeting the goats!

Hmmm.... Joni seems a lot more interested in me than in the goats. Loki, however is VERY curious.

Back to the tether for one more night! Ducks come out of their enclosure to see the large friend.

We did end up moving Joni in with the goats the next morning. They've been together there for about a week so far. At first, Loki maintained his status as the alpha male. But after a few days it seemed like Joni's got the upper hand. She stomps at the goats when she doesn't want them around and they scatter! I suppose it's smart to respond to an animal that's several times larger than you!

Joni doesn't seem all that interested in the goats. She's there with them, but unless they're in her way, she doesn't pay them too much attention. Perhaps she likes other donkeys more? Or maybe she's just a people donkey!

In any case, it's nice to see Joni in the pasture where she can run! Tethered, she can't really exercise her legs. Seeing her running is so nice!

Mark and Kassie just sent us some pictures of our dear donkey, dressed in a saddle, with ribbons in her hair. Isn't she so pretty?!?

Typical goat play-- up in the air, butting heads

Joni

2011-09-26T13:46:00.000-10:00

Well, we bit the bullet and adopted a donkey.
Since I last posted, GB and Luka spent the day visiting a couple of donkey places in Puna. They talked about bringing home a pregnant female that they had liked. We decided to visit another donkey rescue operation in Waimea.

So the day that Ra'am left for UCSB (sniff sniff), GB, Noam and I loaded in to our car and headed up to Waimea to meet Casey and Mark and all of their donkeys. They had just received a lot of 15 or so wild ones. They had 2 donkeys that they were using to train the others-- Super Boy (who Noam was smitten with) and Eeyorie. They kept mentioning Eeyorie's Best Friend as a possible donkey for us, since she was a fairly solitary donkey and seemed pretty mellow.
They invited us to return in 2 weeks after they had had some time to work with the new arrivals.

We returned yesterday and soon after our arrival, they offered Eeyorie to us. She was the most friendly of the donkeys-- she came right up to us at the fence. And she is just super mellow. Even though they are both really attached to her, they felt as though she would be a good fit for us-- easy going and very comfortable with people-- especially with the kids.
AND... they offered to bring her this am!

Like all the farms involved in the donkey rescue, they are just inundated with animals. Super Boy has taken over training of the other donkeys because he's much faster than Eeyorie. So that was our gain.

We've changed her name to Joni (Mitchell). The name suits her.

Joni, just arrived at our house, in the trailer

checking out the foliage. See the pretty teal ribbon on her tail?

Casey shows Luka how to touch Joni

Joni hasn't met the goats yet. The pasture we would like to put them in together is recovering, so in the meanwhile, Joni is tied to a stake in the yard next to a hugely overgrown thing of grass. They assure us that she could stay there for several weeks without problem. If we need to move her, it will be easy. She's DOCILE!

On another note, GB and Luka set up the electric fence at the tilapia pond for the ducks. The fence is useless-- they can get right thru the holes (elecrified or not), but they are so thrilled with the large body of water, that they stay. So far so good!

Burros?

2011-08-31T21:10:00.003-10:00

There's been a lot of publicity of late regarding wild donkeys/ burros near Waikoloa. GB read that 100 of them were being airlifted to California, and called to find out about adopting one (or two). Apparently they dislike dogs and would be good protectors for the goats.

He and Luka are going to check them out this week. We may end up with a baby (who would require 3 months of bucket feeding!). OR... there's a pregnant mama who needs a home. We wouldn't have to keep her baby (due in 4-5 mos, they guess), or we could keep it.

It's a new adventure!

plant and woe

2011-08-08T13:23:00.005-10:00

We've started some end of summer planting here. I love planting new stuff. Even though it's a lot of work, the potential for new food/ trees is awesome!

Today we planted this bamboo (blue bamboo?) that Stardove and River gave me for my last birthday.

Last week I planted these two figs here near the house. They're hard to see, but this gives me a record.
I also weeded the pineapples and mulched them heavily. I want to see how long the weeding/ mulching lasts
One of a few pineapples we got this year. I bet next year is a bonanza!
All was peachy keen. GB and I were working together, and we had the bamboo in the ground already. The backstory is that since we got the plants (these including some atroviolacea bamboo), we've been walking the property trying to figure out where to plant what. Since the atroviolcea and mango are large, it's important we make good decisions about where to put them!

So we chose a spot for the mango near the firepit. I thought that maybe the phone line went thru that spot, but GB assured me that the phone line was in with all of the other utilities and we'd be fine. Famous last words.

To make the digging "easier", GB got on the tractor. One swipe with the bucket and he was leaning over looking at something.... the severed phone/ DSL cable. shoots!

Luckily, Gerard, the electrician was a mere 5 minutes away and came and made a temporary fix. He's got to order the part to splice it permanently. No teenagers were home to scream about the lack of internet. Gerard saved the day.

And we got the fairchild mango planted--- Well above the shed and any utilities ;)

Pippi

2011-08-01T13:49:00.005-10:00

Before talking about Pippi, I wanted to give a duck update! We went to the mainland and left 5 wee ducklings. 2 weeks later they are full on DUCKS!

We let them out of their cage and within 24 hours we had lost one (to an 'io, I think). We put them back in for another 5 days and they were big enough and now are growing fine! With a larger area, they aren't quite as smelly!

But the big news is Pippi. I have been really angry with her, because right before our trip I found her breaking open one of the chicken eggs. Previous to that, I had been thinking about getting her a boyfriend....

When we got home, though I found her sitting in this planter box. Hmmmmmm.
When I heard her fly away and start cackling, I went down to the box and found these!

Without a male, we're obviously not going to get any babies, so we brought in 3 of the eggs to taste. GB read they are like chicken eggs. It's hard to see how large they are in the above photo.... but they are, and the shell feels a lot stronger/ thicker than a chicken egg.

Cracked in a bowl:

For comparison, 2 large chicken eggs in the same bowl

Verdict? Peacock eggs are delicious!

And Pippi is still sitting on the 4th egg (and we haven't seen anymore since). She is on her nest all day (even when we have a party) and gets up once a day to eat and do her business. When she does get up, she makes a lot of noise to scare away predators. I'm a little sad for her that her eggs won't hatch, but since I don't need any more peacock poop, I'm happy I never got her a boyfriend.

More grass!

2011-06-30T08:59:00.004-10:00

The area behind the house, in between the house and garden bed has just been a total eyesore since we moved in. Because of the earthworks and rain and slope, there was just NO topsoil there, and all we had was a bunch of crappy clay. We've tried so many things to help grow some soil and grass there, but nothing worked..... until now!

The Biermans, once again, came thru as our trusty grass suppliers. Murphy and Harry spent the summer digging up their front yard, piling the grass for our taking.

Ra'am loaded severl truckloads full of grass and brought them over here for our extensive grass planting adventure!

GB took the tractor and scraped a good area for us to start.

Here's one of the many loads Ra'am brought

Despite the fact that the grass was already cut up, it was still a ton of hard work! Loading up, UNloading, and then planting was hard! Each clump of grass is a different thickness, so there was shoveling, raking, filling, and puzzle putting together skills used.

Here's a huge pile ready to be planted

Noam working hard! This picture shows the area almost done

We also planted in the cinders directly behind the house as well as down below the pool in a "problem" area. So far the grass is looking good (one month later) and I can't wait to see it all filled in!

PIGGIES!

2011-06-26T09:14:00.000-10:00

The pigs came back this year with a vengeance. We started seeing a few here and there, and then it seemed like every time we drove down the driveway, we'd see bands of them, eating mango or just tearing up earth. We called Barry back, who set snares all over. In total, in a couple of months, he's caught maybe 10 pigs. I'd like to say I feel badly about it, but after learning that they are able to reproduce near 4ish months and then can bear 3 litters in a year, I am not worried at all for their population, plus they're all getting eaten.

On a particularly pug-full day, we caught two here on our property. Barry already had one in his truck from another area, and was on his way to get a different one.

Here he's hog tying the larger of the two caught here (after lassoing it)

Here are the two from our property

Duckies need a home

2011-06-19T13:35:00.000-10:00

So we kept the ducks inside for all of 24 hours. We were totally unprepared for their copious amounts of smelly poop. We've had chickens for years, but ducks are very different and way smellier!

The lady we got them from said we could just put some hardware cloth in a circle and then stick a board on top, to protect the ducklings from predators. GB went up to the shed to grab those items, and came back with this fort.

As you can see, Pippi is very interested in the new fowl.

We set up a plastic drawer full of water for them. They jumped right in and went for a swim! (10 minutes later the water was brown)

Of course, this temporary shelter has to be moved every day or so. The ground underneath gets fowl very very quickly!

Duckies!

2011-06-17T13:06:00.000-10:00

It's always been part of the plan to get ducks and put them up with the tilapia pond. This summer our chickens have been pretty poor layers. I don't know if they're getting too old, or what, but when you're feeding 9 birds and getting one or no eggs per day...

GB found some duckies on craigslist and they were delivered soon thereafter, at 2 weeks old. They are indian runner, campbell khaki and something else mix.

Welcome to our family, little duckies!

What's New

2011-05-31T19:04:00.005-10:00

Since our last post about the goats going on a walkabout, we've had more goat issues.

