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We have been looking in mountain view. There are some 3 acre plots that we like (from pictures). When I say that "I hear things" it's from 2 friends of my husband and a realtor we are speaking with. We've heard of local grocery deals, building deals etc. We've been told to stay away from flood zones and lava zones 1,2. We just sold out house that had fruit trees and we grew vegetables and herbs also. I'm not sure if the properties we are looking at are permitted or not, I'll have to ask our realtor. But the buildings on these properties are small and we would eventually build our own house and maybe keep those as guest quarters. Thank you for the information on the soil, I'll have to inquire further about that, because we really want to grow some of our food. I was told EMTs are in high demand on the big island? Is that not true? As far as electricity, we were going to go the solar and generator route, unless that is foolish? Btw, we are no strangers to hard work, lol! I enjoy hearing all the pros and cons, it really helps!
We have to pick someone up at the airport tomorrow night so we won't see you at the theater. Bummberz!
The popcorn machine has been fixed, though, so there will be popcorn. The machine is newer than the theater, it's from around 1940 and one of the guys who used to do a lot of the equipment calibration on the sugar plantation fixed the popcorn machine for the theater owner so now we can all get popcorn with the movies. Movies are $6, popcorn is $2, I think. Just walk in the door and get in the popcorn line, it's also where you pay for the movie.
We will be there Saturday, though. The new Incredibles movie is playing and we like Pixar flicks. We may get movies a little later in Honokaa than the rest of the world, but we get fresher popcorn so it all evens out.
If it gets too hot, pop over to the town pool. The hours are somewhat limited, but it's free to swim there. The pool kinda looks like it's part of the high school, but it's a community pool.
And no, Hawaii is not like Florida at all. But hopefully the OP will move over and rent for six months or at least do an extended visit before buying a house.
We've driven by the school a few times and seen the pool. I figured it was a comminity asset as there is no school in July but there were a number of people using it. We picked up steaks at the Country Market (local beef - it was delicious), veggies from a place across from the Salvation Army thrift store (can't remember the name), of course malasadas from Tex's and various other stops at the shops in town.
I've been wanting to see the theater since I saw the NY Times video story on it years ago. Our first trip here, unfortunately, there was nothing playing. Looking forward to seeing it on the inside and enjoying some popcorn!
We're off to Waimea today, hopefully we'll not get too much rain. Aloha!
We've driven by the school a few times and seen the pool. I figured it was a comminity asset as there is no school in July but there were a number of people using it. We picked up steaks at the Country Market (local beef - it was delicious), veggies from a place across from the Salvation Army thrift store (can't remember the name), of course malasadas from Tex's and various other stops at the shops in town.
I've been wanting to see the theater since I saw the NY Times video story on it years ago. Our first trip here, unfortunately, there was nothing playing. Looking forward to seeing it on the inside and enjoying some popcorn!
We're off to Waimea today, hopefully we'll not get too much rain. Aloha!
I think the vegetable market across from the Salvation Army is just called "Rebecca's Veggies", not sure if it has an official name or not. We get most of our produce from there as well.
Oh! Saturday night is the Honokaa Obon Service and Dance at the Honokaa Hongwanji so we will be there instead of the movie. We will hopefully catch the movie on Sunday night I guess. The Hongwanji is above the grocery store, it will be the one all lit up with the obon dance lanterns in the parking lot. Plus the taiko drums, you'll probably notice those, too. Dancing starts around six pm or so. There's a memorial service to remember folks we've lost the past year that starts around 5 pm or so. Then everyone dances and then there's another party afterwards down in the kitchen. It's a community event and loads of folks show up.
During Obon season, there will be an obon dance at a different Buddhist temple somewhere on the island. The dances are mostly traditional Japanese obon circular dances, although they also add in the Electric Slide and some other modern ones. No fee to attend, it's free. Fun to watch even if you don't want to dance.
We have been looking in mountain view. There are some 3 acre plots that we like (from pictures). When I say that "I hear things" it's from 2 friends of my husband and a realtor we are speaking with. We've heard of local grocery deals, building deals etc. We've been told to stay away from flood zones and lava zones 1,2. We just sold out house that had fruit trees and we grew vegetables and herbs also. I'm not sure if the properties we are looking at are permitted or not, I'll have to ask our realtor. But the buildings on these properties are small and we would eventually build our own house and maybe keep those as guest quarters. Thank you for the information on the soil, I'll have to inquire further about that, because we really want to grow some of our food. I was told EMTs are in high demand on the big island? Is that not true? As far as electricity, we were going to go the solar and generator route, unless that is foolish? Btw, we are no strangers to hard work, lol! I enjoy hearing all the pros and cons, it really helps!
3 acre lots in Mountainview would be Fern Forest? Some areas in there can be a bit sketchy (inhabitants, not terrain) and there's no real soil there. Loads of rain, though, so things will grow in leaf litter. You could try raised bed gardening and grow things like taro and sweet potatoes.
I think it's too high of an elevation to get coconuts, papayas and bananas, you'd have to look around and see what the other folks are growing. Elevation has a lot of effect on what will grow and what will not.
Not sure how well solar will do in FF, mostly due to cloud cover. Generators will need to be carefully guarded due to high levels of theft. Also generators are pretty noisy and noise carries pretty far in the forest. Honda generators are pretty quiet, but they are a huge theft target as well.
For a legal guest house, it needs to be less than 500 sq. ft. and with no kitchen. And built with a permit. INHO, just dodge the whole permit thing and buy a permitted building in the first place.
I think the vegetable market across from the Salvation Army is just called "Rebecca's Veggies", not sure if it has an official name or not. We get most of our produce from there as well.
