Warm greetings all. 🙏 💚
I've mentioned in previous posts that I live in an 18-acre, off-grid, food forest intentional community, deep in the jungles of Lower Puna, on the Eastern tip of the Big Island of Hawai'i. On the western-southwestern side of the property there is a huge chunk, approximately four hundred acres, that our community leases for our cow (or cows, as sometimes there's more than one); the front part for the cow milking stantion, and the huge wild back of the property for grazing part of the time (there are two grazing areas, and the cow is moved back and forth every few weeks, to give each area time to recuperate).
To commemorate #WednesdayWalk, I decided to go for a short walk in the Back 400. There are parts of this track of land that easily walkable, and there are portions where you'd need to be a little more determined. On this walk I stayed within the easily-walkable front part of the property.
A good percentage of the front portion is covered in grassy areas and more open trees, though there are areas where the trees do get pretty dense. The whole south side of our community's property and this large chunk of land abutting it, is flanked by a wall of lava from the most recent eruption in 2018. The deeper you go into this back track of land, the more dense the vegetation gets.
As you walk still further, the plant life begins to change from a handful of naturalized trees, to old Ōhi'a forests (Ōhi'a Lehua, Metrosideros polymorpha, endemic lava pioneer). I walked to the edge of the two habitats, then began my trek back.
One plant that really stand out in the landscape is bingabing, Macaranga mappa, from the Philippines. This plant is growing near the beginning of the Ōhi'a forest. It has gigantic leaves!
Just a little past here habitats change, and the Ōhi'a begins to dominate the landscape.
This is the edge of the Ōhi'a forest. If you continue walking straight back, the lava wall on the south side begins to be flanked by another lava wall on the north side, which progressively narrows the areas with trees, and it ends at yet another, older lava flow to the west, making a cul-de-sac. While I didn't go all the way back today, I look forward to returning to flesh out what I'm describing with photos.
This is our community's cow, Daisy, munching away, at the edge of the Ōhi'a forest.
These are a few more shots from the walk back.
Thank you all for sharing this #WednesdayWalk with me! 🙏 💚