Here’s my darling Owl, sporting some very Top Model-esque feathers:

She’s only going to get prettier by the day.  And in only a few months (five… seems quite long!), she will be laying blue and/or green eggs!  Yay!  Unless she’s a boy.  I doubt it though

We do have to get rid of Pecker.  I’m 95% sure he’s a boy.  I don’t really want anybody to eat him, although he will probably be good eatin…

I can’t believe Pecker and Pooper are only two months old.  How is that possible!  They are behemoths.

And really they are only medium sized.  They will be much bigger very soon.

Pecker’s probably a boy.  That means he’ll be crowing in a few months. I’m not exactly sure when.  It makes me sad to think about having to give him up.  I’m pretty sure the neighbors will not be excited to be woken up every morning by him.  He used to be the smaller chicken, and now he’s much larger than Pooper, who is almost definitely a girl.  I won’t really know for absolute certain until she starts laying eggs, but i’m pretty sure already.  Here’s Ben holding Pecker one evening:

It’s possible he will be living up north with some friends in Cazadero.  I really don’t want anybody to eat him, he’s a pleasant and fun rooster, so far.

Here’s a picture of their coop while it was being  built:

Meet Ana and Owl.  They are Leghorn and Ameraucana breeds, respectively.  Owl will technically lay some kind of blue eggs, which I’m very excited about!

I finished building the chicken coop, and realized I had room for a few more.  Plus, Pecker and Pooper are already so big, I missed having babies around.  These new ones won’t last much more than a month either as babies, but for now they are the cutest things I’ve EVER seen.

Here’s to twice as many eggs come September or so!  Here’s to fritattas and omelets galore.

I got a suburban lesbian soccer mom car recently. It’s not amazing on gas mileage, it smells like the previous owner’s dog, and I look like a suburban lesbian driving it. On the other hand, it has great off-road suspension and plenty of trunk room for transporting project materials. Plus it’s comfy. We’re still getting to know each other, so I’m not yet that attached to her. I think it’s a her.

I suspect she’ll be taking me on a lot of roadtrips, like the one below to Sierraville, California, for some hot springs action. Beep Beep!

I took a year off from this blog, which is kind of crazy. I went from living in a tent on an “Intentional Community” sustainable farm in the volcanic rainforest jungle of Hawai’i, to being a San Francisco urbanite, gay scenester, and corporate sell-out. Well, that could only last for so long. I’m now back in the burbs, which is a lot better than my previous overcrowded and garbage-strewn neighborhood of SoMA, but still not my ideal dream of having my own homestead/farm. I have also moved in with a partner, which is new for me. So far, so good!

Actually, better than good. And, if you see below, we got chickens! Expect lots of videos of chickens on this website and on my YouTube account, very soon. I haven’t had baby animals in a long time, and basically they are like my very own baby children, except I can leave them in a cardboard box all day and someday I will eat their unfertilized ovum.

After reading books like Animal, Vegetable, Miracle and Still Life with Chickens and Plenty, I became inspired (i.e. obsessed) with owning my own hens to get free eggs. Most of the hatchery websites will ship you chickens in the mail, baby newborn chickens, which seems inhumane, but they usually survive because the yolk of the egg gets internalized into their stomachs and they can live on that for up to three days after hatching. Theoretically. Minimum order is TWENTY FIVE chicks.

Currently renting a house in Pacifica, in the suburbs, I think 25 chickens is probably against local ordinance (which I haven’t quite looked up yet as to the legality of chickens) and/or way too many chickens! I do know that my neighbors have horses and my other neighbors have up to 5 chickens, so I’m guessing I’ll be okay with my two chickens.

After extensive exploration both online and in person, I finally found a local feed store which supplies pet supplies, guinea pigs, rabbits, AND baby chickens and ducks! The ducks were disgustingly cute, and I had to use all my willpower not to spend another $3 to buy one. However, I need egg layers, not messy loud annoying ducks. The amazing lady at the register said ducks are 10 times dirtier than chickens! Chickens might poo wherever they choose, at any moment, but ducks have a tendency to make a royal mess of their local feeding grounds, especially when space is limited.

So, instead, I settled on two baby Barred Plymouth Rocks, which were insanely cute as well! They are black all around except their beaks and their bellies, which are yellow. They also have brown eyes, when you look closely.

