12/21/2012

Sunrise Blessings

The Mayan Calendar starts counting in 3114 B.C.  Wow, that is more than a few moons ago.  Despite the craziness of our world today, including insane tensions and transitions in the Middle East, our daily lives and the human race march on.  For me it is about the rhythms of life.  Almost daily I am blessed with incredible sunrise paint-scapes of multi-colored clouds at sunrise as the world turns another turn.  This morning a sliver of a new moon was just above the horizon as the sky turned from the blackness of night into another brilliant day.

Mauna Kea at sunset and our nearly completed Kitchen/Living Area.

Getting near our goal of completing the infrastructure to be self sustaining, we crossed the $200K mark today.  It ain't cheap to build.  But I am blessed to have the resources to do make this happen. 
Thank you!

My dream is to enjoy the rhythms.  I may get my wish soon. 

Halloween Night

Trick or Treat

We are so remote, no child has ever knocked at our front door in the seven years we've lived here.  They probably know they would receive an avocado or rambutan as their "treat" and are off to better pickens where they can get their high fructose corn syrup rush.  So I am spending this uninterrupted time posting to my blog.

Additional Farm Dwelling Oct 31

Humble first steps.  Foundation for Drakes bedroom starts to rise.

Our goal for 2012 was to get the infrastructure built.  We just might make it by 12/21/12.  Our main kitchen / living building got the dry wall textured today.  We'll paint the inside this weekend and cabinets and floors should go in soon.  The three detached bedrooms are getting the interior finishing touches done, wood floors, bathrooms tiled, etc...  The electrician is connecting the main unit to the bedrooms tomorrow in underground cable.  The trenching was fun, ask Drake.   The plumber will be installing solar hot water next week.

New shed before putting the tin roof on.

View from new shed

Our new shed is up, roof on, water tank full.  Animals and their Natural Farming habitat is so close to being ready.  Working hard trying to cross the finish line and meet our 2012 goal.

De-Wainaku

Wainaku Grass deep beneath Garden Bed

  I just spent four hours double digging a garden bed that had become overtaken by Wainaku Grass.  It is also known as "Torpedo Grass" as it sends out roots very deep.  It must like anerobic conditions as it most often travels along the clay just below the prepared garden.  This makes it very difficult to combat.  You just can't weed the surface.  One must turn the entire garden bed, one shovel full at a time, throwing the dirt in such a manner as to expose any roots that may be in that shovel full of dirt.  So each shovel of dirt must be sifted through to pick out the roots.  Even the smallest root left in the garden bed will grow and be the nexus for the invasion.

Garden Bed after de-Wainaku process

Master Cho suggests no till.  However, Wainaku is so aggressive, I'm not sure desired plants could compete.  I won't till this bed again.  I'll let the insects dig their air holes in the soil, the microbes establish their environment, and I won't disturb it.

Wainaku Roots

During this process I did notice that the soil just under the weeds was very healthy.  It was darker in color, and in granules.  It also had lots of worms.  This must mean that the weeds are adding fertility to the soil.  I used all the weeds and roots removed from the garden bed to mulch a near by avocado tree.  Thinking that these have lots of good nutrients.

LACTIC ACID BACTERIA

rice rinse water surrounded by milk

LAB, Lactic Acid Bacteria, is an ingredient we use frequently in Korean Natural Farming and it is easy to make.  Rinse some rice, keep the water, let it sit for a day or two.  Then pour a little (one part rice rinse water to 10 parts milk) into a jar of milk.  Don't refrigerate.  The kurds will separate in a day or so.  Pour off the liquid and mix with equal parts brown sugar.  This is liquid will keep for months and is used in almost all our plant sprays.

Lactic Acid Bacteria are very effective in improving ventilation of air in soil and highly effective in growth of fruit trees and leaf vegetables.  It has a pH of 2, possessing strong sterilization power.  LAB decomposes or chelates minerals stuck to soil and not easily dissolved, making them easy for plants to absorb.  When plants absorb lactic acid, body fluid is adjusted within the plant to increase the disease tolerance and withstand heavy rain without becoming soft.

If I ever have a tummy ache or the runs, a take a sip of LAB and in no time I'm normal.  

Summer Time

 

Today's Harvest

Summer is here in full swing.  Jennifer and I hiked down to the beach in Volcano's National Park to celebrate our 30th wedding anniversary.  We spent 4 days watching the tide go in and out at a remote beach enjoying the solitude.  When we returned we had fresh ripe tomatoes, lychee and zucchini waiting for us.

