They felt the warm compost pile and learned about the billions of little microbes working hard to turn it into nutritious soil..

They got to really interact with the environment, picking fruit and carrots, smelling the cinnamon leaves, touching bugs, petting a chicken..

Funniest moment: I asked if anyone knows why there are so many wild chickens on Kauai. One girl, Pakalana, raised her hand and said, “Because there’s only one KFC?” (The common answer is “because there’s no mongoose.”)

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Our second harvest, as an orthodox black tea, turned out great. Slightly sweet, no harsh tannins, and keeps giving flavor over 4-5 steepings. Experienced tea tasters tell me that it’s unique, somewhat like other Hawaiian black tea but unlike tea from anywhere else in the world.

We brewed it a couple different ways, and just for fun, did a side-by-side comparison with a “normal” commodity black tea in a bag:

There’s no comparison – they are completely different things. I almost hesitate to call what we’ve made “black tea”, as it brings up entirely different associations for most people.

I visited San Francisco a week ago, and visited the nice people at Samovar Tea Lounge. They have a little Hawaiian tea to sell (not ours, yet) and really nice ambiance and food to complement it. I met the owners and we brewed up 10g of our tea for them and their staff to try.

From their positive reaction, it seems likely that connoisseurs of hand-processed teas will ‘get’ our tea right away.

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I started the seeds in the greenhouse then planted them in three areas: in the garden experimental zone, along the far fence (next to some vigorous poha) and on the terrace in the tea field.  The results: unexpected.

Instead of a large bush like poha, my P. pruinosa grows creeping along the ground!  At first, i thought that perhaps some it was some conditions (too much rain, wrong soil?).  But it’s creeping in all three places, with amended soil, and it is making plenty of fruit which would imply that nutrients aren’t a big problem:

The fruits are small (1.3-1.5 cm, which is around 1/2″ to 19/32″ for masochists who like inch fractions).  That’s roughly what was advertised (1/2″ to 3/4″), but it’s a bit smaller than typical hawaiian poha.  The main problem (beside the creeping low plants) is that it seems to be dropping lots of fruit before it ripens, so the harvest is barely yellow, mostly green.  For comparison, this is how poha grows: easily to 2m (6′):

Here’s some P. pruinosa planted on the ground right next to it:

In regards to fruit, we almost never get any fruit from our poha.  I’ve suspected that the abundant wild turkeys and pheasants devour them, although i’ve never been certain.  My pruinosa tests seem to support the idea: the plants inside my garden fence are loaded with fruit, whereas those by the far fence or open tea field, where turkeys are busy every day, have almost none):

Here’s the harvested fruit:

Conclusion: pruinosa not too successful. Those mostly-unripe fruits are tart, so i’ll probably mash them into a jam with added sugar for balance.  I may as well just grow poha, and do it inside my protected garden area.

There is one other Physalis contender left to try, though: the Giant Ground Cherry from Trade Winds Fruit, which promises “large growing and large-fruiting … up to and a bit over an inch”!  I’ve ordered the seeds and will try them soon.

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I contacted Shane if I can help eviscerate the 7-week old meat birds. (I’m not squeamish about gutting poultry.) He’s happy that I can help his farm process 80 broilers. This would be my third time processing poultry. The first was in 2006 with Jan Dean (her Delaware heritage breed and my 3 roosters), the second time was January of this year (16 stewing hens).

Growing up in Philadelphia, I remember my mother butchering chickens from our backyard flock for Chinese tonic soup. My folks ran a Chinese food take-out joint in the front of the property while raising three kids, flock of chickens, silkies, doves, a white dog named Filip, a cat, an aquarium of goldfish and I think, one turtle in the back of the concrete backyard.

I chased (but never managing to catch) the Silkie bantam black pair of hen & rooster. I cuddled with my favorite hen whose name was Tutu. (Did mother butcher her? I don’t remember.)

I distinctly recalled my first nibble of fresh chicken liver poached with a ginger and scallion. The texture was creamy and unbelievably unctuous. Talk about raising me as a foodie; I also remember distinctly eating braised sea cucumber (or sea slug).

Fast forward to August 8, 2009. Ben & I woke up to a pitch dark Saturday morning, about 4:45a.m. From Ahualoa, we drove  Jim’s truck with detailed directions and map to Fox Farms. There was a stretch of road after the turn off the main highway that required 4WD to navigate over the bumpy, rutted and occasionally flooded puddles of water.

