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FARM SCENE
I love to visit Other People’s Gardens for several reasons. Primarily, it is to get ideas for my own gardening efforts, to see what is possible on lava. Here are some of the ideas I found on the McDaniel acreage.
A path over the lava where we need to walk is critical. The lava rocks can trip up someone much too quickly, and as we all get a little older, we need that extra safety factor. Sandy and Joe have made nice wide paths all over their property.
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PATH TO UPPER GARDEN
Occasionally, they’ve even put up railings to grab onto. That’s a wonderful idea!
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PATH WITH RAILINGS
Here is a terrific idea for a large planter box. Joe has put together scrap wood and it saves the expense of large containers at Home Depot or Lowe’s. The bottom is left open so that roots can explore. This is what I’d like to build to house my fruit trees.
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BOX PLANTER
I put up a scaffold-type construction for my green beans, but this is a good idea, too. There are enough scattered limbs from dead trees on my property to do this.
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GREEN BEAN TEEPEE
Joe had bees, but many of the plants they relied on to make their honey were killed in the vog, so the bees literally starved to death. Here is the empty hive. I hope he tries to raise bees again. At some point, I’d like to consider having bees.
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BEE HIVE
Everyone I talk with says that goats are high maintenance, but it still appeals to me to have a few. I love goat’s milk and the cheese from it is pure heaven. These girls seem to be love being part of the family.
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GOATS
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MORE GOATS
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AND ONE MORE GOAT
I already have chickens, of course, but I’m always fascinated by the different designs of coops people have built. Perhaps someday I’ll do one whole post on all the coops my friends have. Here are the two where Joe and Sandy gather their eggs. The chickens are all free range, but they do lay their eggs in the nesting boxes.
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OLDER CHICKEN COOP
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NEWER CHICKEN COOP
Their rooster is a complete ham and knows he’s beautiful. He kept “posing” for me to take his picture.
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MR. ROOSTER
Some of the “girls” needed to get into the act with Sandy.
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SANDY AND TWO GIRLS
In addition to the food sources (vegetables, goats, chickens), they have not neglected creating nooks of beauty. There is no doubt that this orchid house belongs to Sandy.
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SANDY’S ORCHID HOUSE
Here are a couple of the beauties inside.
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YELLOW ORCHID
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PURPLE ORCHID
Even the trees in the orchard are semi-contained. They were still in their plastic when they were put into a hole. Now the trees have grown to a decent size, forcing roots through the broken down plastic.
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ORCHARD
It seems I’m always drawn to playful yard sculptures. These chickens don’t need to be fed, but neither do they provide good eggs.
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WOODEN CHICKENS
Do you want to know which way the wind blows? Try putting a whirl-a-gig in your yard. I suppose the faster the wind blows, the faster she dances.
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HULA WHIRL-A-GIG
Every garden needs a nature spirit.
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GARDEN STATUE
Even some of the plants have to work on this farm. These pitcher plants have a sticky surface that hangs onto bugs until they die. Here is a small one, and you can see the bugs inside.
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SMALL PITCHER PLANT
Here is a shot of a dead one on the ground that shows how enormous they can get. This must have been 10-12 inches long.
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LARGE DEAD PITCHER PLANT
Sandy may have “HERS”, but Joe has his own, too.
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JOE’S WORKPLACE
His playful spirit comes through with the Harry Potter influence. If you are familiar with that series, you will recognize Platform 9, of course, with the luggage half-way through.
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PLATFORM 9
And every Harry Potter fan knows you need a “portkey” if you want to get to another place quickly. Joe didn’t tell me where he goes when he enters this particular portkey
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PORTKEY
At the end of our tour, we came to a resting spot near this delightful lily pond with Mr. Froggie at work.
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LILY POND
As always, I’m inspired by the relatively short amount of time it takes for people to create a haven of beauty on this new land created by the lava. It takes persistence and determination, hard work, and a desire to show love and respect to this planet.
Thank you, Joe and Sandy, for allowing me to enter your little piece of Paradise.
What a cool little farm. I like the carnivorous plant and the orchids. I visited a little ranch once that had pygmy goats. They were the cutest thing about the size of large cats and when they headbutted you they’d hit your lower calf or ankle because they were so small.
Thank you, Mr. BT! These are good friends who live just a couple miles from me at about the same elevation, so I know the things I’m trying to grow will eventually come to fruition. I love to feature other local gardens, because it gives me HOPE! 🙂
Aloha,
Lucy