They went missing from another pasture while GB was out of town. I was alone with Luka and was so worried because I had NO idea where they had gone. I started calling around to see who could help me with Luka and/or searching for the goats.

I had just dropped Luka off with Sue and was awaiting Jake to come searching thru the gulches, when my phone rang. Our neighbor, D had received a call that am from his neighbor asking if he knew of anyone missing goats. Our neighbor D had called GB's cell phone, but GB was out of the country. Fortunately his daughter was in a play with Noam and when he dropped her off for rehearsal, Noam gave him my number. The goats were safe and sound at a nursery on the scenic route!

They had followed a bicyclist for a mile before he worried they'd go to the highway, so he brought them to the nursery.

Luckily they had a place to corral them! They gave them some water and ti leaves. Jake and I came and got the naughty kids.

In the meanwhile, Noam and I set out to fix the upper pasture where they first escaped from. I figured we'd find a couple of places where they could get under the fence. What we found was 3 trees that had fallen and messed the fence up. It's a much larger job than Noam and I can fix.

This is the largest tree. You can see below that the fence post is piercing it

This is the 2nd tree. It's a MESS in there. There are all kinds of branches on top of the fence.

Needless to say, we can't put the wily goats in this pasture until the trees are chainsawed and the fence is fixed.

Naughty Kids and What's new?

2011-03-03T12:46:00.003-10:00

I was only kind of shocked to look at the blog and see that I haven't updated it since November! It's not that there's not been land work/ progress, but more that we've been in a maintenance mood rather than a new project mode.

Naughty Kids:

We moved the goats to the upper pasture a few weeks ago. It was an easy move with good goat compliance. The goats happily munched away up there.

I went up a few days later to worm them. And they were nowhere to be found...

Now I haven't written yet here that in November we lost another goat. Tamarind was killed by a dog (neighbor's :( ). The killing took place in the upper pasture and after he died, we quickly moved the remaining goats away... and they hadn't been back in there since.

So when I called and no one came running I thought the worst. But it was hard for me to believe that ALL 4 goats would get killed or drop dead since I had seen them the day before. I walked the whole fenced in area (not easy there!) calling. Nada.

I did see one spot in the fence that they could possibly have gotten under. It was tight, but it was worth checking out.

I walked back down to the house feeling dejected and like we had lost all 4 of our precious goaties. The most accessible car to go driving and look for them was our little Honda Civic-- our other 2 cars are big. but this one was there.

So I set out on the next driveway over to look for them . And lo and behold, there they were, standing on the road like nothing was amiss.

I called the house to get Ra'am to drive over with the truck. But I tried to capture them anyways. And I got all 4 goats into the car (by picking each one up-- thank goodness we have dwarfs!).

You can see in the above picture that Floyd had a little poop incident in the car (floor on paper).
Loki and Neo "enjoy" the ride. That's Gandhi's tail there and the way top of Floyd's head.

Needless to say, they have NOT been back in the upper pasture and the fence line needs some work!

Garden:

Ra'am and I cleared out the garden in the last couple of weeks. Today I planted eggplant starts (that sat too long here- we'll see how they do), okra starts from Heather, started bush and long beans, and planted some lettuce mixes in the pots.

Palms:

Planted 4 lanceolatas along the side of the driveway near the water tank this weekend. They are about 4-5' tall now.

Hopefully the next post will be full of garden veggie goodness!

No phone. No DSL

2010-11-14T14:19:00.005-10:00

Life is never boring.

Saturday morning. GB leaves for work at 9am. I am on the phone with my mom. At 9:30 I check email. All good.

9:40 I leave the house, and lo and behold, a tree has fallen. On the rock wall. Parts of it are blocking the gate. And worst of all.... it fell right on the phone line. No phone. No DSL.

After Ra'am took the SAT, he and I set out to clean up the mess. The phone company said they'd be out by the end of Monday.

Ra'am looked psyched to go at the tree with the axe. Neither he nor I know how to use the chainsaw, and I was hoping not to have to call GB, who is very very busy getting ready to go back to LA for more voice recording.

We climbed up the hill and saw how large the tree really was! It's a junk tree (gunpowder)-- and not well rooted, obviously.
Inside the trunk was some hollow areas and an abandoned bee hive

The sad phone/ DSL line

Ra'am and I worked and worked. The amount of work was overwhelming, and I knew that GB could finish it off quickly with the proper tools

Luka hung out with us

GB drove home from work and quickly grabbed his chansaw and the tractor

20 seconds of chainsaw = 5 minute of axe

GB also used the tractor to push all of the rubbish into the bushes. It would have easily taken us another hour to clean up the mess w/o the tractor

Done!

Unfortunately this was NOT the only issue/ tragedy that week. Our oven flipped out again (thank goodness for extended warranties!).

The worst was that a neighborhood dog got into one of the goat pastures and killed Tamarind :( We are incredibly upset about it and have no idea who the dog belongs to :(

New Kid on the Block

2010-10-07T13:22:00.007-10:00

Meet Loki

He's a young (not sure his exact age) Nigerian Dwarf goat who looks like he fits right in with the rest of the gang. He's got horns and a sweet high pitched baa.

We got him 3 days ago and so far he's at the low end of the totem pole of goats here. But I suspect that the horns will give him an advantage in the future. in fact, Noam told me he saw Loki butt back one of the other goats yesterday.

Here's Gandhi, Neo and Floyd checking out the new guy

This maneuver was happening over and over from all goats. Maybe it means "hi, howzit?"

He fits right in with the gang

Cutie

And for my own record keeping.... started some seeds (straight in ground). Salad mix (in pots). Kales (in with chard), tomatoes, peppers, corn (why not?), sunflowers, and some papayas

Got Grass?

2010-09-26T15:03:00.006-10:00

Continuing with our grass grabbing that we started at the Biermans, we decided to work on the same project today. We headed over to their house in the am (sans Ra'am), and were delighted to discover that Carly wanted to help!

It was hard work, for sure.

We stayed there for awhile, gathering grass, then headed back home, Carly in tow.

We set Ra'am to work on weed wacking the area to prep it.

Hokulani watched

Luka watched too

All 3 kids (Ra'am, Noam and Carly) moved a bunch of concrete hollow tile

Ra'am and Noam brought the heavy heavy grass from the truck

"small" sod= still very heavy

GB prepped the areas-- but here he's moving a big hairy clump of a different kind of grass that's softer-- to edge the Bierman grass

Finished area behind the concrete containers

Grass around the lime tree

Our lemon tree in the chicken run is LADEN with flowers. They smell sooooo good-- and this is just a small portion of them!
Ra'am has been working on giving these Malay Dwarf bamboo a big and much needed haircut. Looks great!
And those bad chickens!!! They've been giving very few eggs recently.... found out why. Down in their run, where I can't see, I found this large clutch of 14 eggs!!! I need to see if they're fresh. but 14?!?

all in all, a great family work day!

planting again!

2010-09-19T08:20:00.005-10:00

Banana Delivery. I was in the house feeling sick and GB drove down in the tractor with 2 large bunches in the bucket. Yumm

Bromeliad flower

GB started working on planting the new bamboo we bought, guadua angustifolia

This is the bamboo we're planting between us and evil neighbor. I wasn't feeling well, so GB was on his own-- he went out there with the tractor and cleared some area/ knocked down a bunch of junk trees and then yesterday planted 3 of the 7 we bought!

Here's some of the cleared area (hard to tell!)

GB working hard!

Transforming the jungle (and for the record, there is not one native species in this photo- lest someone think we're doing the land a disservice)

cleared pathway to new planting area

Today, Sunday, he and Ra'am will finish the job! Go bamboo!

Around the farm

2010-09-12T07:33:00.006-10:00

Updates seem to be few and far between here on our blog.

There's not been a lot of new planting this summer on the property. We've had an extremely dry summer. Living on catchment has been very interesting with the nearly arid conditions we've had. Up until the last couple of weeks, a HUGE percentage of our water was going into filling the pool-- which can lose sometimes a whole inch of surface water to evaporation on a bright and sunny day. I've rigged up an ugly, but effective solution, in the form of some thick, black, bendy, inexpensive corrugated pipe that goes from one of the downspouts on the house, right into the pool. So far it's making a huge difference in filling up the pool, and I think that we can mostly stop using the tank water on the pool.

So we haven't wanted to really plant a lot of new stuff, since that would require lots of watering. But like all summers, there's a lot of maintenance in the form of mowing, weedwacking and pulling weeds.

The rains (or at least a little bit of rain) seem to have started, so we're going today to a bamboo festival to look for some large and spiky bamboo.

We did manage to get the property line surveyed between us and the mean neighbor. GB and I went out yesterday and put T-posts into the ground to mark the points on line that the surveyors marked with little wooden sticks. Now we'll see about plants for there (see above reference to spiky bamboo).

Some photos from yesterday afternoon:

GB has been working hard on fixing up this formerly very very messy with lame grass area. That's a lime tree in the center.

The Biermans gave us some clumps of their good grass when they planted some trees last week. GB and Ra'am went over there yesterday and dug out a portion of their front lawn and brought it over to cover more area around the lime tree. Apparently it was hard work and the grass was heavy. I wouldn't know... I was sewing.

GB and I walked around and checked on a few bamboos he's planted. Here's a hirose on the upper property, near the highway.

