Subsistence Farming - Hawaii

1- INFRASTRUCTURE

Pond House (new ferro cement building w/barrel vault roof- our main living space)

make form for plastering the gable edge
dig footings for reflecting pond/catchment
dig footings for entry
pour last (3rd) layer of concrete on the barrel vaults and apply water proofing
plaster/burnish interior and exterior surfaces
continue building rock retaining wall between pond and building
decide on design […]

We live in an unusual tropical environment (near Kapoho, on the Big Island of hawaii) where growing our own food is enjoyable.
Sustainable food production is different in Hawaii than in most of the mainland United States. In many parts of the world, growing all of one’s food without the use of machinery for farming or […]

I was talking with my wife, Karin the other day about how I feel about our farm and the world situation, and she said,”We need to revise our mission statement. We’re not telling the truth about why we’re doing this project”.
I’ll tell you: I used to have lots of idealistic energy about teaching people how […]

Guidelines:
For 14 hours per week of work per person we provide the following facilities:

private sleeping space, depending on availability
shared (with 2 other sleeping spaces) kitchen, living, dining space including furnishings and kitchenware, sink, electric fridge, 2 burner propane cook stove (provide 2 propane tanks but we do not provide the propane), filtered drinking water, lighting, […]

work
The minimum amount of work that we require is 14 hours per week per person.
One hour of this total is to be spent maintaining and sprucing up the area immediately around the intern kitchen, and your sleep cabin, enhancing your “home spaces”. Some examples of “home space” chores: weeding your lawn, weeding around the intern […]

evening rain farm meals from the land, some we have regularly, most we have tried when we had the ingredients and some are ideas (modifying other recipes i have used from the continent with tropical ingredients).

green drink (katook, honey, ginger, lemongrass, mint, perennial cilantro, ice, water, lemon or lime w/ a quarter of the skin) […]

food related for the main homestead:
maybe a cow or two in a few yearshedges to hold a flock of sheep in the orchards
the driveway turned into an enclosed pasture for horses or sheep
corn crop for drying and millling
peanut crop
sugar cane crop
sweet potato patch
more taro patches from roof or sink runoffs
pond plants (water cress, water chestnut, […]

Just the other day, we got two young female ducks from a friend, and one of them flew off and got lost in a real thick part of the woods east of our land. I felt sad about her plight, and went out calling and quacking after her. I was practically swimming in an ocean […]

January in Hawaii
(the rainy season in the rain forest)
First off - we fly what is called Non-Rev which means very small cost to us because our son is a captain on U.S. West flying an Airbus. It also means that we get to fly after all the passengers are boarded and they have extra […]

i can appreciate the pull of the world which makes hunting for wild mushrooms become a chore instead of a delight. this school year i have changed my primary focus from eating sustainably on the land to focusing on high school-level home schooling with our 14 year old daughter.
come september, the first thing i noticed […]