Oh, these mongoose! We’ve had several clutches of ducklings hatch lately, and even our poor matriarch Dee Dee lost a couple of the darling ducklings to the mongoose early yesterday morning. She had five, and then she had three, so we built yet another place to keep the rest of them safe. She wasn’t […]
One of the things about having a farm in the tropics is that we have to deal with all sorts of biting bugs year round, because it never freezes. I’m loathe to use products with Deet in them, so am always on the lookout for products that don’t have Deet in them but that do […]
When I first got to Hawaii this past May, I of course googled shaka because Hawaii. Almost all of the photos I saw were pretty much the same, very simple. But there’s an important bit that wasn’t obvious to me, and that what those images show is what you are looking at your […]
In mid-May, I started some okra seeds in our greenhouse, and then when they were large enough to put into the aquaponics system, in they went. I was sort of amazed at how quickly they grew — like weeds! But things got busy, and all during June I totally meant to get them out of […]
Feral or wild pigs have a long history in Hawaii, and we’ve written about them here on our farm before (Pigs in Paradise). We have traps set up in the fields where they do the most destruction to our fields, and yesterday caught a bunch of the cutest piglets! It’s hard to remind myself exactly how […]
We’ve had two horses for almost a decade now, Mocha and Kai. Mocha is a 12 year old registered quarterhorse mare and Kai is a 14 year old gelding. We came out one morning a few weeks ago and had a new member of our equine herd, a donkey! We are pretty sure that he […]
We’ve got a delicious variety of Romaine Lettuce just about ready to harvest in our greenhouse this week. It’s part of our aquaponics system here on the farm, where the water circulates from a large artificial pond with fish in it, through to the plants in our greenhouse, and then back to the fish again. […]
Have you made honey butter before? It’s so easy to do, and such a delight to have available. It keeps well in both the refrigerator and in the freezer, so when I make some, I make quite a bit just to have it handy. Start with your favorite unsalted butter at room temperature, or if […]
Yesterday, I took a walk out to the lava field at the back of our property to visit the beehives and to see if I could find the bees working the lehua blossoms. Sure enough, the Ohia trees were covered in lehua blossoms, covered in honey bees. Success! One of our most popular honey products […]
We recently had a pineapple fall off the plant, and set it aside in the farm stand to see if would ripen off the plant. Google told us no, but surprise, surprise, it ripened just fine. Perhaps it already had all the sugar it needed, because it was delicious, just perfect. I couldn’t let such […]