Monet-like fields of while owrchids

Here's a malay dwarf bamboo on the upper property at the bottom end of the fenced in area

last breaths of one of Luka's prized zinnias

A Luka Adventure!

2010-08-08T16:26:00.006-10:00

I asked Luka what he'd like to do on Saturday and for him to give me three options, "I want to play in the pool, make chocolate cookies, and go on a Big Adventure!", he replied. I'm trying to keep my roundness from going global so I said, "How's about we go on and adventure and play in the pool!" He was confused by my willingness to two of his choices and said, "No, I want..." His voice trailed off when he realized I had completely capitulated, "YES, YES, YES!" he jumped up and down. We got ready and headed to a part of our property we rarely go to.....

This part is very, very steep.

Here Luka is learning to slide on the super steep parts and grab trees to slow himself down.

Milo, our youngest cat thinks he's a dog and trails along for the hike.

Half way down!

At the edge of a 60 foot cliff that over looks our stream stands one of the largest mango trees on our property. After a quick look over the edge of the cliff we headed through ferns that were over his head. He told me that everything glowed green in there.

We then headed to the goats who are now in the lower pasture and then to the pool!

Beauty and the Beast

2010-07-06T09:29:00.000-10:00

LeAna and I did a flower theme week for our 365 photo projects.

Same flower as above- just opened.

In other news, despite living on almost 15 acres, we've got major neighbor problems. An older man who lives behind us (thankfully well away from our home) is angry and icky. He's destroyed 2 of Barry's pig snares. One of them he cut up while we were on the mainland and then waited on the road every day for Barry to return so he could yell at him.
Old man neighbor yelled at me on father's day... and then I saw him again on July 6, with the 2nd cut snare in his hand. He refused to give it back to me, and I was so angry (for other reasons) that I called him an evil old man. Barry ended up calling the police on him. The DRAMA!
Now we're in the process of getting the line between our 2 properties surveyed. We're going to plant something large and thorny there.

"Live"stock and loss

2010-06-25T09:20:00.000-10:00

When we embarked on getting goats for the first time, Tom told me that livestock was a misnomer, and that animals die.
Of course I knew that, but wasn't prepared for how bad it made me feel!!!

We traveled to the mainland in June and when we returned, Thorn didn't look excellent. Turns out he was suffering from bottle jaw-- something that happens in the course of getting worms, becoming anemic and then being really ill. By the time we realized what he had, it was too late :( I wormed him and gave him minerals and gave him lots of love... but he passed one night.

I know that these things happen, but it's hard not to feel really guilty.

In this process I've learned a lot more about caring for the animals-- including how to look for parasites in their poop. It's not the most fun thing in the world (actually pretty comical, running after them with a plastic bag, trying to collect samples), but hopefully it will lead to healthier goats!

R.I.P. Thorn

Mangosteen

2010-06-20T09:13:00.001-10:00

Right now we're mostly in maintenance mode here at the farm. During the summer, the grass (and weeds!) grow tons, and so between that and GB's busy movie schedule, we're keeping things under control rather than creating NEW stuff.

But I did plant this mangosteen one afternoon. It's been really dry, so hopefully it makes it well.

And look how strong I am.... broke this shovel!

(GB told me later it was already broken...... sure)

We also have FUN!

2010-05-16T08:30:00.005-10:00

Seems like the majority of posts here are work related. It's good for us because we have records of when we planted and did things around the farm. I've tried different record-keeping methods and so far, this blog has been the best/ consistent- mostly because it's photo driven. I pretty much have a camera on me or nearby most of the time, so as long as I take a photo of what we're doing, we've got a record.

We woke up yesterday to a beautiful day and called some friends to see if they wanted to join us for late afternoon bbq/dinner.
Husky the dog had been here since 7am. I tried all morning to get her to leave, but she would NOT budge. She's been here 6+ times since she first visited, and is very needy. Her owners are ambivalent about her, so we were trying to find her a better, loving home. Jake wanted to meet her, so he showed up at noonish, and since the day was so beautiful, and the kids wanted to swim, we decided to crack open the beers and start early.
GB was industrious and mowed while we waited for others to get here. I think Jake and I had drunk 2 beers each by the time he was even finished with the mowing!

Everyone arrived a little later and we had a lovely time with great food (as usual). Kids played in the pool and watched movies, and the big ones enjoyed their computer time

Jake is often serving drinks
Newly licensed Ra'am was sent out to pick up kids who needed reuniting with their parents

On another note about this blog...
I took the 1st 1.5 years or so and turned it into a book. I am SOOOO thrilled with it. I had it printed thru blurb.com-- they have software that "slurps" the blog and then you can manipulate the layout of each post. It's been amazing and so fun to sit and look thru the book and relive the house planning/ building and all of the plantings and stuff we've done. For the (2? 3?) of you who actually read this blog, I highly recommend it! Our book is like 250+ pages and cost us about $70. Not bad!

Sheep Wrangling

2010-05-16T08:15:00.000-10:00

Woe is me. The forgotten blog.
In an effort to remedy this situation, I started going thru my photos to spark my memory of what we've been doing for the past 3 months that haven't been chronicled here.

And I missed such a huge and fun event.... Sheep Wrangling!

Our two sheep, Ke'o and 'Ele

They had eaten their pasture way down. It's been so dry dry dry here, that the grass wasn't growing fast enough to keep up with their needs.
So, move they must.

But these sheep are not human lovers. They tolerate our presence, but we cannot get near them. They regard us with wary expressions when we come to visit them.

Thankfully, our sheep herding friends, Tom and Eve, have lots of experience with scared sheep. They came over with their lassos and lots of knowledge (or fortitude).

Here are Eve and Ra'am- with a huge (and heavy) roll of fencing we planned to use to corral the sheep

Sheep were on the move. They were not thrilled with the arrangements.
I missed the big jumps. Apparently these large creatures can JUMP!

Ra'am, GB, and I held the fencing up while Tom and Eve had their lassos- the plan was for Tom to chase them into the corraling area Eve to lasso them, while we move the big fence and close down the area.

Caught one!
Tom chased him closer to the fence and Eve successfully threw the lasso!

We tied up their legs to transport them in the truck to the upper pasture.

Ele was a little harder to catch, but Eve once again threw a successful lasso! I was very very impressed!

See Luka watching from outside the gate.

Winter wooly coat

!!!

We got them in the back of the truck to drive them up, and I sat there (kind of ON the sheep since he was struggling a bunch) and fed them.
We trimmed their hooves and then set them loose in the new pasture!

On the planting front, here are some mexican sunflowers (?!?) that Buck gave us way before we moved in. I stuck the stalks in the ground, but it was during a drought and so I figured they died. No such thing! Look at all of the flowers!

And we planted a bunch of coronata along the gulch behind the shed.

Ode to a Very Very Dedicated Mother.... on Mother's Day 2010

2010-05-09T09:40:00.003-10:00

On an evening walk the other day, GB, Luka and I happened upon a most wonderful sight!

We found baby tilapia in our pond! Our tilapia are only a couple of inches long- they look like wee babes themselves, but apparently they are old enough to breed.

I had worried that the openness of the pond would mean that any babies would be eaten by the larger fish, but I didn't realize that mama tilapia are fiercely protective of their young. If you look closely in the below photo, you can see one white fish and a bunch of small white "dots" to her right. Those are her babies. She doesn't leave them.
When we look at the pond, the fish usually crowd to where we are, hoping to get fed. Since we were checking out the babes, this mama spent all of her time shooing the other fish away from the little ones. She didn't let the fish get near to them.

Every time we check them out, she is right there, keeping the other fish away.

I was very very impressed with her, and felt like we were watching one of the nature programs we like to watch- getting a glimpse into the secret life of fish.

Some other photos from our walk:

papaya

Mango Madness

2010-04-25T21:09:00.002-10:00

It's a bumper year for mango. I wish that was a good thing here chez nous, but really all it means is that we'll have months of stinky fruit and lots of fruit flies all over the ground.

Here GB is scraping the driveway of mangoes so he can compost them under the banana trees.
We had a huge branch fall out of one of the trees. GB chainsawed it up and Ra'am is loading it up in the truck for delivery to the bananas

Full Load

Fixin and planting

2010-04-24T20:02:00.000-10:00

When we finished the planting boxes around the koi pond, way back when, there were many things we did not anticipate. Firstly we filled the whole boxes with cinder, covering up the outlets and their covers that were in each one. All of the outlets are on one GFCI circuit, so when the lights went out, we had to dig around to figure which outlet had the reset button.
Also, we sunk pots in the cinder and figured we could just stick pots w/o those, so we could easily move plants around.
We didn't realize that the coqui frogs would love that space between the 2 pots so much. When coquis get in that area, their song just echoes so LOUDLY through the house, it's insane.

So slowly, we've been digging out the outlets and planting directly in pots.

Here we took all of the plants we have and laid them out. Unfortunately we found that most of the plants here don't like any sun, and 2 of the boxes get sun.

GB digging cinder. It's HAAARD work!

fini

Caught em!

2010-04-17T19:59:00.001-10:00

Saw these little ones on the road 4/16

That one on the right is the runt.

Caught 5 of them in the trap!!

"Friendly" visitors

2010-04-15T19:44:00.000-10:00

We've been getting a lot of wildlife visitations.

Some are friendly, some are not

Not friendly
this medium sized feral pig has been feasting on fallen mangoes
He seems to be unafraid of us. I guess the food is that good!

