Happy Chickens for Fiji Food & Climate Emergency!

Past the rain-swollen creek, atop the steep hill, sits Tei Tei Learning Center--a hub for livelihoods learning at Fiji's permaculture Happy Chickens farm.  The farm, under the care of Austin & Kim Bowden-Kerby, has metamorphized into a regional learning center.  Since their purchase over a decade ago, this couple has embraced the rhythms of life in a culturally diverse neighborhood where Fijian customs and foodcrops blend with the traditions and knowledge of longterm transplants from India--a people first brought to the island to tend sugar cane plantations.

Much can be learned by looking at life in a microcosm of a single day:  Happy Chickens, Surprise Puppies, Brewing up a healthy concoction of fresh ginger and vinegar, and sharing the adventure of being so closely in tune with the land.  Plus a week later a traditional wedding!

From Kim's blog, Flora and Fauna Weekly Report  (subtitled "my corner of Fiji: observations from the wife of a naturalist")

I’ve got a little flora and a little fauna this week, and it is all GINGER.

The boys harvested some young ginger. It has tender pink skin that is scraped off.

Then Austin sliced it fine with the mandolin slicer.

And put it in a jar with vinegar and a bit of sugar. We normally use white vinegar but were out, so Austin used the apple cider vinegar. The chemistry of the young ginger causes the vinegar to turn pink, the same action that affects its skin, I suppose. The “pink” is more “coral” with the yellow vinegar. But it tastes just as delicious as ever.

One more ginger vegetable thing: the flowers.

Austin wanted me to show you the difference between the ornamental ginger and the edible ginger. The pink and red are ornamental – obviously. The green unopened-looking structures with tiny white petals(?) sticking up are the flowers that mark ginger whose root is tasty and good for digestion.

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Ginger, in the fauna world, is our young female dog who you might remember.

When I got home, I noticed that Ginger seemed a bit subdued. Not frisky. She’s finally settling down, I thought.

Next morning, Ginger-dog delivered EIGHT PUPPIES! She wasn’t fat at all. I had no clue she was pregnant.

She delivered them on a bed of feed sacks in the orchid house. I counted six. Junia counted seven. Austin insisted that there were eight – and went down to investigate. Two had managed to get themselves lost.

People ask us for puppies all the time.  Farm dogs help protect chickens from mongoose. These babes will get good homes down the line.

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So that is my productive week. Hope you all have a happy and productive week.