Hawaii has a mild tropical climate, and the Big Island – Hawaii Island – has 10 of the world’s defined climate zones. Did you know you can ski on Mauna Kea and go swimming on the Kona side of the Island about an hour later? It’s true!

The rain we live with and love in Hawaii can be amazing and cooling. On warm afternoons, when the sky looks blue for hours, and the sun benefits the landscape with 85-degree temperatures, a ten-minute change can bring rain—often an inch or more in a very short time. We like it.

So does the vegetation, and growth happens year-round. We get constantly blooming flowers, easy fruit and vegetable cultivation, and so much green that we sometimes think there is so much richness that harmony, tranquility, and peace will never end. Neither will the weeds.

In the Puna district, the plants and shrubs can go from seedling to five-food full foliage in less than a year. Trees grow tall fast! If you don’t cut back, you get inundated, but that’s okay. We’re working on it, and the orchard you couldn’t even walk through now looks nice and a couple baby goats has helped. Cut back, mow, compost, spread mulch, and start again—not yearly, but monthly!

In between, we are trying to keep the trees fruiting and harvested. We’ve got a dozen lychees, a macadamia nut, half a dozen avocados, pineapple, bananas, guava, strawberry guava, and more coconuts than we’ll ever eat.