cheapest best quality land on BI (area, etc.) (Hilo, Hawaiian Acres: mineral rights, condo)

[cagary]

Originally Posted by doitright1

By "debris", I'm assuming you mean old trees and vegetation, right? So, the individual that did your work buried it because it is just going to decompose anyway and add to the quality of your soil. Correct? I'm not sure why I would want to dump it off-site if it's just what I listed above...

That's correct. Things decompose pretty quickly on the east side of the Big Island.

[doitright1]

I'll look at more options in the three areas you mentioned - Hamakua, Laupahoehoe, and Honokaa. I hope many others will share their thoughts/opinions.

I also wonder would most people fence in their land if it's 20 acres like what I am looking to buy. A six foot brick fence I do by hand around the entire 20 acres would be the best strongest fencing if I am correct. I'm not sure how long that would take me though...

[cagary]

Actually Hamakua is the District and Honokaa and Laupahoehoe are towns.

40 acres above Honokaa asking $225,000, (but you could get for much less).

Paauilo HI 96776 MLS 248324 Big Island of Hawaii Real Estate | Clark Realty Corporation

5 acres above Honokaa $150,000.

KAHANA Honokaa HI 96727 MLS 250248 Big Island of Hawaii Real Estate | Clark Realty Corporation (http://www.clarkhawaii.com/big-island-real-estate/250248-hamakua-ahualoa-homesteads-honokaa-hawaii-96727-land-for-sale - broken link)

[Dreaming of Hawaii]

Cagary's and Hotzcatz's comments about soil, etc., is EXACTLY the reason that I referred you to that other thread. I figured that if you were looking to grow things, that you would be interested in knowing where the best soil is. Which is exactly where this thread is going. SIGH

[cagary]

My place in Pepeekeo just north of Hilo.

Before (8 foot tall grass):



After Ted was done:





Large tree (70 ' tall) on property before:



Tree knocked over and pushed to the side.

[doitright1]

@Dreaming of Hawai'i- Soil isn't my only concern. Remember, I will be raising livestock and maintaining a different area solely for hunting amongst other things.

Nice pictures, Cagary!

[Nalu]

Don't let anyone bury the trees anwhere even near to where you will build.

[doitright1]

@Nalu - I can't stop them if they are not on my property... Why did you mention that though?

@cagary - So, the only districts I should be looking at are in my property search online are: North Hilo, Hamakua, North Kohala, and South Kohala. Is that correct?

[cagary]

Originally Posted by doitright1

@Nalu - I can't stop them if they are not on my property... Why did you mention that though?

@cagary - So, the only districts I should be looking at are in my property search online are: North Hilo, Hamakua, North Kohala, and South Kohala. Is that correct?

Actually I would avoid both Kohala areas. Its very windy much of the time there and a lot of it is high altitude. You might want to confine your search to the Honokaa area south to Hilo, in other words the Hamakua coast.

If you are interested, I know a great agent who sometimes knows of places not listed in the MLS.

[hotzcatz]

There's some areas up around Hawi and Kapaau which would work for what he wants, although he'd have to look carefully at each individual parcel to make sure it's what he wants.

Doitright1, from the sounds of your posts, I'm guessing you'll be a new farmer/homesteader? There is a huge skill set required to do all the different tasks on a homestead, so starting small and growing bigger might be best.

For fencing, putting a brick wall around the entire perimeter of the property may not be the best choice. Any place that has nice deep soil won't have enough rocks to stack and making bricks is going to take too much material, energy and time considering the volume of bricks you'd need. These are made of what? Mortor sand? Cement? Those are some fairly expensive materials when you figure how many tons of them you'd need for a brick wall of that distance. Not to mention the foundation to put the wall on. More gravel, sand & cement. Some rebar wouldn't hurt, either. Then building the bloody thing means you'll be building that wall for about five to ten years. There are reasons why wire is used for fences.

You also don't need to fence in the game for hunting, most people put up the fences to keep them out. Pigs. Feral pigs. They are everywhere. If you want to hunt sheep or goats, there are big hunting areas to hunt in, no need to have them on your ten/forty acres. To fence out pigs, folks use hog wire with a couple strands of barb wire at the bottom. Metal fence posts with wooden ones every so often. In a fire, the metal posts won't burn and the wooden ones don't bend when critters lean on the fence.

