In June 2022 we moved lock, stock and barrel to our property on the Big Island of Hawaii. We felt that it was time to focus 100 percent of our energies into further establishing our dream of a more sustainable lifestyle as opposed to doing it part-time. However, this meant moving into a really rustic living situation. We were fortunate in the beginning to be able to house sit for a friend of ours who lives in our neighborhood.
Laundry room
Prior to moving onto the land we had decided that it would be in our best interest to first build a cabin for us to live in whilst building the main house, so the focus would be on that project in the beginning.
One of our first tasks was erecting a shed. All of our possessions were in 2 storage units and we wanted to try and bring everything onto our property as soon as possible.
We chose an Arrow Shed which comes in a box and has no floor base, so we created a floor platform out of wooden pallets covered with plywood. This shed has ultimately become our laundry room and extra closet space.
The Peacock Palace:
The "Peacock Palace"
Next up was building the cabin which has been named "The Peacock Palace". This enchanted little forest cabin has provided us with creature comforts while the main house goes up.
The cabin is constantly undergoing upgrades such as an outhouse with composting toilet, railings on the deck and pretty gardens.
Meanwhile our veggie garden and food forest is expanding and we are incredibly happy about this process. The main veggie garden has been named "Garden of Abundance" and it is proving to live up to it's name.
The Round House aka The Owl House:
It's been very exciting to be able to get going again on the main house which appears round but is actually a multifaceted 16 sided hexadecagon shape. At the beginning of this blog we described why we were inspired to choose this shape. It certainly has it's challenges to construct and presently we are cutting and shaping the metal for the frame of the cupula on the roof which will be featured in upcoming videos and blogs.
The Garden of Abundance and Food Forest:
Pineapples grow very well here
Some of the successful crops we've harvested so far have been tomatoes, cucumbers, lettuce, kale, Okinawan spinach, Tongan spinach, Swiss Chard, Lima beans, eggplant, oregano, mint, sage, rosemary, parsley, cilantro, tumeric, edible ginger, strawberries and blueberries to name a few.
The trees we planted in our food forest include: Ulu, lychee, tangerine, lime, lemon, Valencia orange, Brazilian Cherry, avocado (Kahalui and Malama varieties), mulberry, fig, lilikoi vines and papaya, star fruit.
The landscaping is being subdivided into small "Garden Rooms" each with their own themes. So far the have a "AmaJam Friendship Garden", "Meditation Cave", "The Shire", "Garden of Abundance" and "Kanaloa's Native Hawaiian Garden"
It's all in it's infancy and we are learning as we go. Looking forward to updating the blog with our progress.
The first of our 3 Ulu (Breadfruit) trees
Cucumbers are a daily staple
Some veggie boxes have roofs to prevent over watering from the rain
It's been awhile since I updated the blog about our dream of building a sustainable homestead and lifestyle.
Following on from the previous post, we started erecting fencing along the front of the property. Fencing is crucial in this rural area both for the safety aspect of preventing humans and animals like wild pigs and roaming dogs entering the property as well as the safety of our future pets and animals from escaping or getting lost.
Great enjoyment comes from continuing with planting a forest garden, both with edible landscaping and flowering plants for aesthetics and for attracting bees for pollination.
Spearmint loves this climate and zone
Pineapples thrive here
Our Lychee tree in the ground
Flowering groundcover for the bees
Lavender, oregano ground cover and papaya trees
Attached below is the VLOG depicting the fencing adventure.
A few of our fruit trees found their in-ground homes and the tangerine tree bore fruit while still in it's pot which was a delightful surprise!
Josh had to drill holes into the lava rock to install the fence posts which was fairly challenging, but it felt good to have the front of the property fenced off. We were about to embark on a 1200km/ 745 mile trek around the island of Shikoku in Japan, so both of us felt a little more secure about leaving the property for awhile with the new gate and fence in place.
Drilling holes into the lava rock
Putting up the fencing
Heather being Josh's assistant
Fencing up!
Vandals smashed the gates: picking up the pieces!
It was 3am in the morning on the third night of our 88 Temples Shikoku trek. We were sleeping in a rustic pilgrim shack along the side of the trail in Japan when a text message woke me up. It was a message from one of the neighbors near our property informing us of nightmarish news. It was reported that at 2:30 am a loud boom was heard on our street. It was a pitch dark night and it had been raining hard. Another neighbor got up to investigate the source of the boom as he thought perhaps there had been a major car accident. As he approached our property in the dark, he witnessed that our beautiful handcrafted gates had been smashed open. The redwood part of the gates was lying in splinters and the iron frame was buckled and bent. A few moments later two apparently stolen vehicles emerged from the driveway and drove off. The police were immediately notified but by the time they arrived the vandals were long gone. There was absolutely no reason for them to smash through our gates as there was nothing for them to steal. If they had done a little investigation beforehand they would have realized that. We can only imagine how damaged the vehicles were since there was broken glass from the windows on the driveway and the metal frames were sturdy. The gates were damaged beyond repair and we had to count it all as a complete loss.
On hearing this news my heart sank and I felt an intense sense of despair. Up until now the whole experience had been a labor of love, filled with positive interactions with the local people we had met. My knee-jerk reaction was to abandon the project, sell the property and restart elsewhere. I now felt unsafe and fearful of being there. For the next two weeks as we walked 15-20 miles a day carrying heavy backpacks in Japan we had to process these events in our minds and decide how we would proceed with the project going forward.
