Our recent visit to the huge Maku’u Farmers Market took place on a breezy but gloriously sunny Sunday morning.  The market place was buzzing and the parking was ‘competitive’ with new arrivals waiting patiently for early birds to leave an empty spot…but the waiting didn’t take long as there was a steady stream of in-and-out, well-directed traffic.

Imagine owning a lawnmower that makes its own blades, moves itself around the lawn, requires no gasoline (it runs on grass), makes very little noise, replaces itself every year or so, and you can eat it as a delicious high protein food. All you need to provide is a fence around the pasture, a small shed, some water, and mineral supplements. Sound like a crazy fantasy? If you have some land with grass on it, and you can afford to put a fence around it, tropical hair sheep are a viable option.

The South Kona Green Market (SKGM) is located on a little bluff above and behind the Kealakekua Ranch Center in Captain Cook, at the third level behind Choice Mart and Ace Hardware on Mile Marker 109.5 of Mamalahoa Highway. Its motto, which the vendors take to heart, is “From The Land, By Our Hand,” and the market includes all local, farm produce, art, crafts, sustainability oriented items (LED lights, solar power systems, etc) – mostly all made by hand, as well as a wide variety of freshly prepared foods for eating at the market or for take-home.

The market tries to keep a balance by not over-saturating any particular product, especially among the artists and crafters. The market was two years old this past August and some of the vendors who have been there from the beginning are the most passionate when speaking about it. The SKGM market is composed of about 78 individuals accounting for 35 vendors on any given Sunday.

Tea is the most widely consumed beverage after water. It has a cooling, slightly bitter, astringent flavor. The three most common types of tea are black, green, and oolong. There are also some less common types such as white and yellow teas and compressed teas (e.g., puerh), as well as numerous flavored and scented teas. All of these teas have in common that they use the leaves of the same plant, Camellia sinensis, but they are processed in different ways.

There is a very fine line between having chickens on our subsistence farm and raising chickens as a business.

We are not chicken farmers. We do not have a chicken farm.

Our hens and roosters choose where they want to be at every moment. They love our front stoop and the barn. They want to be as close to us as they can without us being able to actually touch them (except for our bard rocks, who are friendly and we name them all “Friendly:” “auntie Friendly,” “Friendly’s sister,” or “Friendly’s daughter”). I just call them all Friendly. Lauren, of course knew each hen by sight. She would correct me, “No, mom, that’s not Friendly’s sister, that’s Friendly’s first daughter (but then Lauren had two horses as pets and milked and played with goats since she was 11.)