Ben & I arrived around 6:30a.m at Fox Farms. It was a beautiful blue sky which was a huge change from the dreary wet weather I’ve been experiencing at home.

I noted the hooped structure was set up for chicken processing: bright & well-lit, concrete floors, large sinks with foot-operated faucet, two large tables for gutting, scalder in the corner and a packing station in the rear.

Shane was in charge of severing the jugular veins and beheading the meat birds in three killing cones. Sam Benigni, another helper, was primarily in charge with scalding and defeathering process. Christie, Phoebe Mills (neighbor to the Foxes) and I eviscerated the broilers while Ben took photos, removed chicken feet and cleaned the gizzards.

On the table, there was a plastic container for the hearts, gizzards and livers. Under the table, there was one bucket for discarded chicken feet, two buckets for the guts, one small bucket of vinegar-water to wipe down the tables as needed.

I used a 5-inch narrow boning knife (purchased on Amazon.com). The blue plastic Fibrox knife handle is built in with Microban which gives antibacterial protection. The grip on the plastic handle is like very fine sandpaper which is helpful during the gutting. I stopped my bamboo cutting board from sliding around by placing two damp sheets of paper towels under the board.

It took me at the minimum, 7 minutes to eviscerate. I had less than 2 dozen birds under my belt. In comparison, Joel Salatin, Polyface Farms, evicerates in about 20 seconds. He’s got hundreds and hundreds of broilers under his belt!

The first customers arrived at 9:30 a.m. We were finished eviscerating around 10 a.m. and started to clean up the equipment and processing area. The meat birds were in 33 gallon containers chilling down before being vaccuum packed in plastic bags.

Shane showed us how to bag the broilers, staple the bag shut, dunk the bag into 200 degrees F stockpot of hot water to vacuum seal the bag. He went to the front of the hoop house to deal with the steady stream of customers. Christie, Sam, Ben and I bagged the remaining birds from two 33 gallon chill tanks.

Some of the meat birds were so wide that we struggled to get the plastic bag to fit over the carcasses. The bagged birds went into a cooler filled with ice for further chilling before loading into the customer’s cooler.

Shelby Floyd, our current President for Slow Food Hawaii convivium and another friend drove from Waimea to pick up their broilers at the Fox Farm.

Ben and I left a little past noon with a cooler of chicken livers (my guilty pleasure) and food items from Shane and Christie for helping them process.

Ben and I said our goodbye to the batch of next broiler chicks that the Foxes are currently raising. Shane told us the demand exceeds supply for the September order. They accepted my offer for help for next month. “I work for livers.”

Have you eaten meat birds from a small-scale pastured broiler producers like the Fox Farms? How do you cook your broilers? Do you have a favorite side dish(es) you eat with the roast?

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1. To deal with the pig attacks, we added a strand of barbed wire at ground level running all the way around the garden fences.  We also got a trap from neighbors, and the first night we caught a big mama pig:
   
   She managed to escape, but since then we’ve caught three smaller pigs.  They go to a neighbor who, i believe, fattens them up for eating.
2. Two more biochar tests area in the ground, this time using IMOs as well as char.  Crops: popcorn and sweet potatoes.  Posted to the hawaii-biochar group.
   
3. The HFU Potluck-Seed Exchange in Honoka’a last Friday was excellent, great turnout, tons of food, interesting seeds.
   
   If you missed it, the next one is August 14.
4. I had a horrible fever that raged for 2 days, nausea, delirium, then a strange red patch on my leg. At the ER on Sunday, they said it’s a staph infection, put me on antibiotics and bed rest.  Sad to say, this mean little to no farm work for a week or more.
5. In case you don’t already have Scott of Evening Rain Farm in your blog reader, be sure to read his posts Second Update on Our Food Experiment and Maintaining Food Security in Hawaii. Key insights into what food sustainability means here.
6. The barrel tax was defeated today.  It’s a little depressing, a sign that the top-down powers that be can’t make even a little step in the right direction.  As it says, “A bill to fund food and renewable energy projects is left to die.”

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This spring i did a test of potato varieties:

1. Red: a variety we’ve grown for years, probably the common “red bliss”, which has been a reliable producer
2. White: seeds of change “German Butterball”
3. Blue: seeds of change “All Blue”

I planted three beds in different areas of the upper garden, with the varieties in equal areas of each bed.  Here are the results in pounds of potato per plant: Red 0.84, White 1.64, Blue 0.33.  The German Butterball was amazing!  In our soil and climate, it’s a clear winner.  We’ll be carefully keeping and replanting that variety.