Okay, now to the stuff you want to do on the ten/forty acres. First off, it CAN'T be totally self sustaining unless you are somehow going to figure out how to get iron ore out of volcanic rock. You will be going to the grocery store to buy stuff as well as beating a trail to the hardware store for all sorts of things. Once it is set up, there will be less trips to the store, but there's still a whole pile of stuff you can't grow, harvest or build yourself. A new hammer? Sealed bearings? A new cell phone? You should be able to grow a lot of food, though, hopefully enough that there would be enough to sell to make the annual taxes on the place, too. Farmer's markets are thriving on the island, so you'll be able to sell the excess of just about anything you can produce.

Chickens, ducks, turkeys, geese, quail, guineas, etc. are good, although start out with a few of them and work up to many. There is a learning curve to keeping birds and it is best to only lose a few at first instead of four dozen. Also at some point there will be as many as you need and if you have any more you'll have to import feed for them. Three laying hens per person will keep you in eggs. If they hatch them out (not all breeds will set and hatch chicks, check "Henderson's Chicken Chart" to see which breeds you want) anyway, if you let some of the hens hatch out chicks half of those will be roosters which are very tasty. You only need about one rooster per every dozen hens so the excess roosters are usually eaten about the time they start to crow.

Ducks lay a lot of eggs, too, as well as taste really yummy. Geese aren't as productive in either the eggs or production department but a few might be nice. Ducks eat slugs and bugs as well as grasses and things. Geese are strict vegetarians. Guineas are great bug eaters but ungawdly loud. Extremely tasty, though, with fun polka-dotted feathers for the folks who use feathers. Quail eggs are supposed to be very healthful for you.

For your milk, I'd suggest that you consider dairy goats - Nubians in particular - and you'll have fresh raw milk which is very close in taste and texture to what you are now used to getting at the grocery store. Raw cow's milk is nothing like what you are used to from the grocery store while raw Nubian goat milk is almost indistinguishable from grocery store cow's milk. It actually tastes better than grocery store cow's milk. Also, as a new animal keeper, when the goat steps on your foot while you are learning you will be really happy you started with goats instead of cows. And a goat will give you milk in reasonable amounts whereas a cow will give you more than you can use and raw milk can't legally be sold. If you process the milk to sell, you'd need to be on County water (not catchment) and you'd have to have at least a certified kitchen to process it in (although it might be more stringent than that for milk, I've not specifically looked).

Are you keeping sheep to eat? For fiber? There are a variety of those to choose from. Although, if you are keeping them for fiber, you may want to consider alpaca. The alpaca fiber sells for more and is easier to process. They need really secure fences to keep out wandering dogs or a protection dog or donkey with the flock.

For your cattle and dairy cattle, they need a lot of land, you may run out of space for all these critters. Especially if you want some of the land for other uses. You'll need cross fencing and need to learn about pasture management, too. Not all grass is the same and fireweed is evil.

Bees and rabbits don't take up much space. There are folks around who can teach you about keeping bees. Rabbits for food or fiber? Maybe some of each? Rabbit fiber can provide some good income, especially if you spin it into yarn. The rabbits will need a secure hutch, though, or things will eat them.

For ponds, most of the ones I've seen have been in the Pauuilo area. They seem able to make them there, although you can also line the depression with bentonite (I think that's the stuff) to make the water stay in the pond. A lot of the aquaponic folks use stock tanks to grow the fish and keep the vegetables in flat built up plastic lined ponds.

Depending on the property, you may need a bulldozer or not. Some properties can really use a farm tractor and others of them have too many rocks. A backhoe is great fun and a general purpose tool. But you may have neighbors who have these and hiring someone to do the job might be less expensive than buying and maintaining a piece of heavy equipment. They always seem to be breaking their hydraulic hoses and usually when you own a bulldozer/backhoe you are buying hydraulic oil in 55 gallon drums. We just sold our backhoe several months ago and I kinda miss it. It was a great fun thing as well as useful when there were roads to build and trees to plant but we really didn't have any more uses for it.