Archive for the ‘Newsletter’ Category

Oh Jeez,

O.k., so now that the spokesperson for Walmart is an obese black gentleman whose best friends are Ben and Jerry, I think its time we talked about schmootz. If you go with the Yiddish, you get "dirt", as in "you've got some schmootz on your clean shirt boobee", or as a means of being polite about pointing out a flaw in ones appearance, "Bubelah, you should vipe the schmootz  (a.k.a. booger) from your noje", or as a generic term encompassing any number of items classified as detritus, like the other day when nurse Natty asked me what was on my shirt, at which point I looked down and saw some grass clippings, leaves and a small twig or two clinging and I replied, "oh just some schmootz."

This is the concept of schmootz in its microcosmic sense, but in the macrocosm, the layers of meaning unfold to reveal that we are in fact, in a world of Schmootz. The Walmart ad is a good example. Here's a guy, probably stoked beyond belief to have landed the job of spokesperson for a megacorp ( in spite of being a trained thespian whose King Lear is to die for) who is pitching the idea that shopping the store specials will make your life more economically sound and your tummy all hap hap happy. Basically you will become him, the overjoyed obese black gentleman whose best friends are Haagen and Dazs (on sale now).

The impression that Walmart promotes is of this jovial fellow being a normal and acceptable role model for all those who enter the hallowed halls of compulsive shopping. Do you see the layers of schmootz here people? There's the acceptance of degrading standards, the "normalcy" of tough economic times and the "your best friend" projection of comfort and security in your shopping experience. These are bits of schmootz showing up between the toes of cultures world wide, people. The kind of schmootz that's secreted in the folds of Mankind"s foreskin.  It is a red wine stain on the white ruffled tuxedo shirt of America's prom night.

Now when you live on a farm, there's schmootz everywhere you look, and being immersed in schmootz has its advantages. First, you know it when you see it. Second, you see it for what it is. Part of the ever loving cycle of birth, life, schmootz, death and birth. I can glance down at the stuff stuck to my shirt and imagine the life of that piece of white sapote leaf from sprouting seed to succulent fruit and how its existence  from tiny leaflet to fully fledged photosynthesis lab helped support the needs of the whole in a labyrinthine spectacle of unnumbered connections.  And  now, as I brush it from my shirt it will fall softly to ground, decompose further and leave its nutrients for some drunken microorganisms to feast on, rendering their poop available to small hungry rootlets. Happy now?

By the way, I don't know why, but I always envision soil microorganisms as being drunk, dancing and waving their little microorganism hands skyward. Did you know that there are billions of microorganisms in a few grams of healthy soil?

"In that little pile of schmootz, unky jp?"

"Thats right little fella, in that little pile."

Nope, no point really, just that it pays to know it when you see it, and see it for what it is.

The grand "cost of keeping chickens" experiment has run its two month course and we've found that although the system could probably use several tweaks to become more productive, we're running about two and a half times our cost in the black. Our only other cost is cartons for the eggs. We get a lot back, but not enough to keep up with the supply. This is all good news, particularly because we've got another thirty birds about to start producing in the next couple of months and should increase our standing in the worldwide chicken consortium to just under three hundred ten millionth largest producer in the world.

The rancho has been graced with the presence of nurse Lindsey and her sidekick Joshua. Fresh off a newly minted marriage, having tossed their lives on the mainland to the four winds, they have landed on Maui in search of something to be in search of.  Want your world rocked for four minutes? Google "Lyndsey Redding holy land".  Poetry"s her game and yoga too. Good fit for the land of the loony. Joshua appears primed and ready to gobble down all things Permaculture as his academic background is a wellspring of environmental policy and leadership skills (whatever the fuck that means). They are ridiculously cute and obviously meant for each other. Disgusting really, but as a wwoof host, I've learned to put up with this sort of thing. They are in the eager to please and gung-ho phase. I give 'em a couple of weeks to see what a fuck up I am and adjust to the relaxed chaos of farm life.

Update: the cow came back, three nights in a row, breaking fences, settling in and gently munching tufts of newly mown Buffel  grass while allowing any deer in the vicinity a clear shot at some succulent young mango trees and of course their favorite, the new shoots of young banana trees.  Didn't get much sleep those nights. Had to get up to chase the cow out and fix the fence by flashlight, or get up pre dawn to get down before the deer could do much damage. Big fun.

Did end up cornering a couple of big does and sending them to that great pasture in the sky where mango shoots sprout like alfalfa and bubbling springs pop up at the first signs of thirst. Their earthly remains grace our freezer and serve as a reminder that the best method of dealing with a problem is killing it and eating it. Cheers Bubba.

Speaking of which, I just had a memory bubble float up. I think probably everybody loves gecko's. Especially with the spokesperson for Geico thing. Well, I used to be one of those people, and still am but only to a certain extent. That's because I was sitting in my little dining nook one night many years ago and watching the nightly gecko show which consisted of moths being attracted to the dining area window because of the light and the geckos laying in wait for the feast that lay ahead (albeit a bit frustrating for the geckos on the inside of the window). This particular night was different because there was a baby gecko out with one of the big ones. Baby gecko's have to rank right up there with gremlin dolls and dimples on the cuteness scale and I thought totally cool, right. Here's mom teaching youngster hunting skills. And that's what it looked like with the little tyke taking the lead and heading for this big mother moth with mom bringing up the rear. Just when I thought the little fella was going to make his David slew Goliath move, mom gobbled him down in a pounce so shocking as make me forcibly expel not only my breath but the lilikoi juice in my mouth, through my nose.

You know how they're translucent and you can kind of see whats going on inside them, especially on the belly side. It was like I didn't really want to watch, but............

She just went on hunting.

"Is life really that cruel unky jp?"

"Seems so little fella, sadly so."

"Maybe we just forgot how good our young really taste unky jp."

"Point well taken little fella, point well taken."

The more you show, the more plant life we'll kill to keep you runnin' smooth. Peace, Jp

There are times when forms and forces combine on many levels to reveal a portal through which our individual and collective consciousness can glimpse a vision of things to come. The Greeks called it Kairos time. It is not chronological, it is opportunistic. It is often what we make of these times that determines the course of our future. Plucking the solution from the problem, we reign in the moment.

The loophole here being that oft times these little energetic eddies just freak us out and send us reaching for the ____________(your favorite tranquilizer/comfort food here).  The more comfortable we are, the harder it is to go with the information that points to change and the more we change the harder it is to get comfy. So here's some advise from a war torn vet, get used to it bubelah, for within the apparent and endless discomfort of the process lies hidden the noogie of Truth. Heed the noogie.

So we've had a cow hanging around the property, walking through fences and taking strange and circuitous routes through the orchard to get to God only knows what. Seems very random. Remarkably little damage to the plant life has been done. I have visions of this lumbering critter on tippy toe, wearing a tutu and pirouetting through the pathways, sniffing the Malabar chestnut blooms and having a gay old time living out some bovine fantasy. No sign in the past few days, so I think the ranch guys found it.

