Fricassee & Chickens too!

Fricassee is my niece Nanette's rooster. Twelve hens constitute his harem and "Sandy", short for Sandwich, is the mother of five new chicks. Is that a clutch? (Nope. The dictionary says a clutch is a "brood of chickens"). Well, what do I know about farming and chickens. That was a statement, not a question. My last time on a farm in Cottage Grove, Oregon, I was eight years old and I helped my great uncle milk cows. The pain and torture I must have inflicted trying to get milk out of those poor cows. I also helped churn butter on the back porch which was the location for a new addition, the bathroom! And I fell off their horse and was knocked unconscious. Some will say that explains a lot.

However, during the week my sister Lore and I spent on the Kona Coast on the Big Island of Hawaii, I became obsessed with the chickens. I followed them everywhere trying to get THE picture. It didn't help that Nan had an absolutely gorgeous photograph of Fricassee on canvas, no less, taken by a photographer friend of hers. The photo was saturated with color showing off his (the rooster, not the photographer's) plumage at its very best. Nan told me while we were there, Fricassee's feathers weren't completely in after the winter molt, so I shouldn't feel too bad, if I didn't get THE picture.   

The chickens were in charge of my wonderful stay at Nanette and John's coffee farm. Mala Mauka (Inland Garden), as Nan named it, is located about 10 miles from the ocean, up the southwest slopes of the Big Island. The community of Kainalui is 6/10ths of a mile down their "Hawaiian Autobahn" and the Kona International Airport is about 18 miles away. Nan is the official farm hand. She does it all, including picking coffee from her 650 trees. She can pick year round, but most picking is done in November.  

I'm used to going to bed about midnight. I've developed my husband's late night habits. That changed for the week in Hawaii. We went to bed with the chickens - at least it seemed like it - and we rose with the rooster. My sister had advised me to bring sleeping aids and ear plugs. I didn't heed the advice the first night, but got used to wearing wax earplugs each night thereafter. The first night Fricassee decided to roost in the tree outside my bedroom window. His alarm went off starting at 3 am. There was no snooze button. He let his presence be known from that point on. I gave up and rolled out of bed at 6 am. My sister and Nan were already up and John was getting ready for work. (He's in the heating and air conditioning business. Who needs heat in Hawaii? John and Nan don't have any).

For the duration of the trip, our mornings were spent on the second story porch watching Fricassee call his harem out of their perches in a tree just opposite the porch. Nan, the perfect hostess, made sure we had plenty of coffee to start the morning. I've never been one to drink coffee first thing in the morning for fear I'd get the jitters. I soon learned that Kona dark roast coffee actually has less caffeine than the medium roast I buy at the store!

What a simply wonderful way to start the day. We were able to catch up on information about the family, watch the sun rise on the days it wasn't overcast, see the chickens fly out of the tree, and try to decipher the ocean's horizon line. There is an ocean view, but the combination of clouds and vog (volcanic fog) challenged us to determine where the ocean stopped and the sky began. Occasionally, Luna, the resident cat joined us on the porch to view the scenery.  

Nan told us she had tried to get a lot of her farm work done before we arrived, but each morning she still had to feed and water the chickens and walk the dog, Hoku.  The farm work doesn't wait for visitors to leave, so I captured her one morning dressed in her weed whacking best, hard at work. She has to keep the jungle at bay.

I did take a lot of pictures of Nan and John's "inland garden". I even got photos of best friend and former sister-in-law, Adelle's, chickens since she just lives "up the road a piece".  And yes, the elusive Fricassee, finally strutted his stuff into my photo album called, Mala Mauka.

For more pics of Nan's farm, go to BonnieKingPhotography.com and look  for the gallery titled, Hawaii.