DISASTER!!!

Our chickens were attacked by dogs in the wee hours this morning.

What a horrible sound to wake up to. Chickens squawking & screaming all around, feathers everywhere, and 2 young pitbulls tearing into them. Three hens were killed - well, two were and one was so badly injured that Mike had to put it out of its misery. Several others were so traumatized that we thought they were dead at first. Several are missing feathers and one other is limping. The poor birds didn't know what hit them since it was pitch dark and they were still roosting.

We didn't recognize the two dogs but we sure will if we see them again - which is quite likely since if they kill once, they'll be back. They both had tags (I could hear them jangling as they ran past me). Thank goodness they didn't attack us! We had run out in our jammies, yelling at them to get out of there. Thank goodness Mike was sleeping lightly at the time... we think it was the first excited yips of the dogs that woke him and he heard the first squawks of the hens.

All plans for the day have been canceled, but we're most worried about tonight... I think those dogs will come back for more. They had torn through the chicken wire underneath where the nest box butts up to the fence. There's a piece of tin there now. But chicken wire is really no match for a determined dog; we may have to add something stronger around the lower part of the chicken yard, like field fencing, hogwire, or chainlink.

We decided that we'll bury the victims of the massacre in the back of our new garden area. That's the most soil we have, but it will still be a shallow grave, so we will have to cover it with rocks. At least this way it's not a total waste... they will fertilize our crops. Circle of life.

I'm still shaking. And Mike's looking up traps & alarms & fencing & so on. And we're wondering about our ideas & plans of backyard farming here...

June & July Happenings

It has been a hot and busy couple of months! Here's a sampling of what we've been up to recently.

We did another coop-building demo in June. This time it was a group of Hawaiians who invited us to erect a Hubbell Bubble on one of the Panaewa Farm Lots. Many hands made light work of it and the coop went from a pile of lumber, wire and plastic on our trailer...
... to the finished coop, all ready and waiting for chickens to move in. The whole thing took less than two hours!!


The next big thing was the clearing of our Lot Next Door (as we call it for lack of a better term for our lot next door). The first order of business was to move the rest of our cinder pile to an out-of-the-way location. Here's a before picture with Ashley on his tractor:This one, taken from the same vantage point as above, shows the gray crushed rock in place for the future piggery. Notice also, our most amazing discovery... something more precious than gold in this land of lava rock and cinders: DIRT!! Whoo-hoo! It's the dark brown stuff to the left in this photo. We had Ashley pile it up to create a new garden area:
Two dump truck loads of red cinder to cover the disturbed area:
This created a lovely, smoother driveway that extends beyond the carport canopy and Mike's shop. You can see the piggery rock just peeking out behind the shop, and the slightly elevated new garden area beyond that: So far, we have planted taro, sweet potatoes and yams, 2 starfruit seedlings, 2 longan seedlings, a mamay sapote, pigeon peas, watermelons, and pineapple, as well as a few herbs and flowers. There's still room for papaya and banana, too. We think of it as our semi-permanent garden area for the food-forest type plantings. Meanwhile, Mike is still working on plans for the piggery.

Let me put to rest the rumors that we do nothing but work hard! You should know better than that!
We hosted our International Dinner Group for a Pre-Independence Day party, with the emphasis on 'independence'.
We did tours of our backyard chickens in the original Hubbell Bubble... ... the edible landscaping... ... the future piggery site, solar electric panels and solar water heater. There was a participatory reading of the Declaration of Independence...... horse shoes and darts... ... and of course, loads of good people and good food.
And then there was the wonderful beach bbq day we had just yesterday with some of our closest friends. We just recently discovered this beautiful 'secret' spot on Hilo Bay - well, it was a secret from us since we'd always just driven right past it. Now it's our new favorite beach park!I hope you all are having as much fun this summer as we are!
Aloha,
Liz

Happy Father's Day!

I want to acknowledge and send my deep appreciation to the dads in my life:

My own Dad who has always been there for me throughout my life...

Mike, the father of my children...

and my son Chris, who has become a wonderful daddy to his own kiddos...
Thanks for sticking it out, you lovely men, and for doing a great job for your families.
I love each of you so very much!
And I wish you a Happy Father's Day!!

PS: Son-in-law Dave will soon be joining these ranks! Happy Father-to-be...

Back in the Swing of Things!

Finally, we are feeling back to normal (no snide comments please!) and ready to join the living once more. Had a nice dinner-and-dice evening with a good friend last Friday... and no relapse the next day. We ventured a little further and did a big grocery shopping in Hilo... still standing. So yesterday I went to work on the yard that had been somewhat neglected for the duration, pruning and hauling branches away, dumping bucketloads of weeds to the chickens in their yard. Meanwhile, Mike poured another footing for the big screenhouse.

This morning, in dire need of some muscle relaxant after yesterday's exuberance, we decided to restart our "Monday mornings at the warm pond" routine. And I'm so glad we did! We had somehow fallen out of this delightful habit well before I got sick. It was high time to resume. This one of the most wonderful places on the island - and a major reason for us choosing this spot to live, being only 20 minutes away.

We arrived just before a very low low-tide, a minus-tide in fact, and the water was clear and warm. Not many people there at all. Maybe the cloudy weather kept them elsewhere but that's just fine. We made our way to the far side of the pond where there's a little rock table to set our beach bags upon. Down the steps into the perfect temperature water - aaahhh.... You can just feel all your cares being gently floated away, while tiny cleaner fish nibble on your toes, giving you a 100 dollar pedicure for free.

Most of the bottom of the pond is rocky, but we floated over to the sandy area closer to where the water enters from the ocean. As we were admiring the view, one of the other couples drifted closer and asked, "Do you have a daughter named Lori who lives in Alaska?" Turns out these were friends of Lori & Dave's (who are taking care of their cats & garden starts back in Anchorage while they're on vacation)! What a surprise - and what a fun morning visiting with Tim & Jen, sharing places to see and things to do, both here and in Anchorage. After a bit of light rain - kisses from heaven - the sun came bursting out and I was glad I'd remembered to put on sun lotion. I bet Mike wishes he had.

Just as Tim & Jen were leaving to further their island adventures, along comes one of our own long lost friends who we hadn't seen for months! Molly and the kids had ventured down the mountain for some swimming and were actually hoping to catch us on our usual Monday trip (not realizing we hadn't done that for months). So we stayed another hour while Kekala tried to drown Mike, and Molly and I got caught up with each other's news. Another greatly satisfying visit.

Y'know, some days just turn out perfect. :-)

Out of Service

While I thoroughly enjoyed the Merrie Monarch Parade last month, I did get quite chilled in the rain... and came down with a nasty cold that just will not go away. Ick! I was pretty out of it for a while there, and still have a bit of lingering cough, but otherwise I feel mostly recovered.

But now Mike's got it. No fair! And he was so good about taking care of me for the 2 weeks I was pretty much bed-ridden.

So we have an assortment of cough drops... lots of herbs, teas, & vitamins... plenty of good nourishing food... and have greatly enjoyed a few gatherings with friends to cheer us up once the worst was over.

But not much has happened during this time, so not much to write about here.

Hmmm... there must be something...

The liliko'i is in full bloom and totally abuzz with honeybees. There's an outstanding crop of avocados coming along. Little Valencia oranges are hanging on the tree, along with another batch of fragrant orange blossoms. The site for the new & improved screenhouse is all cleared, and Mike had just started pouring footings for the uprights when he came down with the cold. We're selling about 7 dozen eggs a week, thanks to our beautiful mixed flock of chickies. And the hale is empty for a while, so we can spread out a bit.

Now if we could just shake this dang cold...