To compound the problem, the young orphaned deer who are too weak to be scared are showing up in the lower orchard to find some green forage, but mostly to find some niche and drop dead. The other day nurse Natty had her first conniption over the walking jerky that got into the market garden and ground her recently planted and thriving comfrey into a patch of dirt. Not amused. She has now joined the N.R.A. and is saving up for a down payment on an uzi.

Project "fencemout" is in its penultimate stage. We've got about another three hundred feet on the northern border to fence and then its mostly gates for entry and exit. We're still waiting for the storied trickle down economics to move the project along at more than its usual and acceptable snails pace and have actually had a contribution from one of the farms most avid supporters. Thanks mah.

Speaking of which, thanks to all of you who made the fortieth anniversary celebration an event worthy of bottling and shipping worldwide. I consider the energy generated at these gatherings to be our nations most valuable renewable resource.

Let us rock; oh lord, in whose wisdom we reside, we pray that you let us bop till we drop so that he who cometh here will  know us for our works and will proclaim, "last time I heard music this good, I paid sixty bucks for a seat, and that was at the back of the auditorium".

Only regret. Missed Nancys peach cobbler.............again. A treat which transforms polite party goers into ravaging hordes.

Had a hiccup at the farmers market last week. Zoning department shut er' down. Yup, that's right. Shut er' down without so much as a grace period to comply with the minor fixes needed to bring full legitimacy to the proceedings. Shut er' down in spite of causing cases of incomus interrupticus  that could be felt for miles. Shut er' down because some merchants in town feel threatened by the competition and would rather see us removed than to allow the public access to our goods and services. What fun.

Me and Natty decided to get political and went down to the market site with signage explaining the situation and phone numbers for the relevant county officials. Sure enough, bunches of people intent on shopping came by and were outraged I tell ya', outraged. Why there were people flippin' their cell phones left and right, petitions being circulated and a feeling of empowerment akin to running a yellow light. We got home feelin' all full of ourselves, ate some s'mores and went into glucose shock.

We have government that preaches support of local agriculture, but what they mean is Monsanto, what remains of sugar and pineapple, cattle ranching and monocrops like onion, flowers and cabbage. When it comes to diversified ag., not a clue, and when it comes to support of the small diversified farmer, I'm not feelin' the love yet. But then I've only been at it for twenty five years. A drop in the bucket for gubmint time.

Congratulations go out to Grimes for his successful cd release/bar mitvah bash at Stella Blues. He agreed, at the last minute to share the room with the Feldmans from Boise who had lost their venue to a scheduling mishap. The combination of Grimes inspired tunes and recitation of Torah will long resonate in my skull.

We've had the blessing of rain grace our parched patch of scrub and rock. May even bring out a bit of green in the next day or two. The clouds continue to intrude by day giving us a little rest from the beating that the sun delivers this time of year. We're looking good on fruit coming up late summer and into the fall, the veggie gardens are gulping down the water and with the exception of some birds foraging the young greens,  thriving.

Always lots to do. When I set my mind on how much, the danger of spontaneous combustion looms. We've got a couple of couples coming in July which means we can get to the rest of  the fencing, the building of additional chicken paddocks (for the rotation system) and the systematic pruning of trees to create piles of mulch and allow more breeze and light into the orchard. I couldn't feel better about the slow but steady progress the farm is experiencing and how its vision continues to grow with the diversity of species and myriads of energetic connections. Its gotten to the point where I no longer have to think about what to do; the farm tells me. I'm all ears.

So welcome back summertime. Thanks for your sweetening heat and the warm ground on my feet. For the ripening fruit and the succulent root. For sunshine on tap and a serious afternoon nap. It is a time when energies converge and conspire to bring about the abundance of harvest. It is a Kairos time, full of hope and uncertainty. Expect the unexpected.

The more you show, the more we'll grow. Peace, Jp

Now THIS is reality t.v.. Does it get any better than the view from the Skandi two ROV as one of the chemical dispersant wands is dropped by a mechanical claw hand somewhere in the tangled mass that used to be the blowout preventer and the little bugger ROVer scampers to get the thing, 'cause its still spewing clouds of chemical taint into the more or less pristine waters of ground zero. The wands effluent is now clouding the camera and turning everything a kind of eerie and ghostly white. All indistinct like.

Does it become any more stunningly obvious that this latest attempt to retrieve some precious precious goo and stanch the flow is anything more than a poorly cut pipe and a rocket looking cap thingy that appears to be spewing more oil than before.

Well hold on there cowboy. There's vents in that there cap, and we're doin' what we can to shut those boogers without allowing the buildup of ice crystals which will prevent my precious precious goo from flowing to the shareholders wallets. Wallets which would otherwise, and rightfully so, be directed at purchasing something with a more lucrative return, and we can't have that.

And all this, from the sci-fi like technical wizardry to the socio-political whirlygig brought to you live from five thousand feet below the surface of the ocean, twenty four seven and without commercial interruption, although during the lost wand debacle, the server did "go down" for awhile. I'm wondering when we'll see the bud light ads start up.

Is it morbid to be fascinated by the appearance of helplessness in the face of this catastrophic episode? Like the eyes of death, fierce and offering no escape.

Oh, don't be such a poopy pants. Dontcha know that in the course of any given year, the gulf floor belches up the equivalent of an exxon valdez spill and that happy little bacteria gob gob gobble it right up? So which is it? Efficient and effective goo gobblers will take care of biz, or we get beyond the attempts to spin this thing. Its right there. Almost impossible to misinterpret. Really.

"Its almost like history unfolding before our very eyes, unky jp."

"It really is, little fella, it really is."

Surprisingly, I wasn't flooded by comments regarding the last blog, in which I described our little chicken 'speriment. I know, its pretty obvious that we have a ways to go in being able to say we don't need anything from the outside world to feed the chooks, and for now we can just try to tune the system, nutritionally and economically. Now I know you're just dying to hear how we're gonna work toward a system which produces enough food for the birds to lay up to snuff and eliminate, as much as possible the need to buy feed.

What you do is this, you build out two to three paddocks for each flock of chickens and rotate them between the paddocks while planting the previously occupied one(s) with the kinda stuff they like to eat. Throw in a few things for you too. You can plant all kinds of trees and shrubs which will get a good start while the chooks are browsing the other enclosures down to fertile dirt.

Its a bit labor intensive at first because of fencing and netting for the roof, but once built out your good to go with only minor repairs and maintenance for years to come. Some of our paddocks approach four thousand square feet with six subterranean levels conducting important research into all things chicken. Do you have any idea how much chicken poo is produced each year, world wide? These are the statistics that can only be found on sub level six. Highly classified stuff. Don't go sniffin around.

