At Paradise Meadows, home of Hawaii’s Local Buzz, we have 28 free-range Muscovy ducks. They are (or can be) great farm animals, eating all sorts of bugs, slugs, snails, and even invasive Coqui frogs when they can find them. However, there can easily be too much of a good thing. One thing you learn relatively […]
Thanks to the generous donations we’ve received from folks visiting the farm, we’ve been able to purchase more parrot “toys” more regularly than we’ve been able to afford in the past. “Toys” is an odd word to use for the items we give our birds to enrich their environments and enhance their lives, because the […]
Looking back through some of our old farm pictures reminded us that we dragged our 1940-something red Farmall tractor up onto the rock wall at the entrance to the farm SEVEN YEARS ago! No, we can’t believe it either. The entire event took several hours of pushing, pulling, figuring, refiguring — and several minutes of […]
Building a brand based on local agriculture in Hawaii is harder than it looks. Building a brand, and building a business, are things we know something about. Scott, our “Big Kahuna”, is an inventor and serial entrepreneur who has had both successes and challenges throughout his long career. Lili, our “Marketing Guru”, has spent most of […]
At the beginning of May we noticed nests popping up all over our banana patches near the house, which is where our mommy ducks prefer to lay their eggs. We assume it feels very safe. The leaves of the banana trees provide good cover from airborne predators like hawks, and the proximity to the house […]
I noticed the other day that our Lilikoi blossoms were covered with our honeybees. I think they love the blossoms almost as I love do! I find them beautiful and fancy, and I love their tropical look. I used to be able to grow the vine in the hottest part of the summer in the […]
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 people look at the price of Hawaiian coffee they sometimes assume that those of us who grow coffee and sell coffee must be making a fortune. Or they wonder why the price of Hawaiian coffee is so high. So we thought we’d take the opportunity to explain some of the economics of growing, processing, […]