Here's the trap we set, hoping to catch him (and his friends)

Papa pheasant. There are several pair right now on our property. We see them each morning and evening.

Red-headed cardinal. This guy (as well as many other birds) have been feasting on these ripe waiwi right outside our kitchen window.

These dogs (3) are unwelcome skinny neighborhood dogs. One was caught in the above pig trap.
In non-animal news, we have our first pineapple!

And this is what GB and I look like after a long day's work

How things grow

2010-03-21T09:25:00.000-10:00

So Pippi's roost is made out of bamboo that GB harvested from our plants. He both primed and painted it... but a mere 3 weeks later and the bamboo has sprouted thru the paint. sigh...

Some birds are molting. They look pretty ugly w/o neck feathers

Garden Grows!

Corn!

Pippi shares her roost with wild chicken

Garden

2010-03-14T08:52:00.004-10:00

I've planted up the garden recently. Here's how it looks right now:

soybeans

corn

lettuces and chives

squash blossoms (pumpkin)

And yesterday was Ra'am's SAT day. We got up early and he jumped in the pool to wake up.

sunrise swim!

A solution, hopefully!

2010-03-14T08:14:00.007-10:00

GB had the great idea to make Pippi a spot of her own (or for her kind- we might get more peahens). I was sick in bed and he went up to the shed and came back some hours later with this! Actually I *think* it was a few hours. But maybe it was the whole day... or maybe took place over the course of a couple of days. I was feverish and delirious!
Ra'am and GB are getting ready to place the roost in a hole and then pour concrete around the base to secure it. Next up, roof!

The following weekend- after the rest of the family has been sick....

GB had a great idea to make a thatched roof. Despite having eaten only 2 pieces of toast in 3 days, he was motivated (i.e. crazy) enough to go outside and work. He made a frame out of bamboo (no shortage of that here) and put chicken wire (also in abundance here) over it so we could weave ti leaves through the holes.

Photos by Luka

Fini!

All that work.... but would she USE the roost?

We attached a food bowl to the bamboo and I had her watch me put the food inside. She walked all around that thing, looking, and sniffing and craning her neck to see what was up. I would say it took a good 10+ minutes:

voila!

Also wanted to note that GB planted several palms here last weekend. The pinanga philipensis (near Pippi's roost) and 2 pinanga coronata.

Animals

2010-03-06T07:53:00.003-10:00

Someone has been peeing on Gandhi's head, it seems.

Tamarind (front) and Thorn (behind)

Tamarind coming out of the bush for some loving

While picking up some bricks at the Hakalau house we came upon a "nest" of blind snakes. Yes, contrary to popular belief, we DO have snakes here in Hawai'i. They just happen to be the size of an earthworm and blind. I was unable to catch the tongue flicking out, but you can clearly see the scales here.

And here's one of our crayfish. We got a bunch of these from Tom and Eve's stream on Thanksgiving. We put them in the tank and only ever saw one- the one that was a lot bigger than the others. We figured he ate the rest?
But then in January, out popped one that we'd never seen-- a smaller one.

I'm not sure if this is the big one or the small one.

Pippi thinks she's a human. Since we've had her it's been dry, dry, dry. Rains started and she isn't thrilled with the new chicken coop configuration. So she hangs out under the house. Mostly she sits ON the Honda....
and the other day we found her here.... right outside the front door.
We wouldn't care, except for the fact that Pippi, like all birds, poops ALL THE TIME. gross!

A solution is on the way! Stay tuned!

Bananas, Avocados and loss of communications

2010-03-01T19:34:00.006-10:00

We had another busy weekend, with the excitement of a tsunami, a birthday celebration and some farm work.

GB started it off by working on Friday and produced this lovely row of bananas (williams) that we had just picked up in Honoka'a the previous day.
Saturday was the tsunami day and once the all clear was sounded, we went ahead with plans for a birthday celebration for GB.

Sunday we set out to plant the 2 avocado trees GB got for his bday.

There were a bunch of trees (mostly waiwi) in the way of where the avos would go, so GB pulled out the chainsaw. No problemo, right?

He got the chainsaw stuck. No problemo, right?

After freeing the stuck chainsaw, more trees were downed. I went down to the house to get some water and the kids told me something was wrong with the phone. UH OH! The phone line that GB and I worked SO hard to lay was RIGHT where we were downing trees! A quick check confirmed my worst suspicions.

Wire (very thick- think pinkie width) is severed. Severed phone. Severed DSL.

Since there was no internet, Ra'am was available to dig.I sat and marveled at things close to the ground

And we managed to get 2 avo trees planted. One Kahalu'u and one Sharwil.
KAHALUU: Ripe in the Fall (August-October) but an alternate bearer (every other year). A large, oblong fruit with a tiny seed and green skin. The best-flavored Hawaiian variety.

SHARWIL: Most popular with commercial growers. Has a long and heavy bearing season throughout the winter months (November-February). Medium size, pear-shaped fruit with a small seed, high oil content, and a green rough skin. "Sharwil" is a regular bearer.

Tsunami Watch 2010

2010-03-01T19:18:00.004-10:00

Well the tsunami we were expecting turned out to be small (1 meter) and for that, we are all thankful. It was a beautiful day and seemed like a holiday!

We went over to our neighbor's house to watch the wave from there, since they have a more expansive ocean view.

This is our gulch in front of our house. We don't get to see the waves crashing there like they do.

There were tons of boats in the water

Lots of aircraft in the sky (all emergency related... the airport was closed)

We did see some evidence of the wave here in Onomea Bay. But truly, if we didn't know there was a tsunami headed our way, we wouldn't have noticed. It was beautiful!

Palms and TIMBER!

2010-02-21T19:48:00.005-10:00

Saturday we got 4 palms in the ground!!!! It's such a big deal because our nursery is filled with palms right now and what I really want to plant is AVOCADO trees. So we're slowly making it thru the palms so we can get on to some food producing trees.

We got 2
Carpoxylon macrospermum in the ground. GB did 99% of the work on these, but I got the glory with the photo. We had to attach some chicken wire to the fencing there behind me because the goats were so interested in this new plant and were eating it thru the fence. They've all scattered here, except for Tamarind.

After this, GB and I moved down to near the pool and after much much difficult work, we managed to get 2 Metroxylon vitiense into the ground.
We planted them on the side of the hill down from the pool. It's steep there and very very jungley. I weed whacked with the blade, and GB chainsawed.

Sunday we worked up on the newer property, near the goats.
GB decided that this tree had to go. It was crowding 2 avocados (see above), and if/when we put a structure/office/house here, the tree is right in the way.

Cutting

It's starting to tip

On the way down

Job completed!

Looks like an octopus!

weekend works!

2010-02-15T19:35:00.001-10:00

This weekend we embarked on completing the chicken's new run. We had fashioned a makeshift gate last weekend, but needed to fix it up.

Noam learned how to use the circular saw

He looks pretty confident!

We got to pull out the concrete mixer. It's been a couple of months since we've used it. I think it missed us

Contrary to what this picture shows, Ra'am worked really hard.

GB used the extra concrete to fix up some areas around the chicken's water pond.

Fixin the new gate

Painting! The right side there opens

Garden

2010-02-11T17:05:00.001-10:00

planted BEETS today

This Weekend

2010-02-07T15:13:00.005-10:00

Finished fencing new chicken run! (and moved chickens into said run)

GB used chainsaw on hau
planted corn, soybeans and squash in garden
trimmed goat hooves (very hard this time. GB called us amateurs)
planted lemon tree and lime tree
planted temple grass on the Hilo side of the pool
Noam mowed the side of the pool
GB moved some palms and bamboo around
planted vetiver grass on the new chicken run fenceline (in hopes we can make a living fence with it) and also planted vetiver behind the banana trees
lots of watering. rain... we miss you!

New Kids on the Block

2010-02-05T22:49:00.007-10:00

Meet Tamarind and Thorn. Born December 10, 2009. They're Nubian Goat kids.

Gandhi, Floyd and Neo knew something was up

Come and meet your new brothers!

This is Tamarind. He's smaller than his brother Thorn. They were from a litter (?) of quadruplets. The other 2 were females

Luka feeds all goats

A natural born leader

After settling the goats (and taking tons of photos), I picked up Ra'am and Noam. I showed them the photos on the camera but neither thought they were that cute.... until we got home. The oohs and ahhs were so loud!

Ra'am and Thorn

Noam and Tamarind

Me and Thorn

The following morning I decided to take the 5 goats for a walk. They were very docile and easy to manage. We had to make a quick detour at the house for me to get something, and they all waited patiently downstairs.
While here, they made tons of noise, and GB started referring to me as his Crazy Goat Lady wife.... hmmm.....

Day 3 am, Luka and I took the goats to the upper pasture

Tamarind gets very excited sometimes. I caught him mid air here

And in other animal news....

Pippi is now acting like a peacock.... flashing up her big tail.

Chicken expansion again

2010-01-31T21:11:00.004-10:00

Our dear chickens (plus Pippi) have been working very hard at removing every.single.green.item from their huge run. They pick and peck and scratch and their lovely grass and weeds are now just dirt... and more dirt.

GB came up with a great idea to make another run and move them back and forth. So he got started on Friday and went down the hill from their current run with his chainsaw.

