Off the Beaten Track On the Island of Hawai`i!

We are mainland transplants: David from the Chicago area, Wendy from New York. We are island residents of 40 years, twenty on Maui and twenty on Hawai`i Island. We loved Maui and found it hard to leave until we were offered the caretaker/manager position at Lama Tharchin Rinpoche’s Tibetan Buddhist retreat center, Orgyen Dechen Chöd Dzong, in Ka`ū, the southern-most part of Hawai`i Island. Until we came to Ka`ū we weren't sure what we were looking for but we certainly knew it when we found it—beautiful, rural, rugged, small-town Hawai`i.
We are eco-concious and knew we wanted to build 'green.' The nature surrounding us is the source of our water and energy. The electric system powered by the sun provides all the standard amenities. Soft rain water is triple filtered and UV sterilized.
We love gardening and animals, grow some of our food, and are the caretakers of the chickens, goats, donkeys, horse and dogs that complete the picture.

We fell in love with rural Hawai`i Island and found eleven acres of possibility covered impossibly densely in an invasive tree called wililaiki or christmasberry. It is a scourge on the Island, crowding out many of the native forest trees and plants that make up the critical habitat of native birds and insects.
Not knowing what we were signing up for, we purchased the land in 2000 after David climbed to the top of a huge `ōhi`a tree and saw the bright blue ocean in the distance.
We were advised to simply hire a D-10 and bulldoze everything, but there was an old dry-stack stone wall along the ahupua`a (the land division that runs from a mountain top to the ocean) boundary between Kawela and our land in Wai`oma`o that we were unwilling to risk to the dozer’s blade. David starting hand clearing the wililaiki from the perimeter of the wall, and the unfolding began.
He carved tunnels through the wililaiki tangle so that we could get from one end of the property to the other and every tiny patch of blue sky that was revealed by the felling of another christmasberry was cause for celebration. And we found more walls. And archeological sites. And 100-year old `ōhi`a lehua trees. And other native flora that was just waiting for sunlight to start to thrive again.
And the unfolding continued and now there are two dwellings, a lush pasture, farm animals, a green house and pets and we look forward to sharing it all with guests who are looking for a comfortable, cozy eco-friendly place to reconnect with nature.