ʻĀina Iki Ranch

09/14/2026

🐉 Our very first dragon fruit has finally arrived. Read the sweet (and slightly ridiculous) story behind ʻĀina Iki’s truly slow food. 🌱💗

A twenty-year journey from a tiny cutting to ʻĀina Iki’s very first dragon fruit.

09/13/2026

🐉 Truly slow food, ʻĀina Iki style.

We just harvested our very first dragon fruit — roughly 20 years after it arrived here as an 8-inch cutting.

Around 2005 or 2006, Val picked up a broken piece while walking through her friend Greg’s dragon fruit farm here in Puna. She brought it home, planted it, dug it back up, stuck it in a pot, moved it around and generally, in her words, made it suffer. 😂

Somehow that little cutting survived and grew into the giant, “snaky and octopussy” cactus winding through the vegetation today.

This year it finally produced its first flower, followed by its first fruit — and we got to sit around the table with Val, hear the story and taste the result nearly two decades later.

As Val perfectly put it: “We’re gonna call this truly slow food.” 💗🌱

Stay tuned — the full story of this little cutting’s very long journey to becoming ʻĀina Iki’s first dragon fruit is coming soon to the blog. 🐉

09/02/2026

🍌 Busted, Ruby.

We let Ruby and Frisky into the backyard yesterday to help us “mow.” Unfortunately, Uncle Joshua wasn’t quite quick enough to relocate a hanging bunch of bananas that was just barely within reach of one awnry Miss Ruby. 😂

By the time I heard the commotion, the crime was already in progress. Ruby heard me coming and casually trotted away from the scene as if she had absolutely no idea what had happened.

I managed to save the unripe half of the bunch… but the evidence on her face was pretty damning. 😂🍌🐴

Caught red-hooved.

08/31/2026

🪲 Evening Shift Reassignment

While getting the wheelbarrow ready for the evening Biggie barn p**p roundup, I found this little ranch employee hanging out in the wrong department. 😂

Praying mantises are predatory insects that happily snack on flies, moths, beetles, grasshoppers and other bugs they can catch — making them pretty handy neighbors to have around the garden.

So instead of joining the p**p crew, this one got gently relocated to our Surinam cherry bush, where there are plenty of leaves to hide among and buggies to hunt.

No résumé required. Immediately hired. 🌿💚

08/28/2026

🦆 Duck Spa: Open Daily 💦

One of our OG Mamas from The Mamas & the Papas flock demonstrating the proper way to appreciate a freshly filled tub. 😂

Water is about a whole lot more than drinking for ducks. They need water while eating to help wash down their food and rinse their bills, eyes and nostrils.

And all that dunking, splashing, shimmying and preening? That’s important feather maintenance! Bathing helps clean and condition her feathers, and afterward she’ll spread natural oils through her plumage to help keep those feathers water-resistant and insulating.

But there’s also a much simpler explanation:

Ducks just really, really love a good bath. 🥰🦆💦

DUNK. SPLASH. FLAP. REPEAT.

And somehow, turning perfectly fresh water into duck soup within minutes is part of the process. 😂

08/24/2026

Just another morning feeding the ducks… when THIS decided to stop me in my tracks. 🔥🌿

I’ve walked past this bromeliad who knows how many times, but apparently today was its day to absolutely pop off.

So naturally, I had to learn a little more about it.

This is Aechmea blanchetiana, a bromeliad native to Brazil—and there are some pretty cool things happening here:

🌺 Those spectacular red-and-yellow “flowers” aren’t actually the flowers. Most of what we’re seeing are bracts—modified leaves that surround the much smaller actual flowers. Think poinsettia: same trick!

💧 It’s a tank bromeliad. Its overlapping leaves form a little reservoir that catches and holds rainwater, creating its own tiny aquatic habitat.

☀️ Sunlight helps bring out the show. Depending on its growing conditions, the foliage can range from green to yellow, orange and reddish tones.

💐 And then Val added one more fun bit of history: these dramatic flower stalks are prized in the cut-flower trade because they can stay beautiful for weeks. A friend of ours, Geoff, used to grow them here and supply florists on the mainland.

Val calls these “the Christmasy ones.”

And now that this one has basically decorated itself in red, gold and green…I don’t think I can call it anything else. 🎄❤️💛

08/22/2026

https://www.ainaiki.life/donorden/the-unlikely-life-of-pickles

08/21/2026

Weathering Lala: The Lives We Sheltered & the Lives We Lost

The Lives We Sheltered & the Lives We Lost