Its been a productive week. We had the blessing of cloud cover for the past few days, just in time for planting out a couple of hundred green vegetable starts as well as some amaranth. First time for us on the amaranth. Never really tried the grain and look forward to it. They sure are pretty plants and stand out in any garden. They look like skinny green beings with lots of arms and reddish brown dread locks.

Nurse Natty and I put in about ten olive trees of three different varieties. She was a big help, but a bit out of sorts that morning owing to the ingestion of an electric brownie the night before which had her wearing a befuddled smile all day. She told me later that day that she thought we were laying out a croquet course .

Purchased the trees from a guy and his partner. They showed so much enthusiasm for the humble olive tree. Somewhere between zealous religious convert and hyper caffeinated dentist. Very knowledgeable and totally into it. I'm sure that before they're done there will be tens of thousands of olive trees on Maui. And why not booby? The upcountry dry lands are perfectly disposed to the cultivation of this most hardy tree.

I'm told that two trees, properly pruned and maintained will yield a gallon or more of oil per year and that the second and third pressings can be used for cooking as well as a bio-diesel fuel source. Booya. We got twenty trees to start with and are planning out the next grove to be planted as soon as the remaining trees develop good root systems. Along with mac nut, kukui, jatropha and castor bean we are on our way to making a blend of oils to help fuel the farms future.

Hopefully within a couple of years, we'll be able to harvest enough fruit to supply all our oil and table olive needs for the year. That would be cool squared.

Lets see, what else. Oh yeah, a reminder of the party coming up on the nineteenth of June (that's a Saturday). Its a pot luck starting around four/five-ish and celebrates forty years of life on Maui. Kamaaina or what? It's also Caley Nightingaley's last night on Maui after a six month "internship" at the Rancho which no doubt, will have her mumbling non-sequiturs for years to come. Shhhhhh, don't tell her, but the plan is to have her sing her heart out all night and give us old guys the joy of backing up a young diva if ever there was.

She has been the picture of the perfect wwoofer and has successfully moved from knucklehead to pin head to chowder head in a mere six months. This is akin to finishing college in nine weeks. We have a different way of seeing around these parts. I'm already missing the sound of her singing showering the gardens.

I get the feeling that oil is to earth as seratonin is to human bodily fluids. I sense that this gushing insult depletes not only the soul of those who empathize but the spirit of the planet which we, for the most part infest with the mentality of goblins gone berserker. We are a bit of a problem, aren't we? If we can't turn to methods like permaculture and lifestyles that conform to the realities of living with nature, there is little to stop the lemming thing we're doing now, which will get increasingly dire as we reinforce the wrong priorities.

One thing that gives me hope is moving through the farm and seeing how much I've grown with the rest of the flora and fauna. There is a sense of connection to outcome that is really rare in a mostly compartmentalized existence  where we allow ourselves the luxury of not caring. Hopeless is not helpless. Ways exist. Kinda fun, really. Its like tossing yourself into the chaos instead of figuring out ways to avoid it. Lets go see Avatar again, in the comfort of our completely dark and comfy space with hyper three d laser goggles, on mushrooms. There now, much better.

The more you show, the more we'll grow. Peace, Jp

Oh Snooooze

Some might call it the Blaahhhs, but to me its a cozy little cocoon in which to sprout some wings, a break in the pace of things, a time to embrace lazy, go covert. Taking the time to just stare out my office window I see a sight that marks entry into the summer months. The once skeletal looking Inia trees are flowering and pushing out slender shimmering green leaves by the oodles.

The scent is lilackee, the look like that of its Mahogany family brethren and sisteren , tall and spreading, sturdy and climbably inviting. Their presence  is smelt from first light to evening dusk and combined with the fragrance of the Malabar Chestnut blossoms, well, its enough to make a fella feel faint. They are about to provide a stop gap measure to the heat and dry that is the sirens call of summer. Shade, blessed shade.

Often overlooked, rarely understood and commonly mistaken for a shadow, shade provides an altogether indispensable temperature gradient. It is the buffer created between canopy and ground that makes life in the dry tropical midlands livable between June and October.  These days, I'm toast by elevenish and don't want to get out again, unless its cloudy till about four thirty, five. Civilized like.

This tree, Melia azaderach not only provides a high canopy under which all other members of this rag tag eco-moosh can feel comfy and safe, but its massive root systems capture and hold the moisture that does manage to infiltrate the soil in the form of summer storms and evening dews. They drop a litter of leaves, flowers and berry like seeds that break down into fine mulch and humus as well as contributing its numerous pesticidal properties to the soil surface. Properties which work systemically (like its cousin, the Neem tree) to aid other trees nearby in warding off the nasties.

So here they go again, coming on strong just when everything else is beginning to whine about the dry dry dry. To the rescue with that all important component and by product of their existence, Shade.

So lets tip a glass to the Inia, a.k.a. China berry, pride of India, Persian lilac, Melia azaderach and always keep in mind that this little excursion into minutiae has wasted upwards of an hour of time which might well otherwise have been spent pulling weeds, wondering if the oil will stop gushing, scratching my balls, eating organic cheeto's or generally feeling inadequate to pretty much any task. I remember when my dad retired, after the first few days of doing nothing he griningly remarked, " I never knew how easy it was to just piss the day away". Amen.

You're not going to believe this, but it looks like the chickens are acting more chicken like in their laying patterns. Having nearly doubled our production since the days of the great "mystery drop off", we've reached a sort of reasonable production rate, meaning that a little to a lot more would be a lovely bonus and likely make my toes curl, like the sight of Nurse Natty in her patchwork dress or Nurse Caley in her cowboy hat, but as it stands I've nearly achieved happy camper status.

Now it turns out it may just have been a matter of economics combined with my sometimes parsimonious ways. In an attempt to economize the cost of chookerations I began substituting a bit of crack corn for lay pellets, saving me some ka-ching but leading to our version of armachicken. I went into deep study mode, reading article, forum post and suggestions from a broad spectrum of numbskulls on the subject. Came up with two tidbits. One is that the corn and the lay pellets are a no no. Won't go into why. The other is that the ladies need three point five ounces of well balanced lay formula a day, a piece. I also go with a once a week supplement of fish meal, some soy and a bit of grit.

So I set out to do a 'speriment, real scientific like. Got me a pallet of feed, thereby cutting the cost. Did a head count and figured on a few extra servings which meant that each of the three groups of feathered feminists need five and a half pounds twice a day. Could leave the whole amount out for them to free choice throughout the day, but frankly that scares me. Probably wait until production stabilizes and then maybe give it try, feeding them once a day in a makeshift trough to see if they hold off on eating it all or just tear through it.

By my calculations, the forty bags should last us sixty days at a cost of about two dozen eggs a day (ten bucks). Then there's the various meals, grit, electrolyte (that's right, we give our chooks Gatorade during super hot times) and extra calcium in the form of oyster shell which add another half dozen a day to the cost. Utterly fascinating. Is that the sound of snoring I hear? Mission accomplished.