He and Ra'am and I went out today to set the posts and then we'll pull fence next week.

Here GB is freeing a random and unnecessary post from the center of the current run. Pippi is curious

Ra'am is taking a much needed/ deserved water break

Poles all in a line

GB always makes a weird face on work days

I used the post hole pounder for the 1st time. It's not too hard to use- It helps that our ground is soft.

Best family work day EVAH

2010-01-17T20:36:00.001-10:00

Goats need a shelter in the new pasture. Family comes out in full force to help!

The 5 of us started out on a nice Sunday morning and brought the goats along to "help".

Ra'am dug and dug and we placed the footings in the ground. Then came the easy part- building up.

GB looks like he's explaining something important to us.

Noam learned to use the drill

Brothers help each other

Luka helped all day-- one of his more important roles was decorating. He embellished several 2x4s with a sharpie- and one made it on to the shed- and we clear coated it so we can enjoy his artwork

The shed is complete!

starts

2010-01-16T16:56:00.005-10:00

Record keeping time:
started a bunch of starts today and want to record the event.
Planted:
from UH Ag:

Solo Papaya- Sunset
Solo Papaya- Waimanalo Low Bearing
Solo Papaya- Sunrise
Soybean- Kahala
Hybrid Tomato N-65
Grape Tomato- Komohana
Bell Pepper- Kaala

Older seeds we have:

Mesclun Salad mix (very little left of this pack)
Lettuce- Vivian (Burpee Seeds- looks like romaine)
Eggplant- long purple
Kale- Toscano
Swiss Chard- Bright Lights
Cucumber- burpless long, Suyo
Sugar Pea
Cilantro
Small Sugar pumpkin

Starts are generally not my forte- and I've spent many $$ buying starts from the nursery.... so this is a test of my watering abilities!

twins! (and a new pasture)

2009-12-31T08:48:00.006-10:00

New Pasture is done! Given time issues.... we hired Darrel to fence in a new pasture on the upper property.

GB and Damien are discussing the specifics

2 giant albezia trees are DOWNsee how dense it is in there?

Fenceline complete!

Yesterday we adopted twin goats, Thorn and Tamarind. They are 3 week old nubians from a litter of 4. They need a few more weeks to get more mamas milk and then they'll come home with us. They're going in the new pasture, but we need to make them a shelter. We're "pros" at that!

storm

2009-12-31T08:34:00.004-10:00

November 2009 was stormy. We had 2 big weekend storms, the first of which resulted in 2 of our temple bamboo falling over :(
They were originally planted valentines day 2007. And then Super Bowl Sunday 2008 one of the Bamboo fell in the big landslide. It was replanted and is doing well, though much shorter than it's counterparts.

So with 2 down, we had to figure out what to do. We chose the "easy" route. Ra'am and I dug out the holes that they came out of... GB gave the bamboo a big haircut with the chainsaw, and we righted them. We're HOPING they come back ok. They're hardy plants, so they should be fine, but we're sad anyways!

Wet and stormy day! The pool was needing water before this.... now? Totally full!

Bamboo down :( Digging out from underneath

new pond

2009-12-31T08:13:00.003-10:00

Pre-Bar Mitzvah we were in a mad rush to spruce things up around here. Unfortunately GB spent the last months leading up to big event all laid up.... but we still managed to get a ton done!
Of course GB was the instigator of this pond. He had this great idea to lay out the humongous and heavy rocks.... but I was busy doing other things. So he called up Heather and asked her if she'd do it, and she agreed. Next thing I knew, GB had laid out all of the rocks himself. Crazy GB!

I posted one picture of the new pond, but there are in progress shots of us sealing it:

The pond is great, but we haven't been able to keep fish in it yet because the ph is so high. We're working on lowering it

palms

2009-12-31T08:06:00.006-10:00

We had a great visit our to Floribunda nursery last week 12/23. Our intention was to buy 4 palms (lanceolata) for around the koi pond, since they won't grow above the roof. Of course we walked away with a ton of stuff....

For around koi pond
Dypsis Lanceolata (horizontal stripes)
Pinanga Pilippinensis (small trunk aka Noam’s choice)

By pool
Beccariophoenix madagascariensis (substitute for coconut palms) (planted near coco palms- which will probably have to go when they start dropping stuff cuz they're too close to where people go)

For front gate
Carpoxylon macrospermum

Ivory nut
Metroxylon vitiense (plant near wet spot)

For near chicken coop
Dypsis Saintlucei (white trunk)

For near Bambusa vulgaris
Prichardia beccariana

Red Betel Nut (substitute for Sealing Wax Palm)
Areca Macrocalyx (red)

The Hairy palm! (planted in pool lawn)
Dypsis Fibrosa

Substitute for ‘Areca’ Dypsis Lut.
Pinanga coronata blunt leaf

We also planted a bunch of vetiver grass on the Hilo side of the pool, that we got from Rob and Mike. We're really excited about this grass because we have so many erosion prone areas, and this grass is supposed to be good for it (and it's sterile! and easy to propagate!)

What the farmer gets for the holidays

2009-12-21T17:12:00.006-10:00

First, we only have three cats. So when Buck and Lena's friend was leaving for Mongolia last week, we inherited his kitty. It's the dark one in the lower left. Her name is Uki, but that is sometimes Luka's nickname. We are going to have to give her a new name. It is easier than renaming Luka!

Milo is a little iffy on our new cat. Notice the puffing of his tail.

Matt and Heather surprised us with a live gift this morning.

I've always wanted one, but Karen has nixed it because they are loud. Turns out the females aren't loud and surprise, surprise, Matt and Heather gave us a Peacock! (technically a Pea Hen)

Karen named her Pippi Longstocking because she is reading a book set in Sweden.

Matt said that at his house all the chickens picked on Pippi. He left her wings unclipped so she could fly out of the chicken run. We did leave her wings unclipped so she can go where she wants to, but at our house, Pippi seems to be in control of the chickens!

T minus 7 days

2009-10-18T07:57:00.005-10:00

The weekends before a huge party are an excellent time to start large projects that you've been thinking about doing for over a year, right? right??

We've been wanting to move these huge planter boxes forEVAH. They are lovely, but we can't sit and watch the kids in the pool from the cool comfort of the shady lanai because of them.
Finally on Friday, Tyson and the gang came over to move them. Here they are, that am.
After they've gone. Everything seems SO much more open! But we can't leave it like that. Kids could purl off of the edge
GB and I spent 3 hours at Home Depot shopping for planters to go there. We brought back a bunch of stuff. Here we're laying out some red pots and some whitish planters.
Stand back and look..... hmmmm.... not sure if we like this.

Fortunately we also had Lena there helping. She and GB were chatting about what to do and GB remembered that we have a TON of terra cotta pots that he brought back from Thailand.

Much Better!

Here it is.... almost done! We had bought way more plants than we needed. Looks great!
Cora helped too! She planted petunias in these planters that already have stuff in them

Voila!

Planters in their new locale.... waiting to be filled (that's a future project- there are humongous!)

And... our 1st Ruby Red Grapefruit!!! This tree was a gift from the Biermans for our housewarming, last October 2008. Young tree produced 5 grapefruit.

this one was juicy and ONO!

What's new

2009-10-17T07:39:00.000-10:00

New stuff around the house!

Awesome bar GB found on craigslist. Here we are, breaking it in, on my birthday.

New pond. This is the 1st filling. It's leaking somewhere a bit. So we need to reseal it.More CONCRETE! Here, Eli and crew are working on steps to the chickens.

Beautiful sunrise

a few trees

2009-10-05T09:07:00.001-10:00

For the purposes of record-keeping.
Yesterday I planted 3 trees I picked up at the school Country Fair. I was going to get one, but since I had the tree on hold, by the end of the day the trees were all $10.

I came home with a dwarf valencia orange, navel orange and soursop.

Planted all 3 yesterday.

the Teen clears hau

2009-09-27T08:37:00.003-10:00

Ra'am has been clearing the hau on the hillside this summer (and beyond).

Here he is, way zoomed in- standing on a horizontal log, and whacking away.

See if you can spot him here, when I zoom out

The Flock Groweth

2009-09-27T08:16:00.004-10:00

Egg production has been low this summer. Between molting birds, lunar or other phenomena, we've been getting only 3ish eggs a day. That sounds like a decent amount, but not when you've got 1 teen, 1 almost teen, 1 preschooler and 2 adults. And, mama likes to bake.

So I went out and got us some more hens. We got 6 new ones, to add to the 8. Here are our original ones (all except for one broody hen, who has not left her nest in what seems like an eon). The babes (2 month old) are in that dog crate. I kept them separate for some days, as I didn't want the older hens to peck them too badly. Being henpecked is a real thing.
Here are the chicks. They are a mix of rhode island red (dad) and rhode island white (mama)- those breeds are 2 completely separate ones, according to our book.

First taste of the outside worldThis lady took a field trip with me over to where GB was planting grass. She'd never seen grass.

Luka enjoyed the small birdsand Makalena (not so small)

GRASS!

2009-09-27T08:11:00.003-10:00

Our attempt to beat out the weeds.

Adding plugs to the lawn

GRASS!

the Pond

2009-09-27T08:00:00.004-10:00

In our effort to get done some of the projects we don't seem to ever have time to get to...

