Forest Chickens, 'Ulu, and Granddaughter

I retired one of my older flocks to the ranch. They no longer laid enough eggs to make it worth keeping them. Often, we relegate these older birds to the stew pot, but sometimes they go on bug patrol instead. Trouble is, there were way too many of them to run around loose at home.

So, one evening after dark, we plucked the birds, one by one, off the roost and set them in the travel cage. Before dawn the next morning, we drove to the ranch and set them loose in the area of one of the cattle water troughs. We rigged up their old water bucket on a nearby tree so they can easily get a drink, too. It sure didn't take long before the old gals figured out the lay of the land. I can already tell which is their favorite tree to roost in at night.

They now form the Bug and Fertilizer Patrol. Instead of costing us money in feed, they are in chicken paradise where they enjoy bananas, guava, bugs, grubs, worms, seeds, greens, and shall we say "leftovers" from the cows. In fact, they have somewhat adopted the cattle, or is it the other way around? It's win-win no matter how you look at it.

Bonus: Chicken companions on my walks through the woods!

  
Even though we keep getting sidetracked with various other also-urgent ranch projects, we still brought some of the 'ulu (breadfruit) treelings to the ranch in order to start our orchard. No, we didn't manage to actually get any of them into the ground yet... but it did give us a much better idea of what goes where and how much room all of it will take. The future orchard, by the way, will be right behind the future house. Until then, they are under the Grandmother Mango tree where they won't dry out too quickly between waterings (or rains).

'Ulu keiki just waiting to spread its roots

Look how tame Spirit horse is getting! Mike's been working with him and it shows. Acacia was so excited to be able to almost touch him! She LOVES spending time at the ranch. (Well, except for that one time when the cows got loose and we had to spend hours chasing them back in, on foot! Nobody enjoyed that time.)

She's a good little hiker with those long legs of hers, easily keeping up with Grampy as he checks the livestock. She's learning to recognize the wildflowers and can spot a grasshopper or lizard well before the rest of us notice its presence. Yes, we do realize how very lucky we are to have a grandchild in our lives.

Cows!

Have I not even mentioned our cows??? Oh my goodness, I am so far behind!

Well, first there was CowCow, who you can read about here. 
She was joined by another black Angus - a rescue cow who was extremely malnourished and being badly injured by her herdmates. We weren't even sure she would survive the transfer to the ranch. When we checked on her the next morning, the two had found each other and she was dubbed MooMoo.

CowCow and MooMoo

We figured MooMoo could at least help with clearing the brush, even if she never regained enough health and strength to bear another calf. She has since managed to get a little muscle on her bones and most of her sores and injuries are healed. But is still extremely shy and wary, both of us and of the newest cows. She likes hanging out with CowCow, though, her first friend in probably forever.

The two Angus cows doing what cows do, graze and explore.

Then in December, we added six Dexters, a smaller breed. They were being sold off from a much larger herd, maybe because they have horns. To us, horns seem an asset as they will be better able to defend themselves against marauding hunting dogs that misguided and unthinking people inexcusably allow to run loose in the forests around here. (If I sound a little angry, it's because I am: such a pack killed my sweet Blackie-cat. I am furious and horrified about it still.)

It took two trips to get all the Dexters to their new home at the ranch, three in each load. Below, Unicorn - so named because someone removed one of her horns years ago so she has only one remaining - takes her first tentative steps from the livestock trailer. Unicorn is a pregnant mama, due any time now.

Besides Unicorn, there is

• Princess Buttercup, who may or may not be pregnant (the previous records were a little sketchy); 

•  T-Bone, Sir Loin, and Porterhouse, who are all steers; 

• and Ferdinand, a cute curly-headed young bull calf, who, so far, lives up to his namesake in temperament.

The herd had a happy bellowing reunion in the woods.

Most of the trees in the picture above are melochia. Considered a weed tree, melochia is fast growing and actually is very good cattle feed, high in proteins. After the cows eat the easy-to-reach lower leaves, they'll push the brittle little tree right over and get to work on the upper leaves. You can also see the remains of a couple banana starts in the foreground - a juicy treat for the herd. We will have to figure out a way to run fencing around the lower banana patch before too long. The upper patch is already fenced off from the livestock. Even the horse like banana leaves!

Speaking of the horse, he tends to mostly ignore the cattle now that there are so many of them. But he does seem to appreciate the many new trails to follow, all the better to reach those greener pastures I'm sure he's heard about.

The cattle have now formed one large herd, all eight of them. They wander through forest and field, trampling the brush and weeds, mowing and fertilizing the grasses, and creating trails for easier exploring. We provide several water troughs and a mineral block. It's so fun to be hiking around up there and realize you are being watched by a forest cow, or have Unicorn come up for a nuzzle and maybe a treat if you remembered to fill your pockets with hay cubes or liliko'i.