I'll be reporting in from time to time to update the progress of the little darlings. This all to prepare you for the scientific reason as to why we will be raising our prices. I did notice the other day that the Barred Rocks have taken to actually nipping at my heals as I carry the feed bucket around, as though the contents of the bucket and I had turned into one giant lay pellet to be gnawed on till extinct. Cute.

Aside from the escape artists and the few broody hens that have been banished from the flock until they forget they're broody, the fowl life fares well. Collected eighty eggs today. Would love it if all of you out there who feel a kinship with whats going on here vamp on the number ninety six. That's a solid eight dozen and only five more eggs from each group. Thus far, the leghorns are solidly in the lead when it comes to production, our best day being thirty five eggs out of forty five hens. Had enough? Me too.

I used to think it audacious in the extreme when first viewing BP's t.v. ads with their sunshiny logo all green and yellow and depicting themselves as "Beyond Petroleum". What a crock of shit, thinks I. "Bout as far beyond petroleum as a junkie is from his kit. I guess we can chalk this one up to the law of unintended consequences, although in the circles of conspiracy, a tale has been told of an attempt on the part of BP to do the world an enormous service by joining forces with the worlds leading sunblock manufacturer ( masquerading as chemical dispersant) and through the miracle of chemistry combining the two fluids to create the ultimate tanning oil/sunblock.

The plan is to wait until the bruhaha over this little smudge dies down and then announce  that the cleanup is going well and that beach goers on every continent could soon have the expectation that taking a dip in any of the worlds oceans would result in a coating of uv protected tanning goo with the half life of plutonium. Why just the number of skin cancer reductions alone will win the company Nobel peace prize accolades. This act of true benevolence will only require the amount of oil used by America in twenty days, can be paid back with a seven cent per gallon surcharge on gasoline over the next four months and will prove to be an act of marketing genius. Remember, you heard it here first.

Meanwhile, news out of the gulf has it that a plume of oil some six miles wide and twenty six miles long has been discovered at a depth of thirty three hundred feet. It is headed for the harbor at Mobile Alabama. The stuff that 'pockyclypses are made of.  As of this post, the live feed on BP's website still shows a gusher of fluids escaping the pressure of that depth like it was grabbing its nuts and saying, "preshah 'dis".

What else? Oh yeah, my old computer finally crapped out completely, taking with it my "farm stuff" email list. I'm slowly recovering and posting to as many of you as I can. There may have been one or two posts prior to this mail going out.

Finally, I'll be turning the corner on forty years on Maui and figure to have a bit of a bash in honor of how weird that actually feels. Will post the date when its a sure thing. Until then, sleep tight, no fright, all night.

The more you show, the more we'll grow.  Dream on, Jp

Motherfucking, cute as the dickens, four legged, fluffy tailed pieces of shit, lacking  sensitivity to anything but their appetite for succulant young tree branches and older trees that they can ring bark with their antlers, cause it feels soooooo goood to scrape the fuzz off. I know that's true for me on full moon nights but I only have one antler and would rather soak it in some warm viscous fluid than rub it against a tree.

So I'm making the rounds the other day after having spent a couple of work days with the amazing wwoofettes, re-securing the deer fencing on the southern border of the property. This is the direction from which the deer approach the property.

Now that the weather has turned to drought, the myriads of trails leading to the property are like some terrestrial g.p.s.,tracking all roads leading to unky jp's plant smorgyborg and fermented water emporium. Yummy.

All the areas for growing veggies, or doing banana/papaya/perennial veggie polycultures are within fenced orchard areas to keep the darling (I want you dead now) deer from doing what they did to the one orchard area that lacks a fence on the North side of the property line.

Why, you might ask would I not fence this stretch of border? The standard answer of I'm a knucklehead comes to mind, but also because that portion of the property is bordered by Kealakapu road and not an area where one normally see's anything but cars, trucks, horseback riders and those out for a stroll.

The beautiful (I want you cut up and in my freezer) deer would have to do some loopdeloops to get over there. Well they did, and in so doing found a patch of glycine growing by the roadside as a result of the irrigation system used to keep the the orchard thriving.

Now this orchard and home to the rhode island reds, which we refer to as" Oscar Peterson" is fenced in on the South, East and West sides and has never been hit since that fence was in place.

But in a meeting, held in secret in a barranca just to the south the of the property, the alpha male, a nine point buck named Rory Spotted Balls and the notorious Mergatroid Chizzletooth of the Kamaole mongoose clan sat over a bowl of fermented egg yolks and talked business.

Chizzletooth, surrounded by his elite henchgeese, teeth laser sharpened and bared ever so slightly in a snarl, confided that his clan had been raiding the Americauna enclosure from the North for several years now and that with the exception of  a certain acceptable percentage of war casualties found it to be a foolproof approach yielding a steady supply of eggs, some good sport freaking the cookies out of the chooks and leading to discoveries of ever more clever ways to beat the traps.

He told of vast mountains of greenery running up the roadside, smelling of terpenes, crawling things and bird doo. Rory sat patiently on his hind quarters, surrounded by his stable of rutting beeotches taking in this info and realizing that even though the hard black stuff on the road hurt his feet, it might just be worth it to chance-um'.

Little did he know at the time that his risk would lead to a night of ravaging Oscar Peterson.

Rory handed a faded leather satchel over to Chizzletooth who examined the contents with an ever widening and sickly sinister approximation of a grin. He pulled a  piece of jerky out of the satchel, bit off a tweensy bit and chewed it with such zealous frenzy as to turn it to liquid within seconds.

He then swished the slurry around in his mouth and spit the remains to ground. After rolling his eyes back in a swoon and breathing very deeply, Chizzletooth declared fair deal, zipped up the satchel, waggled his eyebrows at the beeotches and disappeared into the underbrush.

Rory then barked out orders for the evenings forage and the dye was caste.

The result of a few of these delightful ( the only good is a dead) deer finding ingress to Oscar Peterson resulted in the ring barking of the largest Inga Edulis and the newly transplanted white indonesian guava, the total destruction of a two and a half year old mango, the shredding of four banana keiki's, a two year old lychee tree rendered unrecognizable as anything but a small stump to trip over, a denuded cashew and mulberry and the nibbling of numerous mango leaves and small branches.

All in all not at all what I had expected to find in a routine days rounds. While I know that a lot of what farming is about is rolling with the punches, I found myself rolling into "whats the use" mode and then allowed myself some pissed off time to begin the energetic transmutation from  anger to order where the world is good again and life is simple and solution orientation points the way to overcoming even the vision of years of work laid to waste and of unheard plant screams put to rest.

I knew from past patterns that it would be imperative to get that northern border fenced the next day or risk the total destruction of this young orchard. So I camped out with a pitcher of pina coladas and my rifle and passed the night in an uncomfortable sort of peace. Early the next day I headed for town to pick up the fencing materials. A few hours later and with the help of superior human women, access to the property from Kealakapu road was denied.