We hired Heather and Anneke (of Green Lady Gardening) to make a pond for us. This pond will use the overflow from the water tank, provide a home for tillapia (which we may eat) and ducks.

On this day, Heather and Anneke had laid out the liner and were filling up the pond... and having way too much fun!

Of course it was so hot outside, I had to join in the fun!

Remiss bloggers

2009-09-27T07:49:00.003-10:00

Well apparently we've been really remiss in our blogging! Here it is, almost October, and there hasn't been an update since June!?!?! Maybe that means we haven't done any work here? LOL! Many projects have been started, some completed, some hired out....
I checked out my cache of photos and found these lovelies, taken by Luka, one July 4th.

I couldn't say *exactly* what we did this day. It's part of the whole fix-up-the-corner-of-the-house-and-the-walkway-to-the-chickens.

Clearly we were prepping for concrete

as usual, I am the mixer. it's like making bread

GB placing stones

teamwork

intrepid photographer self-portrait

birds part 2 and more goats

2009-06-29T08:10:00.003-10:00

We managed to finish the fencing yesterday and let the birds into their new enclosure. Everyone participated!
So far the hens have only explored the 1st couple of feet of it, and have been mostly concentrating on taking apart the berm they created against the bottom of the old fence.
GB mostly worked on another concrete intensive project- a walkway on 2 sides of the new chicken run. Here's an area he set up where the drainage pipe for the hillside will go under the walkway and then into the chicken run area and into a pond.
Most of his day was framing on this big project that will make it a lot easier to walk around and near the birds.

Our other weekend project was setting up the electric moveable goat fencing. We 1st put them under the big mango tree.... the grass was high there, there's tons of shade, and we could keep an eye on them from the house.

They came easily to the new enclosure and all seemed good until....
They came to the fence-line (to come to us) and when the 1st one got zapped by the fence and screamed, the others freaked and they all ran right into the fence and were immediately entangled! I ran to unplug the electricity and GB and I had a hell of a time trying to untangle them. We were almost ready to scrap the whole thing after that. It was scary.
But we tried again- with GB standing guard (and taking his lunch out with them). They have mostly stayed away from the fence since. They will touch it occasionally, but have seemingly learned their lessons!

We've been putting them in there in the day and then taking them back up to their paddock at night.
Yesterday was so beautiful and GB and I enjoyed the light as we went up to put them to bed.

Here I am feeding them a bit on the way up. They will do anything for food

birds!

2009-06-21T07:46:00.000-10:00

There's been a lot of bird related action and activities around here lately!
Firstly our friends were the lucky caregivers of a teeny bird who fell out of her nest. When they came for a visit, so did the birdie, who needed feeding every couple of hours.

Family project #3,462
Expand our chicken run
Our ladies have done a fine job creating all sorts of erosion on their hillside enclosure. There is not one speck of green there and they have made holes and dips.... and they just needed more space!
1st day:
GB, Karen, Noam and Luka are the primary workers. Ra'am is sick this day.
We're lucky.... in a work trade, David has set most of the poles for the fencing in the ground. He's also (with Ra'am's help) dug a trench on the gulch side so we can bury the fence.

Here's were getting ready

Noam tied fence to the T posts. There are a lot of T posts

There's a gate down there at the bottom. GB is on his way back up after helping Noam a bit.

Pau Hana! It's HOT, we're tired and the pool is calling!Expanded run.... more fencing still needed on the bottom (we needed MORE), but this part is done for now. You can see the brown part on the top (old area). The new part is the green to the left and below.

Luka helped for awhile, and then explored what it feels like to drown out sound.

Shortly thereafter, Ra'am found this baby bird under the big mango tree. He's a cardinal who must have fallen out when he tried to fly. The nest is impossibly high, so we cared for him for a couple of hours and then passed him on to the Pelkeys to rear.

Unrelated...

Luka in swimming lessons!

Weekend Warriors

2009-06-14T12:00:00.003-10:00

Yesterday Karen and I cleaned the koi pond and took the muck to feed the citrus trees. We also worked on propagating the Ti plants along the side of the house. Well, two weeks of stress at work manifested in my back going totally out yesterday after cleaning the pond, so today I was staff photographer while Karen and Ra'am did concrete work on the garden steps.

major cuteness

2009-04-27T15:40:00.004-10:00

Luka and I were visiting the goats and Milo came along. There was so much cuteness going on I ran down to the house for a camera.

Luka held Gandhi

Then we traded- he took the camera and I took the goat.

sweetest goat ever.Milo and Helo are very curious about each other

Milo is over it

Why are these goats so interested in me??

hmph. I'm outta here

cute Helo

cuteness all around

3 new kids!

2009-04-25T10:06:00.006-10:00

Yesterday Sue and I drove to Kona to pick up our 3 new kids! They are so sweet and we're in love. They're all almost 3 months old. The small one (maybe Gandhi) was born 2/7/09 and the other 2 (Neo and Helo?) were born 2/14/09.

Here are all 3 coming to see us

This one is sooooo sweet. He was the runt of his triplet littler. He's sucking on my finger

All 3 have blue eyes

The mostly black one and the one in the back are brothers.

sweet one lets us hold him

chickens.... we have 6 nesting boxes and all 8 use this same one. Here only 2 are struggling for space, but some days I've seen 4 in there (and for the record, they are about 12x12")!

Ke'o and 'Ele

2009-04-20T11:24:00.003-10:00

the other animals that live here

2009-04-19T13:17:00.006-10:00

yes, we do have quite a few animals that we take care of. We're currently have 3 boys, 2 lambs (castrated males), 8 hens (would like more), 3 cats, and many many fish. This Thursday I pick up 3 baby pygmy goats.

but we also have animals we don't intend to feed, but who are living off of us.

Like this wild chicken. She struts around out chicken coop, eating grain that has been pushed out.

she also struts around the pool

And the pigs!!! he's a picture of one lovey, who ran across the driveway while I was on my way home.
we have since seen at least 10 more. GB happened upon parents with 8! piglets!

and then while my parents were visiting we had a dog who was chasing a pig fall into our pool at 12:30am and almost drown.

life is certainly not boring

GARDEN!

2009-04-19T12:34:00.004-10:00

I just realized how I never put up pictures of the completed raied beds! And here I am with garden news....

Luka planted flowers- zinnias, sunflowers, calendula and marigolds
Here are his sprouts coming up on March 9, 2009

He also planted the pretty swiss chardHere he is on April 17th standing next to the same sunflower pictured in the first photo above!

Here are some photos of the veggie garden taken March 16th. We planted mostly greens then- bok choi, pak choi, several lettuces, kaleNoam's planting some bell peppers and some cukes

Here it is April 17th. We've been eating salads and stir fried greens regularly!

New Sheep!

2009-04-19T12:11:00.003-10:00

We decided to get some sheep to put in the lower pasture. It's farther away from the house, so not as easy to watch.... and goats are $$.

GB went today to pick them up while I stayed home and waited for the 7 tweens who slept over to be picked up.

He arrived home and I was surprised to find that he was so smitten with the sheep that he invited them into the cab of the truck!

(just kidding.... the roads were bad from his place and GB didn't want the poor things sliding and bouncing all over the back of the truck)

You can see the black one's (Blackie?) legs sticking out from the back seat.The guy we got them from had bound their legs with duct tape

.... so even after taking it off, Blackie here was still a little out of it.

Free at LAST!

Picking Up the Sheep

2009-04-19T10:15:00.000-10:00

I went to Shane's to pick up our new sheep. Of course I brought the truck, thinking I'd put the sheep in the back, but the road was so bumpy I decided to give the sheep a more comfortable ride.
Not, completely comfortable, but at least they weren't sliding into each other!

Our homestead from the air

2009-04-11T20:32:00.004-10:00

On my last flight in to Hilo I snapped a pretty good shot of our whole homestead. You can almost see where the top of our driveway touches the highway at the very top edge of the photo. You can see both our river gulches and if you look closely, you can even see our two goat sheds: one down by the river and the other halfway between our shed and the neighbor's (Glen's) house at the top of the page. Obviously you have to click on the picture to get the details.

Seems to be working

2009-03-12T12:14:00.003-10:00

At least the yucky work is paying off.
We've caught 8 mongoose. Today the trap lays empty (so far!).

Luka and I went out to the chickens and there was a hen sitting on 4 eggs. It's been awhile since 4 eggs could sit there w/o being snatched. That, and the chickens look "happy" (yes, I am anthropomophizing them).

We've had no luck on finding the goats, but have found 3 who will come live with us at the end of April.

Realities

2009-03-11T09:14:00.002-10:00

It's not all fun and paradise here.

Last week we were saddened to find our 3 goaties missing. We searched high and low but have found no trace of them- no trail of eaten plants, no trail of poop.....
We're not sure if they got out on their own and then someone scooped them up.... or if they were stolen straight from their pasture.... or if they're wandering the neighborhood.
It's been over a week now and we're so sad :(((

And then our chickens have been terrorized by mongoose. We're lucky that the mongoose don't seem to be interested in the chickens themselves (they have been known to kill them ruthlessly), but are taking eggs AND chicken feed.
Each time a mongoose crawls under the fence into the chicken run, the poor birds scream and run and get all agitated. Not only is it heartwrenching to see, but stressed chickens don't lay so well.

When I cleared some brush near the chicken run, I found food scraps, and a ton of eggshells.

