Natural Farming Symposium

We've been a little busy lately... so what's new, right? Well, this, for one:

Today is the last day of this first annual event so I finally have a chance this morning to catch my breath. The turnout has been fantastic with 150-200 in attendance according to my unofficial count. Australia was well represented, and many flew in from the mainland to participate, as well as from neighbor islands. It's been lovely to catch up with our Natural Farming friends and to make new friends with those who are just starting on this path.

The pig panel: Mike D, Mike H, Neena, Atto

Mike was on the pig panel where experienced piggery operators talked about the KNF way of raising pigs humanely, with no smell, no flies, and zero runoff. The idea is already implemented around the globe, well adapted in Hawaii, and finally gaining a toehold on mainland US. Microbes, living soil, embracing instinctual behaviour... these are a few of the key factors in our success. 

Julius, me, Emily, Kaika

And on the chicken panel was yours truly, in good company. Two of us raise laying hens and two raise broilers. Two are commercial producers. All utilize Korean Natural Farming. (And at least three of us were awfully nervous beforehand. But we all survived and did just fine.) Good Q&A afterwards, and I sold a bunch more copies of my book, too.

Dana speaking about Hawaiian cultural connections with growing food

Today is the last day of the symposium, a day mainly comprised of farm tours, and though ours is not on the official tour (showcasing larger operations and school farms) we do have several people coming by for the unofficial version. Then, this evening is the final soiree, with our State Senator, and the premier screening of In Search of Balance - "a documentary highlighting the health benefits of IMOs and Natural Farming."

Kudos to those who worked hard to put on the symposium. Even old-timers like us have been learning a new trick or two and I think everyone is coming away enthused to do more.
Spread the knowledge - and all those good microbes - everywhere!

Piglets for Sale!

Only four piglets left to sell: two uncut males and two females. (All the rest have been spoken for and we are keeping two for ourselves.) These are from our fourth generation of Natural Farmed hogs, born-and-bred right here on our farm, and of the highest quality. They already weigh between 35-40 pounds apiece! Any of them would make excellent breed pigs, or of course, they'd be great for meat.

More information on these not-so-little piggies here on my farm blog.

100th Hubbell Bubble Chicken Coop!

Last Saturday we drove down to the shoreline... not to swim or sunbathe at the beach, or even to walk along the coast... but to help build a chicken coop for Kua O Ka La, the Hawaiian immersion school next to the Ahalanui warm pond. It was part of a series of Natural Farming talks that have been taking place there since October.

We have really enjoyed this series which has included such topics as the Hawaiian moon calendar, cultivating 'uala (sweet potato) and kalo (taro), and will conclude with the big 'Ulu Festival next month. This time it was a more hands-on project: building a chicken coop for the school.

 

There was a good turnout and everyone joined in, one way or another. 

Even the younger keiki got to try their hands at coop-building.

Many hands make light work... and the coop was just finished in only two hours!

Once the coop was completed, there was a little blessing. Hawaiian chanting always gives me "chicken skin" and this time was no exception, though the day was hot and sunny. There was also a special presentation: Mike was chosen for the first annual Natural Farmer's Award! He was so surprised! It was announced that this is the 100th Hubbell Bubble chicken coop built on the islands - and that's just counting the ones that the UH-CTAHR Extension Office is aware of!

There were representatives from both Kua O Ka La and the Kamehameha Schools in attendance, as well as a member of the Maui County Council. The word about Natural Farming is spreading!

At then end of the morning, it's all about the friendship and camaraderie of doing good work together. Mahalo to all who helped.

My First Official Book Review!

Word is starting to spread about the farm book. Yay! We took a boxful to the local Natural Farm meeting last month, and online orders have been trickling in. And of course, folks who come to our farm for the tour have been snapping them up!

My friend Sonia Martinez, Big Island food writer and blogger, wrote a great review of my book for Hawai'i Homegrown Food Network. It was published in this month's issue.

Go ahead and take a moment to read the book review HERE. (No worries; link will open a new window.) And then, order your own copy if you haven't already! ;-)

Meet the Piggies...

On a farm, most working animals are female.  They are the ones to give birth, produce the milk, lay the eggs.  So I thought it was about time to properly introduce the working girls of Hubbell's Hog Heaven.

First, we have Big Mama (aka Big Girl).  She had her first litter in May: 7 girls & 1 boy.  Big Mama lives up to her name, being the largest sow in the piggery at 420 lbs!

Spot is a sister of Big Mama.  She's such a friendly girl!  They were both born last year on Independence Day, so are a little over a year old now.  Spot weighs 400 lbs.  Her first litter was born in June: 1 girl & 7 boys.  Both these sows have been bred again, and are due to farrow in December.