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The next day, i spent two hours plucking the tender tips from the entire tea field, our first real harvest. We did some processing steps, working with the leaves throughout the day. By midnight, we had some nice green tea to brew. Although there is so much to learn, it’s encouraging that on our first try we made good-tasting tea:

After the harvest, i set about doing a full pruning and mulching of the entire field:

Really overdue, that’s the problem with leaving the farm for six weeks! The plants look really strong and healthy, growing very vigorously.

A feral pig came in the night and destroyed our bed of white sweet potatoes. That wasn’t entirely unexpected, as we’d been seeing pig damage around and the bed was outside the protection of the garden fence. But, the same night, the pig got under the fence and destroyed our bed of orange sweet potatoes as well!

We reinforced the fence with stakes and a strand of barbed wire, and set a pig trap out to catch it. So far, no luck, but at least it hasn’t gotten back into the garden.

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They are slowly losing their fuzzy down feathers and growing taller and longer. The cochins’ feathers on their shanks are starting to become more pronounced. There are couple of bold australorps leaping onto my forearms. I’m concerned that the cardboard brooder pen won’t keep the stronger australorps in much longer. I’ve even got a footage of them dust bathing in the pine shavings.

I’m slowly introducing them to eat a variety of leafy greens:

• wheatgreass, tender stalks (introduced last week)
• comfrey (make your own poultice for sprains or broken bones)
• pipinole leaves (or better known as chayote), not the squash

I’m sprouting a small tray of wheatgrass for the chicks. I want to supplement their diet in addition to the dry chick starter crumbles. Some baby cochins look at me in judgment, “What?! Another day, another trough of this dry crumbles? Bah! FEED ME GREENS!”

When I offer the chicks something new, I rip off teeny, beak sized pieces. The australorps are usually the first to investigate, to taste, to trample over the more shy cochins for the leafy greens. Go figure.

The chicks create this high-pitched frenzied chatter when I show them the bunch of chayote leaves “Ohh, guys, get some greens. The human’s got this green stuff in her hands. We goota have some fresh enzymes! Hey, get the girls here! Greeeens!”

I’m going to incorporate a variety of different greens around my homestead: broccoli leaves, cabbage greens, chard, spinach, plaintain leaf, tender dandelion leaves, etc. My goal is to make sure they develop different gut bacteria for a variety of plant matter.

Next time, when Hillery brings avocado, I am going to offer a small taste to the babies. I’m sure they’ll go bananas over avocado!

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Last month we had a large group from the Kona Outdoor Circle:

This coming Saturday is another public farm tour here, organized by mala’ai as part of a series of classes and farm visits.  See “It Takes a Garden to Grow a Community” for details.

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Meanwhile, the new house has been moving forward (photos).

Last week we had a mainland visitor, my old friend Aix, who now lives in Arcata, CA.  Incredibly, we hadn’t seen each other since i visited him in Kyoto in 1997.  It was great to catch up, and he briefly got to experience working in the tea field, running to shredder to make compost, and digging on the new house pad.

I’ve been spending quite a bit of time recently studying the big changes going on in the wider world – peak oil, peak everything, climate change, collapse of the banking system, instability in global agriculture.  Will the future look more like Mad Max or the Amish?  While it’s all super complex, one clear conclusion is that in the future, those of us that survive will be growing more of our own food.  I give tours of our farm often, and when i tell people that we grow around 1/3 of our food, they are very impressed and say we are better prepared for the coming troubles.  But i’m not so sure.  Where will the other 2/3 of our food come from?  What about all our hungry neighbors?

There is more to survival than food.  The staple carbohydrates that we can grow here are tubers – potato, sweet potatoes, taro.  We buy/import our other staples, so our food is based on tubers, bread, pasta, and rice.  I realized recently that if ‘the boats stop’, then our food will be based on tubers, tubers, tubers, and tubers.

Down at Evening Rain Farm in Puna is another family, who are growing perhaps >80% of their food, more than anyone else i know of (starting with their Food Experiment).  I haven’t met them personally, but their blog is fascinating.  It is a jungle where they live, so they have fewer tubers, but a ton of breadfruit.  Breadfruit and pig, every meal, every day, “breadfruit alfredo, breadfruit parmesan, breadfruit pesto”…

One major challenge on our land, for food sustainability, is garden space.  We have so many giant eucalypts around, on a L-shaped skinny lot, that shade is a big issue.  We’ve been cutting them back (endless firewood!) but it’s a lot of work, and they are also serve as beneficial windbreak – a complex trade-off.

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