Subsistence Farming - Hawaii

by Karin Payne

Woke up in our small sleeping space looking much like a chicken coop with screens. It is big enough for a queen sized bed. Looking around (360 degrees) I can see jungle, papayas, coconuts and some 100 ft “weed” trees someone brought in from africa that make a spectacular canopy. The birds are loud every morning. There is a breeze and it rained for about 10 minutes as the sun was coming up.

Scott and I walk to another building we call the kite house (because if the wind really got under it, it would probably fly like a kite). Here we do our yoga. This morning an ethno-botanist in the neighborhood came by to talk about harvesting some of a vine called ayahuasca to prepare as a brew in the shamanistic way. It contains the same chemical that your body releases as you die which makes your life flash before your eyes.

I stopped by the barn before coming up to our “hearth” house to gather an armful of bananas and some eggs. We make a smoothie every morning with ingredients from our farm (with a few exceptions): goat’s milk yogurt, mac nuts, fresh vanilla pods, cardamom, ginger, eggs, bananas, papaya, some other fruit that is ripe at the time (this morning it was mame sapote), honey, coconut meat (sometimes the water if it is a young coconut), and a handful of oats (these are not local).

I got a call from a woman who is coming by today to look at a nubian doe (goat) we are selling. Lauren is being homeschooled with 2 other 13 yr olds by a good friend and teacher named Tracy.

Today we will plant a few grafted mango trees along the 1/4 mile driveway, probably chop some cane grass with machetes, I would like to harvest some papayas, plant some greens and herbs for salads near the kitchen and do some weeding of the perennial peanut (a ground cover lawn that looks like clover). There will be a handful of weed trees and bushels full of vines that will be hacked down today from the ever encroaching jungle.

It will most likely be 77 degrees with 60 something percent humidity with a breeze, puffy clouds and sun. Tonight after the sun sets it will most likely rain 1/4 to 1/2 an inch.

Scott and I will do a couples council today for about 2 hours. Then Scott will putter around in his nursery of mostly bamboo varieties and fruit trees. We have quite a few malabar chestnut trees, cacao (chocolate) and coffee trees waiting to be planted as an understory.

the farm is 22 acres with almost half untouched. Here is a list of the trees planted here (not including the trees in the nursery or that were here):

over 240 bamboo plants of 20 species
over 100 banana mats of 12 varieties
over 400 coconuts (not select)
10 breadfruit trees (4 grafted varieties, plus samoan and hawaiian)
7 grafted mangos of 5 varieties
11 grafted avocados of 9 varieties
15-20 seedling avocados
9 grafted tangerines and tangelos of 5 varieties
1 longan
1star apple
2 abiu
3 allspice
1 wee apple
4 rose apples
1 mountain apple
1 jacote
2 grafted jakfruit
1 grafted chempedak
7 seedling jakfruit
30 peach palms
1 grafted white sapote
3 paradise nuts
1 jacaranda
6 mac nuts
2 kapok
1 grafted lemon
1 seedling lemon
3 grafted limes
1grafted pomelo
2 grafted durians
1 seedling durian
4 seedling mangosteens
2 grafted mamey americana
10 noni
32 coffee
28 cacao
2 breadnut
1 black sapote
2 ice cream beans
5 kikui nut
3 rollinia seedlings
3 brazilian cherry seedlings
1 marang
3 monkeypods
5 rainbow eucalyptus

We have 8 nubian goats, about 35 hens and 3 roosters, 2 horses.

We will take an outdoor shower under the setting sun with solar hot water. And on rainy days we will fight over who gets to go first and get the hottest water!

Lauren will have milked in the morning and evening, fed the chickens and the horses. The goats have all the food they need in their pastures.

For dinner tonight we will build a fire in the outdoor oven using old pallets and palm fronds. We will cook up some of the feral pig we hunted a few days ago along with some bread fruit (the size of a cannon ball, grows on trees and tastes like bread when you cook it) and some chayote (a cross between a melon and a zucchini) and some lime chutney our friend ann made.

Scott will play the electric guitar and sing beatles songs into the evening while Lauren does homework and I finish cutting up a futon to make pillows for the ironwood couch we made.

We have 2,000 watts of solar panels with an inverter so we can run just about anything we need. We have a 30,000 gallon cistern catching rainwater and a pressurized system to distribute the water to 5 cottages and the barn and the laundry area. We have an old speed queen washer with a wringer, no dryer. We have 3 cottages available for rent or work trade. and we have no need to work for money any more. We are as close to financially independent as you can get. We don’t have money for extravagant traveling or purchases, but we also don’t need an alarm clock.