IMO #3 pile growing mold

I've been taking it easy this year, backing way off of last years gardening pace.  Yet we still have lots and lots of food.  Above is an IMO#3 pile, two days old, growing micro-organisms like crazy.  A thin layer of IMO#4 on garden beds between plantings, and weekly sprays of CHO spray is all that the plants require to pump out large volumes of nutritious food.

Preparing Pig and Chicken Feed

Drake has been feeding our pigs and chickens.  Here he is cutting papaya, and he'll add a tiny bit of store bought feed, and add OHN, and a hand full of IMO#4.  He lets it sit to ferment for a day before feeding to the animals.  The animals get much more nutrition out of the same amount of food and they do NOT exhibit hungry behavior as they did before he went to a 24 hour ferment of their feed.

Common living and kitchen begins to rise

Troy and Drake are working daily to construct our additional agricultural dwelling.  The 3 detached bedrooms are almost complete and the common living and kitchen is beginning to take shape.

Family Gardening on Sunday

Team Ready

Weekend weather was just gorgeous.  We weeded, chopped and dropped and just enjoyed working together.  Jen treated us to french toast & bacon after our morning session.

Smoking Home Made Bacon

Speaking of bacon, today I made home made bacon from pork bellies.  Cured by coating with salt and brown sugar for about 5 days in the fridge, then smoked at 150 degrees F for about 5 hours.  Yummmm!

Cherry Tomatoes ready for Dehydration

Inspired by Richard Fletcher, who is posting recipes on his facebook page, these cherry tomatoes are being dehydrated to make sun dried tomato pesto.  Buckets of these tomatoes are coming off one volunteer plant rising out of the compost pile from last years green waste.

Our Chemical Shed

Preparing Bones to make Water Soluble Calcium Phosphate

We make all our own fertilizers.  Fruit and plant ferments, lacto bacilus, oriental herb nutrient, rice wine vinegar, and water soluble calcium made from egg shells and pig bones.  All of these can eaten/drank.  In fact we do that to see if it's ok to spray on our plants.  If you don't want to drink it, you shouldn't spray it on your plants.  I spray a 5 gallon tank on our garden and fruit trees each week, that's all it takes.

First post for 2012

All those who come to this site, please read posts in 2011.  Specially during August where we only ate what we grew on our own land.  Each day that month is documented.  Fresh, very fresh, naturally farmed produce, it changed me in so many ways.  I learned so much about myself last year.  The most important lesson wasn’t that I could feed our family, but the spiritual connection with the “aina” that comes from depending on the land and the good earth to provide your next meal.

So moving on in 2012, my goals are two fold: to personally be “in health” and for the property, to put in the remaining infrastructure in place to support our family from the land on a sustained and ongoing basis.
We are now building two more detached bedroom units in addition the one Drake currently is living in.  There will also be a central shared kitchen and living area, big enough to host small groups interested in learning about natural farming.  On the far side near the Hanawai river, we are building a 36’ by 72’ shed for animal production.  All the construction should be complete by years end and fully functional.  As those who have followed know, I think a big shift is coming to our economy and way of life because the world has reached peak oil.  Although the media tells us things seem to be recovering as I write, this is only temporary.  The math says the old ways cannot go on indefinitely.  The dollar too will crash, as the reality of a debt larger than GDP takes its course.  So why hold onto savings?  I’m spending ours on tangible infrastructure.

Personally, I’ve come a long way toward being “in health”, but have a long way to go.  At least now I am conscious of what I put in my body.  Before putting only fresh naturally farmed food into my body, I didn’t even realize that it mattered.  I stopped drinking alcohol this past February, cause I had trouble limiting my intake to the doctor recommended maximum of two a day.  Easier just to put it aside, avoid temptation.  I read a life changing book, “younger every year” that speaks to people my age, those entering the last third of their life.  Says that 70% of ALL diseases can be avoided by simply exercising 45 minutes per day 6 days per week and recommends strength training 2 to 3 days per week to eliminate all the aches and pains of old age.  I want to really enjoy the last third of my life, so I’ll be doing this every day for the rest of my life, my new job.  I may be getting older, but I don’t have to feel older or accept the aches and pains that our society claims is ‘normal’.

I've downsized our gardens, trying to minimize the size and time for upkeep.  Still, we have lots of tomatoes and salad greens.  Our fruit trees and sugar cane keep going regardless of human energy output.  We lost one cow during childbirth but she now fills our freezer, and is some of the best grass fed steaks ever.  Our other cow birthed a healthy calf so we still have two.  Our chickens give plenty of eggs.  So despite minimal effort, we still have lots of fresh naturally farmed food.