We'll be moving to more intensive rotational grazing eventually, but right now the livestock pretty much have run of the lower half of the ranch and it's working out just fine.

Harvesting Honey

I told y'all about our bees, right? We got them back in February and they have mostly been just doing their thing all summer. We are quite happy to have these hard-working insects on our ranch. They are certainly earning their keep by pollinating the rainforest, wildflowers, and tree crops out that way.

Recently, we were able to pull our first honey from the hive. You might be surprised at how many steps there are to harvesting honey. I wasn't able to get the first parts photographed since I don't have a bee suit (and am not willing to be stung for documentation purposes). Mike, however, does have a bee suit, and actually, he is the one who works with the hives. So, what you don't see here is the smoking to calm the bees during check-ups and harvest, the lifting of the lid, prying out the frames to find those that are ready to harvest, and transporting them back to our house where the extraction process happens. We'll begin the photo essay from there...

Each frame is heavy with liquid gold, hiding inside beeswax. Don't worry, we leave plenty for the bees to survive on. Plus there's the bonus of something or other blooming year-round in the tropics.

Before we can get to the honey, we have to open up the caps that seal each cell of the comb. The first time we did this, we used a homemade scraping tool. We have since moved on to a pin roller which makes the job much easier and also leaves fewer of the cappings in the honey, and a lifting fork for the bits where it might be too uneven for the roller.

Next, the frames, three at a time, go into the hand-crank extractor. After you're done spinning the honey out of one side, you turn each around to get the other side extracted. The extractor has just enough room on the bottom to hold the honey from these three frames (about 2-1/2 gallons) before it needs emptying, so we'll drain it out the spout before doing the next three frames.

We'll have to lift the whole thing up high enough to get a five-gallon bucket underneath. The honey pours out of the valve near the bottom and runs through a strainer to catch the cappings and other bits of wax that got loose. This wax, along with the wax scraped from the spent frames, will be melted before being used to create candles, salves, etc. We'll need a sunny day to do this - but it's the rainy season, so we are storing the unrefined beeswax in the freezer for now.

Once the pure honey is in the big bucket, we can fill our honey jars...

... and since it's been such a good harvest, we have extra to sell!

Kaimu Rainforest Honey - like our label? These one pound jars sell for $5. If you are on-island, you can bring your own jars for a discount. Local, raw, pure, unfiltered honey from deep in the wilds of Puna. Mmmmm... or should I say Bzzzzzzz...

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!

Hot Enough For Ya?

You know I have another blog, right? The one about the piggery? Well, rather than writing another whole post about the latest from that arena in our lives, I'll just link to the one I wrote over there. Here ya' go: What?! No Piglets? That title alone should be intriguing enough to pique your curiousity.


In other news, we continue to survive record-breaking temperatures coupled with high humidity here on the island. (For those who follow weather reports, consider adding a couple degrees to Hilo's high temps and you'll be a lot closer to ours out here in Pahoa.) This has been the hottest summer on record for Hilo. The 31 days of August gave us 15 that tied or broke records for high temps! And September is starting out just as bad with six of the eight days so far matching or making new highs. In other words, ugh.
 

I know we're not alone in having to deal with an outrageously extra-hot season. It's been incredible throughout the west. And at least we don't have to deal with forest fires. (Though there have been a couple big wildfires, one of which threatened a town, houses, and harbor, and closed highways... It can happen here, on the dry side). But summertime here lasts far longer than on the mainland, and there's no end in sight according to the predictors of such things.
 

Then add this to the mix: We have endured the largest number of hurricanes in the Pacific as well. At one point there were FOUR Category 4 hurricanes in our vicinity AT THE SAME TIME!!! Though the last two (Ignacio and Jimena) passed by without actually reaching the islands, huge storm waves have been pounding the coastline for weeks, along with some major flash-flooding happening. The waves have been amazing! All the beach parks have been closed for a couple weeks now, due to flooding and dangerous surf. So cooling off with a refreshing ocean swim has been out of the picture.
 

Oh yeah, and the tradewinds, which usually cool us to a more manageable range, have been blocked completely by the big storms out there. And so we simmer slowly under ceiling fans, or go somewhere (anywhere) in the car so we can blast the air conditioning way up high. Aaahh, bliss.



Well, I didn't mean to only talk about the weather but, you know, it is the main topic of conversation in these parts right now (and I had all these cool storm wave photos to share!). It affects us every single day as we make extra checks on the animals, keeping an eye on the water levels in catchment tanks and water troughs. I set up our old campstove on the lanai table and do most of my cooking outdoors so as not to add any heat or humidity indoors. I water my newest transplants a little more often as they tend to dry rapidly in these conditions. Eggs are gathered several times a day instead of just twice - don't want them cooking out there in the hot sunshine!

But other than roasting and sweltering and simmering day after day, we're doing well. I have a lot more to share with you in other posts, later. For now, go read about our piggies and I'll go see what the chickens are squawking about. Aloha!