More to come!

For now, their names are Pecker and Pooper. Subject to change. We’re thinking of giving them Bar Mitzvahs when they come of age and start laying eggs and giving them new names.

It finally took having visitors to get me over to the island of Oahu.  We had lots of fun there, I got pretty drunk on the beach in Waikiki.  Nothing like Fosters on the beach!  Actually, that’s probably why I was so hungover.  That and the Hpnotiq!  Mmmmm…

Waikiki from the top of Diamondhead.  Getting to the top of Diamondhead is NOT for the faint of heart.  It’s basically an hour hike UPHILL and up like 742389098432 stairs.  But you get this view as your reward.  So it is worth it.  Plus, it’s only 5$ per car to get into the park, so it’s totally a cheap thrill.  Assuming you’re not afraid of heights or 2378923897243 stairs.  Which I now am.

It’s kind of hard to photograph the USS Arizona.  This is the ship that was one of the many ships bombed at Pearl Harbor.  It basically exploded and sank immediately.  1,177 men died on board, and this site is a national military gravesite.  It’s also a tourist destination.  It’s kind of creepy.  But once you step off the shuttle boat that takes you to the USS Arizona, an eerie silence is perceptible, and the hundred or so folks wandering and taking it in are respecting it as a gravesite, so it’s completely silent.  It’s kind of depressing, but an important part of American history.

This is Sandy Beach, looking towards the “Halona Blowhole,” which is a hole in the rock where the waves splash through to heights of 30 or more feet.  This beach was incredibly beautiful, the sand was silky soft, warm, velvety and squishy between the toes.  The sort of beach which makes me want to move to Oahu forever.  Not a great surf beach, however.

This is Kualoa Beach Park, which was actually closed recently because of red-tide or some other bacterial presence.  It’s another amazingly beautiful beach, see above.  And continue below!

I think this  is one of the islands off of Oahu that was used to film the beginning sequence to Gilligan’s Island! But I’m not 100% sure.  In any case, who cares, because it’s freaking gorgeous.  I want to eat it.

JURASSIC PARK!  Basically.  The hills of Oahu have been worn down to these nubby, stubby, sharp, and striking peaks.  Barely 2000 ft tall, but still quite striking and incredible to see.  Big Island, where I am now, is so new geologically, that the whole island is one giant hill up to two giant peaks.  There really aren’t any sharp or interesting features like this, unless you count sharp lava rocks as interesting.  When you’re picking them out of your hand, you’ll beg to differ.  See previous entry about lava.

Oh Look!  I’m flying!  I’m flying!  Ohh, no! (*crash*) I’m dead!  What an IDIOT! (Wedding Crashers)

This guy was paragliding (?) off the sea cliffs above some really cool surf beach, backed by the steep part of Diamondhead, the updraft of which was probably causing the perfect, constant wind to glide around.   It looks like super fun, but really dangerous.  Pretty to watch, though.  Here, you can see C posing for the camera.  Thank you, C.

Ahh, the Hilton.  As much as I don’t want to support the family of Parisite Hilton, that Hilton Waikoloa is the shit!  It has it’s on tram car, a boat cab, and good (but pricey) restaurants, a sea-water lagoon with dolphins, and like 5498 pools.  And waterfalls and waterslides and shit.  Fun!   Thanks E’s old job for paying for it!

We watched the sunset from our hotel balcony.  I miss that balcony.  Sigh.

I didn’t have constant or any internet access for a week or two, so I apologize for the lapse in constant new pictures of my Hawaiian experience! I can tell you’ve been ANXIOUSLY awaiting them!

I had the opportunity to work exchange on a farm called La’akea Gardens, and here is their website. Below are some photos of the beautiful farm where I got to stay!

This is the main house with the “kitchen garden” in the foreground. They grow all sorts of salad greens like kale and lettuce and mizuna and mesclun and all sorts of things I barely recognize. Very yummy though! Fresh organic salads at each meal!

This gate is open during the day, but closed at night. Otherwise the wild pigs will come and eat all the salad greens! No joke! I heard one in the brush near my tent one night and almost shit my pants! Not that they’re dangerous, but because I’m a wuss.

This is the pond in the meadowspace. It’s quite lovely, but I never quite figured out if it’s functional or what it’s function might be.