Penelope is Big Mama's daughter.  She weighs in at 110 lbs.  (All these weights were taken about 3 weeks ago, so they actually weigh more by now.)  She's a bit skittish still; we'll need to handle her a lot more to help calm down her nervous personality.

Then there's Freckles, or Frecklebutt - so called due to freckles guess where.  Well, we needed a way to tell all those squirmy piglets apart!  She's from Spot, and is a little cutie at 50 lbs.  Both Penelope & Freckles will be raised up to increase our breedstock.  They're keepers.

And here we have Hammy, Freckles' brother and the lone boy of the group.  His dark coloration, and Freckles' freckles are from their Landrace-Hampshire-Yorkshire cross heritage.  Hammie is mellow and so soft.  He will fill our freezer at a later date, once he's big enough for the hams and bacon we all crave.  Right now, he's about 60 lbs.


Huli-girl was Penelope's sister.  I say "was" because, well, her name describes her fate.  She was well cared for, and met her end in the most humanely possible way.  She never felt any pain.  Yes, I cried when I said my goodbyes and thank you to her.

Huli-girl became the star of our recent lu'au and was much appreciated by everyone present.  She weighed over 100 lbs and dressed out at 80 lbs.  I must say this was the most delicious pig I ever tasted, spit-roasted to perfection by Chris Hara.  If you're on-island and need someone to do the pig for your next lu'au, he's the guy to get.

In related news:  We recently hosted what may have been our most important farm tour yet, as part of the Swine Seminar held in Hilo last month.  Ours was one of three piggeries chosen for the field trip portion of the two-day seminar.  Among the participants were several officials from various State and Federal agencies, including the guy who's in charge of rewriting and updating the laws regarding the housing aspects of swine production on a national level.  He was very pleased with what he saw here, and will be recommending Korean Natural Farming method of raising pigs as one of the "best practice methods" soon to be okayed for the entire US!! This is HUGE!!! And this is what we've been working towards with our 'crazy' barn with pens 3 feet above ground level... utilizing micro-organisms to do the work for us... no waste treatment necessary... and all the rest.  Mission accomplished!

Young Chicks!

A few weeks ago, Mike came home with an incubator from the local feed store.  I've always wanted to try out one of these contraptions, but have always had a broody hen to do the hatching nature's way.  Well, not this time.  One of the Buffies did get broody, but she changed her mind right about the time I was ready to let her go ahead and set on a clutch of eggs.  Incubator to the rescue!

I chose 20 eggies of different colors from our mixed flock of chickens.  The automatic egg-turner took care of that aspect for me, so all I had to do was keep an eye on the temperature.  99.5 degrees is optimal.  Three weeks passed...

 Last Sunday, the first little peeps could be heard and a tiny hole appeared on the shell of one egg.  We were so excited!  The first chick hatched out the next morning, with 10 more following throughout the next several days and nights.  It's important to not 'help' the chicks out of their shells; they have to do it themselves or they don't survive.  Some of them would have little bits of shell stuck to their feathers until they dried all the way.  And of course, they were pretty wobbly for a few hours until they found their legs.  We kept them in the incubator for the extra warmth during this time.

Once each one was beginning to fluff out, it was moved to the holding box, a nice warm spot right next to the incubator, that had a hot water bottle to snuggle up with.

 Baby chicks don't need any food or water for their first three days.  They have their yolk sac to nourish them during this time.  One little chick had a prolapsed yolk sac and that one died, but the others thrived and are enjoying their new home in the brood pen.  We have that set up in one of the empty stalls of the piggery, so they are in good company.

 We all enjoy spending time out in the piggery with the animals, and the piggies seem to really enjoy having us nearby as well.  Of course, they do: extra pets and scratches!  By the way, Big Girl is getting really big, and she still has 1-1/2 months before her piglets will be born.  Spot is pregnant too, and coming along nicely at just over a month now.  Fingers crossed they're both good mamas and have lots of healthy babies.

I'm already itching to start another batch of eggs in the incubator soon.  Several friends have inquired about getting chicks to increase their flocks, and I want to increase mine, too.  I can sell as many eggs as we can produce these days.  We have our regular customers who come to the farm, as well as those who buy them at the big farmer's market in Hilo.  People seem to know a good thing when they eat it!

Newbies!

Here's how we spent our Independence Day: monitoring and helping our sow Suey with her first litter!