Not having the dough to fence the entire property kinda sucks, but moments of intensity which yield affirmative action geared toward renewing the strength and vitality of the Rancho, rock out. Its about getting sweaty and bloody and teaming up to solve a problem. Its about the learning and the laughing and the longing. Its about knowing that the challenges never cease and that one of the most important crops we can grow is Perseverance.

"Thats deep unky jp."

"Not really, little fella, just the voice of Nature."

"The who of what?"

"That's right little fella, the who of what."

The more you show, the more we'll grow. Peace, Jp

Hoo boy,

Thanks to the intrepid Dzinah Faloley and our shared interest in all things ridiculous, I received a link to an article about the recently instituted changes regarding the rules of Scrabble. Dinah's interest in Scrabble is heart attach serious. She's into it. Me too, but mostly to see the look of consternation on her face when she loses by two points because she's holding a "q" at the end of the game.

That's why finding out that the new rules allow for the use of proper nouns, words spelled backwards and words placed without benefit of being connected to other "words" resulted in a cascade of neuro peptides revealing a vision of the next generation of Scrabble enthusiasts to be unimaginative trolls, living under bridges made of recycled walmart trash, spewing pop culture on to what used to be a proving ground for wordsmiths and strategists.

This is a sad state of affairs and says gobs about the way our culture is being gobbled down by the trivial and led farther and farther astray from issues of substance and the handling of such things. But really its o.k. because your government and the corporations Really Care.

Here's what I think is going on. The makers of Scrabble are doing a  "new coke" thing. They're introducing a new and improved version of the game, knowing there will be a backlash amongst the purists which will then allow them to re-introduce Scrabble Classic, thereby cutting the venom of harsh reprisals and increasing their market share by catering to the noodniks that now think they're playing Scrabble because they can spell " Beyonce" or "Jay-z".

Lets say I spell the word grime and the next time around I spell pizzzas backward and connect it to the end of grime, bingo, seventeen hundred and twelve points. And yes, I can fucking spell pizzza with three z's if i wanna. The vision of a bunch of chimps throwing their shit against a wall and calling it art comes to mind. Ooooo Ooooooo Ooooooo Aahaahhahhaaaaahh.

Its amazing how much food there is within a five mile radius of this place. We've taken to cruising around with a mind to making mental notes of fruit trees that are bearing and don't seem to be cared for or harvested. Right now there are several varieties of citrus as well as tons of avo's. The loquats are lighting upcountry roadsides with their golden glow and sweet tang. All this makes for jams and juice, crisps and chocavo mousse, and all on the cheap. With the right equipment and an enterprising smile, a person could get by just fine as a fruit scavenger. Never too early to consider retirement options.

We got the survivors of our last batch of day olds out of their nursery and into the great outdoors, and boy do they dig it. They're in with a handful of Muscovies who are well versed in the school of poultry integration techniques and have been doing their best imitations of chicken behavior while retaining the essence of duckness. Suffice to say that come september there will be a couple of dozen more eggs a day including the exotic dark reddish brown offerings of the Cuckoo Maran.

Doc Bebockbok, the local poultrypuncturist and his lovely wife nurse Sally were by the day we put them out and quite impressed with their size and healthy demeanor. They were, however compelled to confide in me that they thought I should consider an intervention with them and Doc Liebenlobe given the anxiety attacks which had so plagued me in the recent past over things like winter molting, diminished egg production and having to attend chicken sensitivity training after being caught kicking a chook that had flown up into my face in an attempt to eat an eyeball.

I told them not to worry, and that my Taoist training was gaining traction. I told them that I had reached a point of equilibrium. A place where all chicken behavior was one energetic continuum and that no matter what kind of changes the feathered freakshows went through I would be as the eye of a hurricane in my acceptance of the swirling turmoil. Then I threw up and started to weep.

I suppose it's much like any challenge that presents itself in such a way as to tell you that avoidance will only bring the challenge back around and that engaging in the process of knowing more will bring resolution, or a lot of freshly cleaned and dressed chickens languishing in the freezer. Either way, bring it.

So, after a few brief but heartfelt primal screams I thanked the doc and the lovely nurse Sally for their concern and let them know that I would most assuredly contact them if the stress levels breached the red zone. Nice to have friends who care, even if they're imaginary.

Now that Spring is fully upon us we've been bit by the planting bug. Holes are being popped out, irrigation laid, banana keiki's pried up, papaya seeds sprouting, olive groves in the planning, biofuel plants growing nicely in the nursery, Acai palms developing root balls big enough to put out and a whole lot of brainstorming  about how to get the most out of the orchards and vegetable gardens during this period of increasing photo period.

One of the most captivating features of the Permaculture method is it's open ended nature. The more one does, the more possibilities open up. This is the beauty of sustainable design. It becomes a matrix of useful connections, guilds and networks that perpetuate themselves by supporting each other. And like any biological system, it is a work in constant progress with each and every changing pattern revealing the wonders of successful design strategies and pointing the way to abundant harvests and the assurance of a stable and productive environment. And all we have to do is be Human.

Oh yeah, forgot to mention our little ordeal with one of the adolescent chicklettes. Turns out this one Barred Rock got loose in the transfer process and found her way into the cistern. The cistern is about fifteen feet deep and thirty feet across. I assigned the task of rescue to Nurse Natty who has a head for puzzling out these problems and a heart to melt the anxieties of any stunned chicken. I saw her sitting in deep meditation the other day in what appeared to be a quest to find the best approach to the dilemma at hand. After awhile she came out of her trance with a sort of "i've got it" look on her face.

The next morning, Nurse Caley came to me and said, "c'mere, you've gotta see this".  She walked me over to the cistern on tippy toes and pointed over the side at a spot where Natty was sitting very still. She had arranged her riot of dreads into the shape of a huge and ultra inviting birds nest ( i've seen her arrange it in the image of a 65 mustang), which after several minutes attracted the little chook to her lap and then with one jump up into the penthouse suite. They both sat very still for the next few minutes until the little critter fell asleep, so comforting was this massive bowl of warmth combined with the meditative glow of Natty's noggin.

At that point Natty just got up, slowly climbed the ladder up the side of the cistern, reached up, pulled the sleeping chook from her coif and walked her over to duck world, where she awoke just in time to be greeted by her long lost sisters.

Natalie was named wwoof o' the week and regaled with bouquets of salad greens and brief, but heartfelt primal screams.

The more you show, the more we'll grow.  Rain would be nice, Jp

Oh low blow,

Reason I say that is because of the news that Barry just assigned the task of chief agricultural negotiator to this Charles Addams cartoon character looking dude name of Islam Siddiqui. Looks like he could be Lurch's demented uncle. He's one of the Mansonto posse specializing in the advocacy of pesticide and herbicide use worldwide. From the little I've read, and any more would make me hurl, this fella is steeped in the corporate lore of profits before real consideration for the effects of the products advocated on the general population, plant, insect, animal, fish, human etc.. I bet Michelle is wagging her index finger going "oh no you di-ent". No nookie for the first pecker tonight.

