Hawai'i Island Goat Farm cheeses.The Hawai'i Island Goat Dairy is a small goat farm and dairy that produces all handmade "Farmstead Goat Cheeses" the old fashioned way.

The farm is located in Ahualoa, above the Honoka'a area at about 1800 feet elevation, nestled into the flanks of Mauna Kea on a beautiful 10-acre property that was at one time a macadamia nut tree farm. The macnuts trees are still there but are not harvested commercially.

Raven C.J. Liddle of Second Skin Naturals in Moloa'a, Kaua'i, harvesting ingredients for her line of skin care products.Second Skin Naturals™ produces beauty and skin care products, including its flagship Hawaiian Jungle Shield Spray, salves, scrubs, masks and rejuvenators, all made from certified organic and locally grown ingredients. The company’s founder Raven C.J. Liddle created the company out of her personal search for high-quality skin products, finding that the market did not supply what she was seeking.

A partially mature Shiitake mushroom emerges from a koa log.

Have you ever accidentally kicked over a log while wandering through a forest, and noticed the white mass of cobweb-like fibers running across the ground? That's mycelium. Only one cell-wall thick, yet capable of supporting more than 30,000 times its own weight, mycelium wend their way through nearly all healthy land-based ecosystems. Given the proper conditions, mushrooms can emerge from these fungal fabrics.

Long marginalized in Western culture, mushrooms are gaining greater recognition for their outstanding benefits to human and ecological health. As keystone organisms, fungi play a primary support role in the recycling of carbon, nitrogen, phosphorus, and various minerals.

Black soldier fly bin outside of chicken area.

The self-harvesting, antibiotic-excreting, protein-rich larvae of a beneficial insect could be the answer to cutting our dependence on imported animal feed.

Every time a new guest visits our chicken area, they ask about the big orange and purple bin with tubes hanging out the back. “That,” I say proudly, “is our black soldier fly larvarium. Want to see inside?”

Pigs – you gotta love ‘em. Or hate them. Kama-pua’a was a pig-god to old Hawaiians, associated with Lono, the god of agriculture, and also was a lover of Pele. He was a shape shifter, capable of appearing as a handsome young man or randy, rascally hog with super powers of fertility. The epic story of Kama-pua’a is a wonderful example of ancient Hawaiian’s oral mythology and literature. Pigs were a special food for ancient Hawaiians and are still the centerpiece of a baby luau or graduation imu.