Member
Steve
Male · MARRIED · Friends, Networking · @SteveinKona · Captain Cook, Hawaii
About Steve
My husband and I have a 3-acre organic farm in the coffee belt of Kona. We're vegetarian, quiet people, Zen Buddhist. We grow a wide variety of things for home use, and a few things for sale. I'm almost fully retired as a commercial farmer; licensed massage therapist. I've been a database programmer, high school teacher, steel mill worker, with lots of restaurant work in between. Work has always been my recreation, and still is. I LOVE what we are doing now!
Vegetarians. Travellers to Hawaii or residents here. Plant people. Anyone who would like to have a serious conversation. Anyone whose joy shows in their photo.
Growing and preparing food. Building houses. Building community. Ideas. Spirituality. Touch. Not much plugged into the media culture.
The sound of the birds in the mulberry tree
Photos
Blogs
Terraced Beds where our giant slash pile was
You've likely seen this - I used to use it as my profile picture, being extremely butch chopping up a slash pile - a bulldozer-built pile about 12 feet high, 20 feet wide, 45 feet long, left over…
Making a pond
We've been working on a rainwater retention pond for several years, and it's now nearly done. Here are some photos of the progress: Digging the hole Rolling rock away to a wall-building project…
Workshop
Our workshop / barn is an open-sided, screened shed. Before it was built, we did work in a big tent - plenty of space, but open to the bugs in season, and too damp for the tools. The building under…
re-doing photo blogs
I see the photo links in my blogs were all broken - so I've put them back together, and will work on them some more later.
Indoor / outdoor living
I don't think I could do farm work at all without easy outdoor cleanup space and cool, airy places to relax - I was certainly miserable enough as a child doing chores in sweaty clothes! I still wear…
Making soil
Since the farm was molten lava only about 3000 years ago, we shepherd our soil carefully. We were gifted with a house-sized pile of brush when our homesite was cleared - and we've used it all. Here,…
Inspection went well
Took only 90 minutes - I had thought maybe a whole day - so now just trying to unwind from all my ahead-of-time nervousness.
Last day before the inspector comes
One more day until the organic-farm inspector comes. This will be the first inspection we've ever had. I'm sure we're prepared, but still really nervous.
Software progress
Yay! Monthly harvest statements in six keystrokes. Doncha just love modern farming...
Herbs
For about a year, we have been supplying fresh herbs to two local stores. This is lemongrass. It's an easy perennial, used in Thai cooking and for a medicinal tea. We also use the leaves to tie our…
Walls
Hawaii is overrun with wild animals whose ancestors were brought here on boats and canoes, tame: wild pigs, wild chickens, wild turkeys, and so forth. Our most-cultivated acre is protected from them…
This farm was lava
This farm was molten lava 1500 to 3000 years ago. Trees grew in the cracks as it cooled; there is no soil but their rotted roots and leaves. The Hawaiians pulled up rocks to make pits into which they…