Speaking of which, Nurse Natty was taking her evening constitutional up to Sun Yat Sen park the other evening and upon approaching from below saw an oriental couple cavorting on the grassy hillside. At first it appeared as though the woman was simply sitting astride the gent, however when asses began to make their presence known and little ornamental yipping and moaning sounds began to break the wind she thought "youtube moment".

So she stealthily crept up from behind and hid beside the Fu Dog statue where she would be assured of getting the best money shot (the guy collapsing in a heap of giggles) and turned her phone camera on. They were done in forty nine seconds. Its listed under "oriental couple worshiping ancestors".

We had a painful moment on the farm a couple of weeks back. I was going to feed the young chicks one day and upon opening the door found the headcount to be way low. My eyes went immediately to a spot where it appeared that a tarp had been breached. Sure enough there was a hole big enough for the chicks to get out, or a mongoose to get in. I didn't panic, really, I just went walking outside and around the perimeter of the building to see if any of them had survived by hiding in the grasses or jumping into a tree, but I couldn't find a one. Natalie located one later that day and put her back in with her traumatized sisters. There are about thirty remaining of the eighty four that were there. One of them edumacational moments in which a whole lot of information got collated quickly to come up with a," here's how i'd do it next time" fix.

It may be a blessing in disguise because after awhile I question my motives in wanting to increase the flock size. It is not a search for the perfect chicken or the perfect egg. It has nothing to do with satisfying some financial craving to have egg sales set me free to roam the earth in my emmision free Mercedes planting the seeds of Permaculture wherever wealthy, well meaning chowderheads would buy my rap and pay me cash. It's hardly the fascinating dialects and colloquialisms that each species displays.

Truth be told, I love the smell of estrogen in the morning. Far superior to napalm and much more soothing to the skin. Surround me with egginess and the sound of female voices singing their way through the garden. Throw in a couple of female kitties and mostly duckettes and oh my god, a subtle balance is struck with the testostitude that lies within these fleshy curves. Good thing too, otherwise my life would smell like a urinal in the old Grand Central Station and I would act out that scene from The Shining over and over again, where Nicholson axes his way through the bathroom door ranting "Here's Johnny".

If I had to guess, I'd say about twenty percent of what we do here is somewhat painful. Why just today I found one of our mongoose traps inhabited. This time of year they can get into the chicken yards and cut back your production plenty so its not a catch and release program. Its a catch and drown program. Ever drown anything? I mean its not like I had him by the throat and held him under as he thrashed about. I just lowered the trap into one of the duck ponds, went about some other chores and came back ten minutes later. After about five times and the recognition that you're gonna fry in hell, its a piece of cake.

So the pain becomes a window on to the realities of farming and lifes general patterns of chaotic survival embraced by our attempts to see a greater order in things and manifest something that smacks of stability and longevity. Without the experience of painful moments we have no way of appreciating those filled with joy and without that appreciation we're just like a bunch of fish tossed to shore, flopping about hoping some benevolent soul will find us and throw us back into the sea where we can breathe freely.

Good week at the farmers market. There were more vendors than ever and the usual festive atmosphere. We're now on a first name basis with many of the folks that come shop it up at our little niche. Its nice because you get to joke around and bust balls. By the end of the afternoon everyone is in the goofy zone and trading out leftover products. Caley and Natty and I have given in to the fact that market day is to be devoted to the consumption as well as the distribution of good food. Surrounded by such goodies as pad thai, tandoori chicken, fresh cracked coconut and those goddamn cookies that the sprout lady makes, our wills buckle and our belts loosen. Life is surrender, and on Wednesdays, life is easy.

Let it be known that official notice is hereby given announcing the season opener. That"s right, even though I'm sick and tired of seeing everyone together and having a good time, my therapist tells me that it's a good thing and will fortify my self esteem and help me cope with the fact that nobody really likes me and that the reason I throw these shindigs is to compensate for my need to be loved and bathed in warm milk while honey drizzles from the shower head.

So see ya' on the 25th of April. That's a Sunday with a start time of around four p.m.. We'll go till around ten at which time Grimes will drop his drawers and send any remaining guests screaming into the night. Pot luck with the theme being any food that stimulates the urge to get naked and sing.

"Really unky jp, Grimes is gonna show his tookus?"

"Thats right little fella, best way I know to clear a room."

"Better than Glenn Beck farting out his mouth?"

"Ya' got me there little fella, ya' got me there."

O.k., so how many of you actually went to youtube to check out Natalie's vide0?

April fools, perverts.

The more you show, the more we'll grow. Peace out, Jp

My buddy Greenie has the kind of rare sincerity that occupies the border between childlike innocence and experienced optimism. It is this, among other things that got me to go to the inaugural meeting of the Maui chapter of the Farmers Union. Now I'm not much of a participator or meeting goer as such. Lets say I've had my share and leave it at that, but seeing as how sustainable development, which includes forms of farming is the bug that infected me with the incurable disease of wanting to know what free feels like, nothing short of a radical curioscopy will stop the momentum toward participating in the unraveling of that mystery. To that end, it is always good to meet pilgrims on the path and hear what they have to say.

There were many familiar faces. Certainly a good turnout. People brought food and seeds and plants and the aura of hope that accompanies all such meetings designed to define and consolidate possibilities for satisfying legitimate needs and concerns regarding the production of food and the critical move toward "sustainability" which is such the cool buzzword these days, dontcha think?

My pal nurse Natty came along. We had just come from a screening of Avatar and were a might agog with the spectacles afterglow. We settled in the midst of the group and awaited the beginning of the formal portion of the meeting. Good time to check the room for familiar faces. I am always heartened to see so many old friends. Mostly because they're still breathing. Natalie has a degree in urban studies and has been to her share of organizing committees and programs designed to green up urban settings. I figured it would be good to be able to bounce my impressions off someone to see just how askew they are.

The room settled and folks sat down as the meeting began. Now Vince has the good humored enthusiasm of a Marx brothers film mated with the devotion to a cause normally reserved for the zealotor  phase of the twice born. His clear grasp and depth of understand speaking volumes about the hands on approach he has taken to create ways of supporting the farming community. He opened the proceedings.

Next, the interim president guy introduced the interim other guys and gals and a certain territory was defined. That territory included local and national organizations, government programs designed to fry your brain while indicating that there will be some money down the road if you stick to the freakin' parameters set out by said agency. Oh joy. I don't mean to be cynical. Its actually just experience based knowledge that tends to make me reflect on the real meaning and purpose of pursuing sustainable cultural models.