If you live in HI you know what a pest these animals are. They were introduced here in 1883 to control rats. Too bad people people didn't realize then that mongoose are diurnal where rats are nocturnal. The damage they've done here in the endangered species capital of the world is huge.

So the bottom line is that we bought a trap, and have been extinguishing them. So far in 1.5 days we've caught 6 of them. We'll see how many we catch today. It's not fun, but it's real.

Goat shed complete(ish)!

2009-02-16T13:19:00.007-10:00

Building the goat shed
Day 1

It's wet.... but we're "free". GB and I went shopping for materials and brought them down to the site. The goats are very very curious.

All we did this afternoon was place the footings. Of course that took time, and it did rain on and off.

This is the goats' new river view.... lucky!

And rain sucks, but rain often= rainbows. This is just above us- towards the oceanThe day was not lost.... we went up to the shed so GB could cut down some 4x4s and some roofing. Check out the sparks flying!

Day 2:
GB was planning on animating.... but the Biermans offered to take Luka and I felt we should take advantage of the nice weather and child free day.

Here we start

A short while later things are taking shape

Rocky, Diego and Weed are curious. What ARE these humans doing??

Apparently Karen makes faces when she uses power tools. We borrowed Jake's sawzall....

This face helps her cut wood more effectively

gutters up (to catch rainwater into a pond for them.... no hoses down here!)

Then Karen had to leave to chauffeur children around.... so GB finished up ALL of the cleaning and putting in the small pond (thanks!)

Day 3:
The shed needs some paint on it so it'll last longer. So Luka and I head down to prime the boards.

He's telling me important things here

Of course it's important to take a lot of breaks. The goats love these weed-y gunpowder trees, and Luka knows it.

Done for now! It's lunch time!

And on the way up for lunch we see Ra'am and Noam. They had a 2 hour mandatory pull miconia session today. Here's Noam looking for more

And you can barely see Ra'am up there (with nasty miconia in the foreground) pulling weeds. He's on the hillside.

Now all we need for the shed is a coat of real paint and we're done. Sun is shining.... better get out there before it starts raining again!

Need Goat shelter!

2009-02-15T09:41:00.004-10:00

we moved to goats, but they didn't have a shelter yet in their new pasture. I felt like eating was more important..... but I did put the large dog crate that we brought them home in down there.

Yesterday we got started on their shelter and it began to rain, and I saw that indeed, they are using the crate. All 3 go in at the same time!

does this make us real farmers?

2009-02-13T19:04:00.003-10:00

Today GB and I trimmed the goat's hooves. This was a job I was really really dreading, but one that is totally necessary. Unfortunately we had no photographer, to show us wrangling with 3 little goats. But, for the record.... GB held each goat lovingly in his arms (after an initial freak-out they mostly calmed down and ate the grain we had for them), while I trimmed. I won't say it wasn't scary, but I do have a wee bit of experience trimming kids' nails.

The goats love their new home. All is good in the world of Rocky, Diego, and Weed.

moving the goats

2009-02-08T13:42:00.005-10:00

Well the goats have been with us for a little over 4 months and they have eaten everything they like in their pasture. So we set out to make them a new one.

Busy GB decided it was worth it for us to hire someone to do it.... so we did.

Yesterday they told me that the pasture was done. So today Luka, Silas and I got the goats ready for the great migration of February 2009.

Silas was a little nervous. He thought we should have them on leashes or something. He doesn't understand about goats and the power of food.

We lured them out with a bucket of sweet grain. He's Luka showing them the way..... not towards the house, THAT way!They clearly know how to play follow the leader.

IN! And happily eating!

what? no more food???

More property!

2009-02-02T09:04:00.003-10:00

Well we bit the bullet and bought the adjacent property to ours. It's over 2 acres, and the best part about it is that the property includes 50% ownership in the driveway (the one we've fixed, but didn't own, just had access to).

Last week we got the survey map to and went to go explore exactly where it was.

On the way GB and I visited the goats... they were really happy to see us

The property was not exactly where we expected and was unexpectedly a lot cooler than we thought it would be!

Most of it is down in a gulch- no river runs through it, and it's flat and wide down there.

Here I am climbing down

It's obviously completely overgrown. After some earthworks we'll get a true idea of what's going on there, but this is what it looks like right now!

Hi GB!

This property abuts the highway so we thought it would be a perfect place to put GB's office. However, since our Hakalau house isn't selling (nothing is), we are thinking he'll move his office into there and build after we sell... when the market returns to more favorable times.
In the meanwhile there is a great spot for a pond, and we think the goats will love it there. :D

rock walls!

2009-02-02T08:46:00.004-10:00

Our poor little neglected blog...... to think that NOTHING has happened on the farm/ house since November!?!?!

Actually the big project has been rock wall building. We had a garden site all mapped out, and knew we wanted to put in raised beds, but didn't know how we would construct them. We've done bamboo (fast and cheap, but biodegrades fairly quickly here) and wood (rots over time, but not too $$). In the end we decided to go with a more permanent solution.... one that our grandkids would see. So ROCK it was!

I can't even remember how many many bags of concrete and mortar we've used so far. We did buy a small concrete mixer, which has been a HUGE lifesaver. Everyone in the family has helped at least a little- but it's mostly been GB and I working on Fridays.

I don't even know if I have pictures from when we began! It's such messy work that it's hard to have the camera outside!
These are from last week.... almost done!

In this photo you can see the bottom of the wall is almost done. The left side is still short, but the right is complete. You can also kind of see that we were doing some steps up to where the chicken coop is... those got redone already

close up of the completed side

this part of the wall is in the lowest spot, and so it's taken the longest to finish. It's not done here in this photo. And the stairs are here on the left, before being redone.

Here's GB starting work on the upside of the bed. Since that part of the wall wasn't going to be really holding back any soil, we felt we could get away with doing it mortarless. We also had a new delivery of huge rocks and decided to use those--- they proved to be a LOT more work. Oh well!

More photos to come of the whole shebang, since we did complete it on Friday!

the Kids

2008-11-15T21:57:00.001-10:00

The goats are very bold these days. They are mostly motivated by their tummies....

When we go to feed them now, they will happily jump up on us to get to the yogurt container full of grain and alfalfa.

Here's Diego
aren't his eyes pretty?

I tried to get a picture of all 3 on me at once.... but between the food in my hand, them pushing against me, and the camera....

at least I got both Rocky and Diego together : D

Here's another kid

And baby rambutan! They look so cute on the tree

Naked Farm Work

2008-10-30T21:47:00.002-10:00

Who says you need to get dressed to do farm chores like feed the goats??

No need clothes to get the food

No need clothes to walk up the long road
Hey, goats are naked too!They could care less what we wear.... as long as the food is there!

Kitty Love

2008-10-27T21:38:00.002-10:00

Some cute kitty pictures.

Here's Milo playing on the couch, in the glare of the rising sunMakalena is not interested in Milo

Hokulani loves to drink water from the fish pond. Our cats have never liked bowls of water, preferring moving water.

When she drinks, the fish all come to her- they think they're being fed... she hasn't eaten one yet ; )

the newest member of our family

2008-10-09T11:23:00.003-10:00

Meet Milo!

I mistakenly told GB that he never surprises me..... so one day he came home for lunch and had me close my eyes. When I opened them, Milo was in my arms.

Born at the end of August and adopted by us at 7ish weeks old.

He's very spunky. This is a rare cuddly moment.

Common look. He talks a LOT. (I guess as annoying as it is sometimes, he fits right in to our loquacious household!)

First contact

Makalena and Hokulani are tolerating him. No one has swiped at him, but there is lots of hissing.... I expected as much.

Goat News

2008-10-06T08:21:00.000-10:00

The goats are getting more and more used to us.... plus they'll do almost anything for food.

Here's Rocky, just getting comfy being fed from my hand.Diego is very interested, but not enough to actually touch me.

But when I come to feed them, they all 3 run to the gate to greet me.

On our way to school one morning we found these rascally goats Outside of the LARGE gated enclosure. Turns out they can squeeze their little bodies in a 6" square. They were coming thru a gap in the gate- the temporary patch job was a piece of hardware cloth leftover from the concrete work.... I watched Rocky jump right thru the small holes in the cloth. Goats are crafty!!!

New Koi!

PARTY!

2008-10-05T13:56:00.000-10:00

After the house blessing, the party continued.

Firstly we moved all of the tables from the mango tree to the house. It had started to rain and the food was getting wet and our guests were standing under the tarp looking at it.

The potluck meal was awesome. People brought great food. It was delish!

The kids (and many adults went back into the pool). The pool saw a lot of action this day!

Our friend Jake offered to be the bartender for our party. He gave me a list of some stuff to buy.... but boy did he TRULY exceed everyone's expectations. I think he missed his true calling.

Here is Jake with Jeb, his cousin, and fellow bartender who went on to complete the Ironman Triathlon the following weekend in Kona.And here is the drink menu. I believe that Sue came up with a lot of this. Please click to make bigger..... it was so creative.

The Jewish Princess was created for moi. Love & Sax is the name of GB's move
We didn't take a huge amount of pictures at the party because we were too busy having fun. Seriously it was probably the funnest party we've had.
Tons of friends were there. Most of the guys who built the house and pool were there (taking the kudos they deserve, I hope). And everyone seemed to get along great.
Someone (Kathy?) did pull GB and I aside and got us to take a couple of pictures. You can see the TV on in the background there. Pool parties are exhausting for little ones, so they always spend the 2nd half of the party catatonic.