The ohenro hat and jacket to signify that we are walking the pilgrimage
Making friends along the way
Beautiful temples
Halfway through our adventure, the Covid-19 Pandemic struck and the world started closing down. We had to abandon our trek and managed to catch one of the last planes leaving Osaka to Honolulu. Once we arrived home we went straight into lockdown and everyone's lives on the planet went upside down. There was no getting back to the property any time soon to pursue our build.
Moving on and resuming the dream:
We eventually made our way back to our land in December once the inter-island travel restrictions had been lifted to resume the dream. Our wonderful neighbor had picked up and saved all the redwood gate pieces that had splintered during the vandalism. I felt a little unsafe sleeping there at night since we were camping but we did have security alarms set up which gave us some peace of mind.
The aim of the project this time around was to dig in the foundation trenches. To accomplish this task we hired a "bobcat" excavator which really made light work of digging into the lava rock. Fortunately our house pad had been previously ripped and graded so it wasn't too difficult with the help of this wonderful machine!
First came the measurements and layout, then the digging and excavating. The trenches needed to be at least 1 ft deep to lay the rebar for the foundation and build the frame for the cement pour.
It would have taken far too long if we had done this all by hand. We also used the bobcat to help with some of the heavy work in the landscaping. One of my aims in the garden is to create small "garden rooms" within the acreage. Our first "garden room" is to be built on our original campsite which we graded as flat as we could. Whilst moving the brush and dirt around with the excavator we uncovered a small lava tube cave with great excitement, directly opposite the campsite which will create a beautiful feature piece in the garden.
The amazing Bobcat
New plants for the garden
We moved this beautiful rock for the elephant to live on
Small uncovered lava tube cave
One night around midnight our security alarms went off. We woke up and peeked outside to see flashlights coming down the driveway. Josh bellowed out into the dark night sky, then we heard voices followed by footsteps running off the property. No further intrusions happened after that and we figured they must have been opportunistic petty thieves.
Spectacular bromeliad
Anthuriums
Fishtail palms
More bromeliads
My garden gives me immense joy and working in it is a meditation in itself. For some strange reason, even though we had those intruders, I somehow felt okay about being here. I found myself falling more and more in love with this piece of land. It probably had everything to do with the fact that we have spent so much time with our hands in the dirt here and have established a bond the the aina (land).
Bobcat at work
View from the top of the shipping container
The trenches were now cut in and we were ready for the next step in the process!
The Foundations Are In!
Josh and I both feel like we are making headway in our house build adventure. It has been quite a process laying the foundations for our round house. This central round house is the first of three buildings that will ultimately be joined by bridges and collectively will form our home.
Our first task during this phase of the project was to remove all the loose lava rock from the trenches. This process involved much rock hurling. My fate it seems, is going to be moving rocks from one location to the next indefinitely....I'm not complaining, it'll keep me strong! Then I had the task of filling approximately 200 sandbags with gravel. We used these filled gravel bags to keep the framing in place instead of using metal concrete forming stakes. The gravel could then be used for the driveway afterwards and the sandbags kept for future needs.
Clearing the rocks from the trenches
Filling the sand bags with gravel
The neat trenches ready for forming
Next up we ordered the lumber for building the forms and the rebar for placing in the foundations. All I can say is that Josh did a masterful job of building the forms, cutting the rebar, bending it into shape to make rebar cages in the trenches and tying them all together.
Forms with rebar cages
View of the forms from a high vantage point
Foundation forms
Placing the sandbags
Once everything was in place we had to arrange for the building inspector to assess the build thus far and approve it before continuing on. After we received the go ahead it was time to fill in the foundations with concrete.
Cement trucks arrive
Filling in the forms
The end result!
Super stoked about the completion of our sturdy house foundation
The foundations are in! We are so stoked to have such a strong base for our home that has been engineered to withstand hurricanes and earthquakes.
The stem wall goes up!
The progress of the build is now very exciting! We can see something above ground. Up until now all our investment has been beneath or at ground level, with the excavation and grading, placing the infrastructure of our septic system and house foundations.
Cinder blocks arrive
Laying the cinder blocks
The challenge of brick laying in a rainforest
Our water catchment for the build
It has been a challenging time laying the cinder blocks in the torrential rain, but we managed to keep the bricks and mortar dry enough to set under the cover of tarps and rain protective sheeting which will be reused many times in the future.
Due to the hexadecagon (16 sided ) shape of our main structure, it involved measuring and cutting the cinder blocks for the corner sections.
Cutting the cinder blocks
Mixing the mortar under cover from the rain
Laying the blocks
Meanwhile, as Josh was doing the bulk of the build work, I continued with the landscaping. We ordered a truck load of cinder soil to level out our first "garden room" which is named the "AmaJam Friendship Garden" for two of our friends Amanda and James. Each of our garden rooms will be given a name. We don't want a lot of lawn but small patches of grass here and there will be lovely, with paths leading from one garden room to the next.
The layout of these gardens is done organically with no grand plan except for utilizing permaculture zoning principles and ideas. They will develop and morph over time.
Pineapples are abundant
Blueberries are fruiting
Working on leveling the garden room
Royal Palms for the driveway
"AmaJam Friendship Graden"
Queen Sago Palm tree keiki
The more we are here, the more we love it! It is magical in the evening at full moon, with the sounds of the Coqui frogs and the moonbeams shining through the Ohia forest.
Once the stem wall was up, more rebar had to be placed within the bond beam before filling it all up with cement.
Stem wall in the morning light
The master builder
Rebar in the bond beam
Now that the ground work is done we can start with the woodwork soon. It will be fantastic watching the shell of the house go up, so stay tuned.....