So, we're told that the farmers union will give us a voice. It will give us solidarity. It will give us dental and eye care. All that stuff has its merits, but does it represent a move toward realistically funding the farmers of Maui County in a way unencumbered by government agencies which are understaffed, underfunded, overwhelmed with applicants and often have the side effects of hair loss by pulling and anxiety spasms? Does it really give us solidarity with a national membership of nearly a half million coming from very different and sometimes disparate backgrounds? Such things run through my head at such times.

We heard from soil conservation and bamboo lady. The buzzkill started to set in during conservation ladies talk and got physically uncomfortable by the time bamboo lady finished.

Here's why. Solutions are inherent in problems. Sustainable developments seek solutions designed to limit, to the point of eliminating all outside inputs to the system. The question then becomes, do we as a local community of farmers seek to reach out to national organizations or state and federal funding to get what we need to farm, or do we eliminate the need for those inputs by tapping the private sector right here on Maui?

I heard the figure of four hundred thousand bucks available state wide this fiscal year, with no new projects being funded until next year. Lets say we changed our focus and thought of that in terms of four hundred people who were willing to cough up a thousand bucks apiece a year. People who were conscious of the goals set by our local and individual needs. People who understand the times and are willing to support local food production because they want to be assured that there will BE local food if the turds hit the turbine. People to whom a thousand bucks a year is chump change.

It seems inconceivable to me that given the capacity to network and develop grass roots connections with the locally empowered that it would be all that difficult to generate that kind of scrilla, and if we can't, well then at least we know we're screwed and might as well stick to the business of getting our hands dirty and flying under the radar.  Hell, I take down three to five bills at the farmers market and I'd be more than willing to contribute a weeks take to the kitty. I'll bet if we had a show of hands at the meeting for such an idea, we would have raised twenty or thirty grand a year, or more. Us helping us. Stick the cashish in a local permaculture credit union, develop equipment leasing systems, computer networking including forums and web site linking, share information and badda bing, we're a locally and privately funded non profit which is linked inextricably to a community of supporters who understand the importance of the connection and all that it implies.

From there its just a matter of managing the funds in such a way as to take care of the real needs, not wants of the farming community, from funding well planned start ups to helping out old timers with worn out pond liners, to promoting educational outreach, workshops and farm tours. All of this in the name of working together with the people who will be eating the food that we grow and enabling the experience of being connected to the farms that grow the food that keep their families healthy. Do we want less expensive health insurance or the unabashed  freedom to insure our good health through the basic support and respect for the work that we do to serve the needs of the public? Just asking.

We left the meeting early, 'cause my head was beginning to turn to moosh. Nurse Natty listened with patience to my rambling observations as we motored home and after kicking my ass at gin rummy went to work creating more of her bottle cap earrings which she sells at the farmers market. Of course she stuffs them with zucchini, onions and bell peppers to give them the credibility necessary to make an appearance at the market. Talk about a great gig. You get to try out all the new local beers while recycling garbage into very cool and oh so trendy bling.

The light is dawning on market day. The day we have recognized as eat with reckless abandon day. I'm off to weigh up some Jaboticaba and vacuum seal some raw coffee. Ciao bella!

The more you show, the more we'll grow. Peace muffins, Jp

Driving home today, as I turned a corner there was an egret riding the wind. You know, the kind that can be found pickin' nits on the rump of a cow, or sorting through pies for undigested seed and tasty bits.

It looked like it was having much more fun than should be allowable to our avian friends, given the difficult economic times and the need to tone down the impulses to display feelings of exuberant well being (and that means you Rose Neptune).

Those among us who feel the economic pressure building and the interpersonal walls closing in should not have to be moved to suicidal thoughts over a random sighting of some boneheaded bird surfing the wind tubes with what certainly appeared to be a shit eating grin on its face. I mean c'mon.

So accordingly I have started the Eat an Egret for Easter foundation, dedicated to teaching those little fuckers a lesson in etiquette and the REAL pecking order around these parts. After all , can't go around letting this sort of behavior stand unchallenged. They'll just think that anytime the freakin' wind comes up they can just go have a good old time ripping about as they please without reaping some of the karma of the disturbing spin off created by their self interested behavior. Pish Toosh, I say, and with all due respect.

It's gonna take a couple a' few birds each to make a satisfactory meal, so we've posted a limit of fifteen egrets per household. In Ecuador, where egret is highly prized for its meat and the mojo it imparts when ingested, they often just deep fry the whole bird, guts, feathers, feet and all right after catching it so as to convey some of its mojo (found in the feathers and feet) into the cooking oil, which is then used to power a fleet of bio diesel vehicles which average just under three thousand miles per gallon, give or take. That's o.k. for Ecuador, but it does nothing for my depressed state.

I've heard through some deformed sources that Exxon/Mobile  has set up labs devoted to the breeding and genetic modification of egrets so as to corner the market with a patent on their mojo. They are working with the likes of Archer Daniels Midland and Fox News to include feather/foot meal in all their poultry and cattle feed as well as developing strategies whereby the same feather/foot meal can be pressure injected into existing deposits of oil which will dramatically increase miles per gallon allowing them to use a fraction of the oil to create gobs more gasoline. Mooowhaaahahhaaaahhaaaahhhaaaaaaa.

Some of you may scoff at the notion that birds flying free with shit eating grins constitutes a national security threat. Remember your history people. The pilgrims endured hardship beyond measure at the claws of wild turkeys who ate their grain and stole their children.

Remember that the creature created by the cross breeding of turkey and  Brit was simply called Indian and it was decades before one of these Indians stood up for the rights of the pilgrims and taught them how to slaughter turkeys and make stuffing. Do we want that happening on the slopes of Haleakala. I for one, think not.

Send your tax deductible donations to: E.E.E. c/o "Sweet Pea" Forster, 1212 potluck drive, grand cayman island, grand caymen.

I had a flashback about Tyler the other day. Back in the era of Banana Buddies, Ty was an aspiring squirt. He was just getting a grip on the talking thing and in some categories, he knew what he liked. One of those categories was chocolate.

We used to buy fifty pound boxes made up of five ten pound bars of both dark and milk chocolate. This would be used to coat the bite size pieces of dried banana which would then be cooled, dried, packaged and shipped.

One of the benefits of having ten pound slabs of chocolate around all the time is that you can at least in part, act out the life of Caligula. It was not at all unusual to think of a fist size serving of chocolate at eight eleven a.m. as perfectly normal, nay super-normal. And here's this kid who thinks its totallycool super-normal. Probably dreamed about the stuff days before coming to visit.

I never kept any in our house, just in the kitchen on the lower part of the property, which became known as "down below", or in Tyler speak, "donnabloww"? I write that with a question mark because it was always used that way, as in "go donnabloww"?, followed by the same sort of shit eating grin that the egret wore. This inquiry usually resulted in a mock argument where I refused and he insisted and I refused and he insisted until I gave in followed by a walk donnabloww and further negotiations over quantities consumed.