Oh, and we also rolled Noam and my birthdays into the party... here we are being sung to

And the cake...
Next huge party? Noam's Bar Mitzvah- 10/24/08!!! Don't miss it!

House blessing

2008-10-04T13:41:00.000-10:00

We had an awesome housewarming party on October 4th. After all of mega amounts of work that have gone into the house and land (so far!), we were so ready to share our home with friends and celebrate.

We were extremely fortunate that Kainani and Halealoha offered to do a Hawaiian house blessing for us. The party was fun, but their blessing felt so right.

The 5 of us entered the house, along with Kainani and Halealoha.

The two of them chanted as we entered. We went to the 4 corners of the house and blessed them with water from the sea.
Halealoha also cut this maile lei with a ko'i. The lei represents the umbilical cord (as we gave birth to the house). He cut the cord, with GB helping by holding a board behind. The part that came off is the piko.

When that was complete, they sang again, and then we all shared some poi.

GB invited in our guests to all have some poi.

It was really magical!

kids with kids

2008-10-01T13:35:00.000-10:00

Day 3 since we adopted Rocky, Diego and Weed. They are still really scared of us.

I tried pairing kids with kids

Animals!

2008-09-30T08:53:00.000-10:00

When we got back from picking up the goats, Rocky, Diego and Weed, GB found an ad on craigslist for chickens.....
I went right out and picked up 8 of them. They are new layers (almost all of them) and doing great!

Our first egg

Rocky, Diego and Weed

2 adults, 6 kids

2008-09-29T22:00:00.004-10:00

GB and I are proud to announce we're now the proud parents of SIX kids.... ALL BOYS!

Introducing.....

Down to their bedroom

What? You are too afraid to come out??

Noam tried to feed them by hand.... but they were very afraidHere's Weed

This is DiegoRocky.... he's the "boldest"

How things are looking

2008-09-26T21:45:00.000-10:00

The planter boxes around the koi pond proved to be a huge amount of work to fill. But GB finished them all off.... and we bought a large palm to fill up the space (and think we need another).

The pool deck has been acid washed and is awaiting sealing.
Sunrise. I woke up and this was so amazing (but too early!).... so I took a shot and went back to bed.

And GB's folks sent these awesome floaties for the pool! No blowing up.
GB looks comfy, no?

In Preparation

2008-09-20T20:57:00.000-10:00

Way back when we put up some fencing.
It sat and sat and sat... waiting for some animals to enclose it.
They also needed a shelter. Friday we poured concrete for the footings. Saturday- a BLAZING hot and dry day, GB and I started work.

Here I am with the 4x4s that hold up the structure
Did I say it was hot?? This photo, I believe was taken after lunch. I was very crabby by then. But we needed to get it done!
We were motivated, because three little goats were waiting to be picked up by us at the end of the month. And they needed a structure!
Here it's almost complete. GB and I added a gutter and a small pond for water. And then Luka, Osiana and I painted it bright yellow!
We're ready for you, goats!

Pool Fun!

2008-09-14T16:04:00.000-10:00

This Saturday we had our first pool party!

The pool quickly filled with kids- funny how they gravitate like that
The adults stayed at the deep end- trying to chat amid the chaotic screams of joy

They chatted and drank

And as the sun went down, the lights went on.... and the little kids (and then the big kids) moved inside for a movie

The adults continued to chat and drink
And the kids swam some more
and moreIt was an awesome time.

Pool!

2008-09-10T19:11:00.000-10:00

We returned home from a trip to the mainland, and the pool was done!

The boys and I had a long journey back.... 10 hours from Newark to Honolulu and then a short flight home. We arrived at 9pm at home- which is 3am east coast time. But were we ever excited to see the pool!!! So we jumped right in.

The lights are programable and they change colors.

Pool progress

2008-08-30T10:06:00.005-10:00

We've certainly been enjoying the house and land.... but what we're REALLY waiting for eagerly is the pool. It's looking really awesome!

got concrete?

2008-08-18T09:57:00.000-10:00

Phase 1 of the driveway is done! It's not yet ready for driving on, but for walking? Perfect! Here's Luka and Safta enjoying the smooth ride.Another gorgeous sunrise

breakfast time

Another early am shot

We put city boy to work!

2008-08-05T08:25:00.000-10:00

My dear brother Mike was visiting for a couple of days. He's a city boy at heart, but was really helpful and dealt well with the chaos that is our house right now. Here's Luka walking up the "driveway". I tell you.... gravel is nice, but walking up this every time we leave the house? Getting old!
Here's Mike on the way up. Despite the heat we put him in pants because of the mosquitos. They love him.
We needed to put the auger on the tractor so we could dig a hole for the telephone pole. Yup.... telephone saga not over yet.
It's not hard work, but dirty and requires a couple of people. I was happy not to be one of those!

Done!

progress

2008-08-01T06:42:00.000-10:00

Just because we moved in doesn't mean everything is done!
We had wanted to wait until it was ALL done. But the house was complete.... and the thought of it sitting there, empty was just TOO much!
Plus.... school would start soon (in the beginning of Aug) and mainland visitors were coming. SO we moved and have been living with construction around us.

Here's the fish tank getting filled up (with Luka in the background)

And pool tile!

Braces OFF!

2008-07-29T06:35:00.000-10:00

Ra'am was gone for the move. He was on a most adventurous backpacking trip in Idaho.
After being back for 1 day, we swept him away to 69 beach for a 5 day beach vacation (I know, rough life!).

Upon our return, after 3.5 years, Ra'am got his braces off!!!

Sunrise

2008-07-23T06:30:00.000-10:00

One benefit to being exhausted and falling to bed early every night is that you wake up super early. That means that we've seen lots of sunrises here. And they've been spectacular.

Day 1

2008-07-21T06:17:00.000-10:00

We're back online!
And in my orderly sense of things, I need to chronicle our first month here in chronological order.

Since it had been so long since our last move (about ten years), I had forgotten how exhausting it is! GB and I fell into bed and I don't think I remember being that tired. But it was a good fatigue because we had finally made it!

GB set to work right away unpacking. He found an excellent place to put all of his sci-fi books that are smaller- like old sized paperbacks. We have 4x4s all over our walls- they are perfect.

The light that comes in the front windows is incredible. I believe this is in the early morning.

Here's Kika......
The cats were pretty freaked by the movers and stuff, so we went and got them and locked them in my office here. After a couple of days we let them out on the lanai. Kika looked the most at ease and comfortable. But a couple of nights after we moved, he jumped off of the lanai railing and never returned : ( we miss him terribly. This is the last picture we have of him.

We MOVED!

2008-07-20T14:26:00.002-10:00

We successfully transported most of our stuff to our new house on Thurs July 18th!

We've slept there 3 nights now... sleeping has been fitful... there's so much going on (read moving is stressful and a ton of work)... were still moving stuff out of our Hakalau house... and the moon has been so BIG and FULL this week. All of those windows are letting in a huge amount of moonlight!

We took tons of pics, but we're taking an internet break at the new house (i.e. phone and internet aren't done yet), so I'll get them up later.

We're in our NEW HOUSE!

Moving Day

2008-07-17T17:37:00.000-10:00

It's been so long since we've moved. We lived in the Hakalau House for 9.5 years. That's a long time- a lot of accumulated memories (Luka was born on the living room floor!), accumulated stuff, and accumulated crap.

Here's some shots of what it looked like before the movers arrived. Boxes everywhere

When the movers arrived, I went to drop off the kids and prep the new house while GB directed the move.Of course we've had like 3 weeks of NO rain, and on our move day the rain fell. Perhaps it's like rain on your wedding day.... after that everything is uphill?

It rained on and off all morning. It wasn't too bad, but it did make the ramp off of the moving truck slippery.The photos and the lack thereof make it look like it was a piece of cake. I assure you it was not! We had some heavy things (like the piano), and the 6 movers worked their butts off- as well as did GB and I.

The kids happily returned from a day of play to their new house!

And we all enjoyed our first dinner together on the lanai (Ra'am is on the mainland).

Finally final...but not finale

2008-07-16T12:36:00.004-10:00

Kudos to Jeff. It is rare a house this "complicated" has no issues for the inspector, but indeed today we got our final from the county. We can move in!!!! Karen is ecstatic!!!!

But wait there is more. Driveway (we'll have to walk the 1/2 mile drive with groceries once work starts on it), drain causeway (to help prevent another landslide), the pond (should be done this week), and of course the pool (no definite schedule). So, we will be living in a construction zone for the next month or so...small price to pay to live in our wee bit of paradise!

"Work" day

2008-07-12T17:41:00.001-10:00

We did get a lot done. I planted a bunch of banana trees. Trimmed up some of the landscape with the tractor. Karen cleaned the new kitchen. Moved some stuff into the house. We both did some mulching and watering. Karen and I laid out where the raised beds were going and plotted out the chicken coop and chicken run. We also took a very, very long lunch break looking out at our beautiful view. Watching the birds fly and sipping cool drinks from our new refrigerator.

Some say that it will be very hard to get anything done once we move...I am hesitant to disagree!