One little piglet needed assistance, and two others needed help breaking free of the sac, but Suey did just fine. The babies eventually figured out the whole business of nursing, and how to nap while a half-dozen siblings clambered on top. The runt of the litter is a little scrapper, and since he survived his first night, there is a good chance he will make it. Time will tell.

After spending the entire afternoon in the piggery, from 12:30 to 7:00pm, we at last turned in, filthy and exhausted, but feeling quite pleased with a healthy litter of ten.

But Suey had a surprise for us... two, in fact...

When Mike got up to check during the night, there was an 'extra' piglet... he counted several times just to be sure. And later, on his second check, yet another!! I guess this isn't all that unusual for the pig birthing process, but it sure caught us off-guard. This brings the total piglet count to 12!

 They are some of the cutest little critters ever, but no, we are not naming them. We don't name our food.


Edited to add: We were just told by our U-H Ag Extension agent that this is the very first CGNF-raised litter of pigs in the entire USA!! There are other piggeries using the Natural Farm method, based on master Cho's teachings, but they aren't doing the breeding aspect of pig-raising. I hadn't realized quite how cutting edge we were!! ;-)

Hubbell's Hog Heaven!

 I'm sitting here at my desk, windows wide open to let in the warm breezes... and finally, I have a chance to catch you all up with all the doings on our little farmlet. Those of you on Facebook have been seeing the progress as it happens, or pretty close anyway, but for the rest of you, I know what you're thinking: It's about time!!

We've had more of our 'lot next door' cleared, but left a buffer of jungly growth along the street for now.  
There is now a perimeter fence of woven wire enclosing everything that wasn't already behind the chainlink fence that came with the house when we bought the place. Enormously big, huge thank-yous to our friends who came to help with that project!








Every single post hole had to be drilled with a rock drill, then the metal post pounded in place. With all the help, it only took a few hours to do what would have taken Mike and I a week, at least.

   









Since putting up the fence, no roaming dogs have gotten in (as they had twice before), and the wild pigs have left their mark on the outside of the fence, where they belong. So far, so good.










Our driveway has been regraded, and graveled this time, as opposed to cindered. Makes a nice hard surface that the rains can still soak through, so no slippy mud puddles any more. The new driveway gate is something we're still getting used to.



Next up: The piggery, which has been named Hubbell's Hog Heaven, which was built over the past few months...

and the first pen was completed and filled just last week.











Some of our fellow Natural Farmers came to help with that. It took some preparation and arranging to get all the inputs needed for this Korean Natural Farm method of creating the 3-foot deep bedding, but it's worth it since this is the only way to raise pigs without any odor and almost no flies! And of course, it had a Hawaiian twist since we utilized the different materials available here.

A layer of logs sets over 6 inches of soil.

Palm fronds, shredded coconut husks, and wood chips cover the logs.

Layers of sawdust and cinder soil fill up the pen...

... and get spread around.

Various inputs are spread over each layer: IMO4, sea salt, biochar. This is what makes the Natural Farm method work!

The finished pen with its fencing installed. Mike's adding the door.

A large area behind the piggery was also cleared and cindered deeply to create an area to grow food crops for the pigs, chickens, and ourselves. We already have cassava starts, moringa tree seedlings, kalo (taro), kabocha squash, and pineapples planted back there.










Soon to go in the ground are sugar cane, bananas, sweetpotato, papaya, and another ulu (breadfruit) tree or two. This combination will give the animals a complete feed and we won't have to buy the pelleted variety from the feed store any more... but it'll take a while to get to that point.




The biggest news is: we now have pigs!! Lola and Suey arrived on our farm just a few days ago. Both are 5-6 month old Chester White cross, just about ready to be bred. They had been raised on a concrete slab in their own poop, not quite the industrial farm thing but not far enough from it. Mike and I felt like we were doing an animal rescue in bringing these two gilts out of that environment.


They had never been on dirt before and as soon as we could coax them out of the travel cage and into their new home, they were indeed in hog heaven. Dirt to root in! And to roll in! And to just bury one's snout in!! Their curly piggy tails wag with happiness! And I swear I can see them smile.








They are still both pretty skittish, but are calming down considerably already. Both will now come over to the fence when I talk to them, will take treats of sweet potato vines, and let me touch their ears and noses.

Mike has been doing their morning feeding, and this morning he was able to give them a few pets and do some raking inside the pen while they ate. It takes time, but gentle ways work wonders. We hear their happy grunts and soft snuffling snorts all day long, so I know we are on the right path.

Aloha!

PS: (Please excuse the crazy configuration of this post... I've been working on it for hours. That's what happens when they go and 'improve' the blog site. arrgh)