We had been experimenting with dried pineapple and dark chocolate. We'd take several slices of dried pineapple and stack them to about an inch and a half. Then we'd cut them into six or eight triangular pieces. These would get coated with dark chocolate and were going to become the next member of our product line. Pineapple Pals, naturally.

One time I had some friends coming over so i'd brought some samples up for them to try. The samples were sitting on a plate which rested on an ottoman  in the living room and Ty was tripping on some legos in the office. I went to take a walk around the yard with my friends and upon returning found the boy sitting on the floor next to the ottoman attempting to chew up an entire slice of this dark chocolate feast. He could hardly cram a whole section into his mouth, no less chew it up.

His mouth said everything. It was filled to brimming with this partially chewed extravaganza. His lips ringed with an orgy of overflowing darkness resembling the Devils goatee. His entire little face fixed in a smile which conveyed this message alone: "I know I'm fucking up, whaddayagonnadoaboutit?" I fully cracked up.

Not since walking into that bakery in Stamford Connecticut, the morning after an acid trip with Anton Selkowietz, and having the sight of an elderly woman in curlers and bunny slippers send us dashing for the door in paroxysms of laughter have I seen the pure humor of a moment so plainly and beautifully spelled out. He might as well have had Tweety Bird's  feathers sticking out of his mouth. Thanks for the bubble, man.

Party season approacheth. We are consulting the homunculus for dates, themes and undergarments. Posting will continue when a final arrangement has been struck and the proper burnt offerings gathered.

Nurse Caley and I are working up a set for the Mana'o radio upcountry Sundays gig in May. I am inspired and energized by the way this kid can kroon. Nuff said.

The more you show, the more we'll grow. Peace of Love, Jp

Man, was that close or what? I thought about writing the latest blog during the hours before the inevitable crushing blow delivered by the tsunami of the century and chronicling  the various aspects of human behavior involved with handling the situation. I've lived through these scares before. No disasters have resulted. But this one, this one was a wave generated by a magnitude  8.8 earthquake. A wave moving, by some estimates at five hundred miles per hour. A wave with the potential to cause ripples of destructive force throughout the Pacific. A wave that caused an exodus of lowlanders to seek high ground. They parked along the kula highway and filled up Rice park and Keokea. They brought coolers and beach chairs and binoculars. They lined up for gas with tempers flaring and fears surfacing. There was a strange kind of exuberance underlying the vibe, like mail call at an insane asylum. Would there be enough toilet paper to go round?

In the grip of such moments of dire speculation there are two basic revelations. One, that we are at any given moment at the whim of natural forces that in an instant can change our lives forever, and two, that we better have adequate party supplies to deal with it when the slurry hits the sluice way. For the most part we are hedonists at heart because feeling good is the only antidote, period. After twenty, thirty years of practicing whatever discipline, it occurs to you that a vicodin, glass of wine and spliff are about as good as the collected works of Rumi, or the Bhagavad freakin' Gita.

So when the wave doesn't come, and our view of mind numbing devastation is put off till another day, there is a strange sense of being let down, like finding out that the phone number some uber hotty gave you was to the local Jiffy Lube. Cause really, what could be cooler than seeing Wailea turned back into a pristine coastline marred only by one of Helen Hunts Gucci dresses hung up on the branch of a Kiawe tree and flappin' in the breeze. There's no turning it back, there's just wiping it out. Rumor has it that mother nature has been revving up to do a serious cleanse due to a burgeoning infestation of mammalian bipeds irritating her skin.

We got a hundred two day old chicks in a couple of weeks back. I know, I know, its a love/hate thing. Got one breed called Cuckoo Maran, said to lay dark reddish brown eggs. This will give us the much needed contrast to the white to cream to light brown to brown to speckled brown to dark brown to blue to blueish green to reddish brown spectrum of colors necessary for us keep our adoring public amused and well fed. If only the yolks matched the shell color. Did you know that you can tell what color egg a chook will lay by the color of its ear lobes? Did you know that chickens have earlobes? File that  under obscurely cool factoids.

Since the last post detailing my delusional view of the molt cycle, the little darlings have stepped it up to eighty to ninety eggs a day. When the current batch of youngsters reaches laying age around July we'll have scaled up to about half the potential productivity of the property when it comes to egg output, and that, as they say in the biz is a crapload of eggs. Its one of those aspects of Permaculture that stimulates the brainstorming potential in any situation. Yes, diversity is the key, but addiction creates its own mojo and that's what our marketing strategies are based on. People love (are addicted to) eggs. We arrange ours in the carton such that the combination of colors and their juxtaposition in the box opens up a delta brainwave moment at which time subliminal messages written in invisible ink on the egg shells spell out our various instructions to the customer. There is also an invisible disclaimer.

There's this nice little water feature out the back of the house that has been providing a lovely sanctuary of sound and reflected light and fish moving in ways we can only dream of. In the course of the past six or seven years there have been numerous changes in plant life patterns. Lately a new kind of algae has shown up. Not the kind that just makes the water green. Its kind of light green and gloopy with air bubbles all through it. It hangs down in the pond and floats around presumably growing. The fish don't seem to mind it or particularly like it. Its not like the guppies  are bellying up to the bar.

Well awhile back I pulled some out and laid it on the rocks bordering the pond and the other day, nurse Natalie and I found some that had been dried by the sun. It looked like an oddly shaped sheet of seaweed, stuck to the rock and crispy dry. It peeled off the rock real easy and had a kind of iridescent sheen to it in the sunlight.

We looked at each other in that sort of dare you to eat some kind of way and I tore off a little piece and placed it delicately on my tongue in plain view of my taunter. It had a rather pleasant, somewhat salty taste, which I conveyed to the smiling Natty who then went ahead and tore off a small green corner of her own. After agreeing that it wasn't an entirely unpleasant experience, we went on about our day.

It wasn't until the next morning that I noticed that Natalie's dread locks had unraveled, floofed out and resolved into a kind of mega-mullet riding atop her elfin visage and that I was growing what appeared to be a third testicle just bellow my left elbow. As if listening to Johnny and the twins banter on about sex all day isn't bad enough. This was rather distressing to both of us and I decided it would be good to consult an expert. So I called the local ag extension officer in charge of aquaculture. A fella name of Roland Plotzkrell phD.

When I described the look of the algae and the side effects there was a pause on the phone followed by a long drawn out, "oh my".  Apparently we have been sabotaged by a group known as Permaculture Sucks who, along with Monsanto have contaminated our waters with a gmo algae designed to forever alter the genetic makeup of anything that comes in contact with it. I was wondering why the Gamboosia looked liked members of Duke Ellingtons orchestra.  Plotzkrell thought it most likely that we would both experience our "District Nine" moment and with any luck wander off foraging the land until morphing into a pile of charcoal.

"Oh c'mon unky jp, thats audacious even for you."

"I know little fella, aren't pain killers and scotch great?"

"Great indeed, unky jp."

The more you show, the more we'll grow. Be disturbed, be very disturbed, Jp