MMmmmmmm! Ripening cacao! I’m not exactly sure what the cocoa bean harvesting and fermenting process is, but I sure like the results! I’m actually sad to miss that process on the farm. The residents are new to it too, I believe. There’s actually a few local chocolate makers in Puna, so I’m sure they can find out some tricks.

They had the cutest baby sheep, but they were super skittish unless you had the bucket of grain. They don’t like humans, and I don’t blame them!

I mentioned harvesting avocados earlier. It’s like really fun. You climb the avo trees and pick them by hand or use this long bamboo picker thingy, which I should have taken a photo of. In any case, I love climbing trees, and getting a bucketful of avos out of it is a really rewarding feeling! Avo season is almost over, so this is like the second to last batch.

ISHTAR THE ONE LEGGED CHICKEN! This fine hen has only one sexy leg. Ya jealous? She lays eggs like the best of them, however, proving that partial amputees are just as functional as the able-bodied. I’m not sure where she lost her leg, but it’s sort of amusing to watch her hop around eating worms and crumbs and bugs.

This is the outhouse where I would sometimes make poopie. Quite a nice shitter, yeah? Even though it’s outside and a composting toilet. That just means you pour sawdust on your “gift,” and it eventually decomposes. It actually doesn’t smell either, for an outhouse. Unless it’s very full.

This is the outdoor showers, which use solar heated water. Right in the shade of some banana trees! I actually didn’t shower out here ’cause I didn’t want to get my feet all dirty. They need to put a platform in that shit!

This is the lovely path to and fro the main house to the meadowspace. It’s lovely… in the sunshine. It rained for a week straight at one point and then nothing really seemed pretty to me, that and the cold/flu I had.

That concludes my farm tour post! Stay tuned for the next photo batch!

Everyone’s had a cold or flu of some sort. But have you ever lost your sense of smell and taste for more than a week? It’s a pretty harrowing experience. Don’t take these senses for granted! Stop! I can see you doing it right now through the computer!

Today is the first day in about a week where I can sort of smell again. I had the cold from hell which was going around the farm, and I’m in my final stages of recovery.

But Sunday, while you were watching the Oscars, I had the horrible experience of THIS

tasting like THIS

and earlier in the day THIS

tasting like THIS

.

Luckily for you fair readers, this horrible nightmare is over. I’m beginning to get some sense of smell and taste back. Because the conclusion that I came to (with my foodie-girl petit poussin) is that, not being able to taste food whatsoever, it was entirely too much work to chew so much but get no enjoyment. And I am incredibly lazy. So if the unthinkable were to happen, and I lost those two senses, I would starve to death. And then what would you do? That’s right. Cry.

I am finally doing what I came to Hawai’i to do. Today, I:

-woke up in a tent in the Hawaiian rainforest

-collected chicken eggs from the roosts (all food basically free range, organic)

-harvested a bucket of oranges and tangerines

-made fresh orange juice from those oranges

-harvested a bucket of limes

-harvested a giant bowlful of greens from the garden for the dinner salad

(kale, lettuce, mizuna, escarole, arugula, mustard greens, +more)

-harvested a rack of bananas

-planted two banana trees

-harvested a big bucketful of avocados

-made stir fry (including the eggs i found in the morning)

-took a shower using roof-mounted, solar water-heater water

-helped prepare dinner for a group of cool people who choose to live off the grid and eat food that they grow themselves

Obviously, I’m having a good time here at La’akea Farm, where I have a month-long work-exchange internship. Living out of my tent is interesting, but I have access to the whole larger community house, with a well-stocked kitchen (all the herbs and organic soy milk one could ever want), a gym/playroom with exercise balls, an office (obviously there’s computers and internet here), a living area with a giant TV, and a lenai for meetings and cell phone conversations (good signal in the lenai room).

This fun can’t last forever, of course, and at some point I will be returning to civilization. C. and E. are coming to visit in a few weeks, and I’m super excited for the hotel parties, lava viewing, drinking, sunbathing, snorkling, and karaoke which will surely compose their best Hawaiian vacation ever!

In the meantime, I’m eating really good food that’s growing right outside of where I’m sitting! Ono grinds as the locals say…

Pictures to follow, once I my computer back from civilization.