Oh! Saturday night is the Honokaa Obon Service and Dance at the Honokaa Hongwanji so we will be there instead of the movie. We will hopefully catch the movie on Sunday night I guess. The Hongwanji is above the grocery store, it will be the one all lit up with the obon dance lanterns in the parking lot. Plus the taiko drums, you'll probably notice those, too. Dancing starts around six pm or so. There's a memorial service to remember folks we've lost the past year that starts around 5 pm or so. Then everyone dances and then there's another party afterwards down in the kitchen. It's a community event and loads of folks show up.
During Obon season, there will be an obon dance at a different Buddhist temple somewhere on the island. The dances are mostly traditional Japanese obon circular dances, although they also add in the Electric Slide and some other modern ones. No fee to attend, it's free. Fun to watch even if you don't want to dance.
We picked up a flyer for the Obon Service the other day and H said she wanted to go. I think we forgot about it but now that you reminded me I'll put it on our calendar!
Fern Forest is south of Mountain View and on the other side of the highway. Part of Mountain View is on that side as well. Soil is going to be hit or miss, there is old sugar plantation land over there with deep soil but it will be very site specific. The dwarf coconuts like the Samoan varieties will probably fruit there, as will bananas. We had bananas set fruit on our old lot near Volcano at 2,800 feet but it took several years. Mountain View is a good 1400 feet below that. I think papaya will fruit in Mountain View but don't expect a healthy crop in the winter. People grow coffee up up there. You can probably grow Irish potatoes in the winter. We have mixed success with them at our elevation (800 feet). You can probably grow artichokes too.
I don't know that the crime there is any better or worse than the rest of Puna. You need to take the standard precautions and get to know your neighbors and look out for one another.
Thank you everyone for your advice. We just got back from our trip to the big island. We put in an offer on a house in fern acres. We are just waiting to see if we get it. We loved it over there! Compared to where we live, it's cooler, more beautiful, the traffic better and the people are much nicer. If we don't get the house, we will most likely start from scratch on property in that neighborhood. The only thing that we didn't like, it doesn't apply where we are wanting to buy, but some roads were pretty bad in some of the neighborhoods.
Those bad roads are private roads within many of those big 'subdivisions' over there in Puna. When the big 'subdivisions' were first made, it wasn't required for developers to do any kind of developing. Basically, they made lines on a map, ran a bulldozer down the lines to make 'roads' and ran one down the back property lines so they could set the back pins and considered the 'development' done. Sold a bunch of the lots on late night TV showing loads of beach pictures while doing it. This was the late sixties, early seventies mostly and most of the folks who bought the lots had never been to Hawaii before.
Because they were named 'subdivisions' mainland folks were kinda expecting roads, piped in water, sewers, electricity, phone lines (this was before cell service was common) maybe even sidewalks and neighborhood parks. Since then folks have been building in the jungle, fixing up the roads and give them another twenty years or so, they may almost be up to enough development to almost be a 'subdivison'.
Even after all their work, there still won't be piped in water, mail service, or neighborhood parks, but now most of the lots have access to grid electricity and at cell service.
Fern Acres is a good choice for elevation. You should be able to grow most of the tropicals, although most likely you won't have deep soil. You can stack concrete blocks or rocks (rocks end up with more centipedes than blocks) and fill in with soil to make a raised bed garden. That actually works pretty well for a salad garden since you can reach the lettuces really easy. It also saves on fertilizer and watering. Since we can grow things all year, you don't need a big garden, just one big enough to provide enough to keep veggies on the table. Look up 'bio-char' and the CTAHR website has loads of information about growing things in Hawaii. We also amend the soil with oyster shell (they sell it at the feed store as a chicken feed additive) to amend the acidity.
If you do get the house and if the lots next door haven't been built on yet, you could perhaps make an agreement with the neighbors to 'consolidate and resubdivide' the lots so you can get both of your lots double wide. Be even better if you could get three neighbors together to do it. Since the Hawaiian Acres and Fern acres lots are over a thousand feet deep and only a hundred feet to a hundred fifty feet wide, you have 'spaghetti' lots. By consolidating and resubdividing, you can redraw the property lines so everyone gets a slice across with a driveway going down to the road. With two lots, you'd have 200' x roughly 600' lots, with three, it'd be about 300' x 400' which is a much nicer size to have more space between houses. If you end up building instead of buying, it may be worthwhile to try to find adjacent lots so the property lines can be rearranged. The other two lots could be resold afterwards and you'd probably be able to resell them for more since they wouldn't be a long skinny spaghetti lot.
"If you do get the house and if the lots next door haven't been built on yet, you could perhaps..."
When we bought our house the lots on either side were vacant. They both went up for sale at different times and we were able to acquire them. 3 spag lots are only 3 times longer than they are wide and provide a good barrier against whatever comes in the future. I highly recommend it.
"you can reach the lettuces really easy"
Kale grows amazing here, the pests are brutal on the lettuce and the types with all the folds in them do the best. Since they are also the hardest to clean (rat lungworm) we gave up on trying to grow lettuce intended to be eaten raw outside in Hawaii. I have a 230 watt LED grow light (1500 watt HPS equivalent) I use to grow lettuce off our excess solar power. When there isn't enough extra juice to power the lamp the lettuce only gets indirect window lighting. It's not going to feed a large family but its a good way to turn otherwise wasted solar power into food. I can grow 4 window boxes worth of lettuce at a time this way, and it grows very fast. I'm currently growing romaine, two different types of blends, and just planted some 30-day spinach for the first time. I was just growing solely romaine but I think the cut and come again varieties would be more productive in such a small space.
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