remembering our visit to the kaui kunana goat dairy

I should be putting laundry away.  I bribe myself to do it by saving all the good Hulu shows for this purpose.  But, I am all caught up on Hulu and so I can't get myself to face the piles of clean clothes (I don't mind the washing and drying, it's just the putting away that I can't stand.  I don't get it, either).  So, until there are new shows, I will blog and the family with still have to pull their clothes out of out of the piles...

Karl's brother and his family visited a while back and we packed in so many great activities.  10 days somehow flew by and we still had things on our list of things we wanted to do (eat more shave ice, cookout on the beach, kayak the river, eat more shave ice...).  

I had wanted to take the Kauai Kunana Goat Dairy tour for a while but it is while the kids are in school and to be honest, I was a little nervous about dragging 11 people up there (waking up early and driving 45 minutes) and not having them like it.  We had planned on letting the kids miss one day of school so they could hang with their cousins and thought this was a good excuse to miss school.

As soon as we got there, we loaded up on mosquito repellent (Burt's Bees makes one that smells so good) because that area of the island is mosquito-ville and Samuel took off to start feeding the goats.  They had a tray of just baked organic treats and fresh squeezed lemonade ready for us.  I think a peanut butter and chocolate chip cookie and an oatmeal raisin cookie (the best I have ever had) and a slice of banana bread is a great way to start your morning.  At least this morning. The couple that gave us the tour was all healthy and fit and nature-y looking.  Like they just stepped out of Sunset Magazine.  Sarah, makes all the baked goods and sells them online and at farmers markets around the island.

They brought out the goat babies and let us hold them.

The cousins and the kids minus Samuel and Maximus.  Thanks for this photo, Brenda!

They were very friendly.  In fact, they take the babies away from their mommies right after they are born so they don't bond.  They want the babies to bond with humans.  I guess they are more tame that way.  

After the goat holding came the farm tour.  First stop, the star apple (or cream apple)  tree.  They call it a star apple because when you cut it open crosswise you can see a star shape.  The taste and texture was kind of like a lychee, at least in my opinion.  

Then they showed us where they kept the honey bees and let us sample some.  Samuel would have slurped down the whole bottle if they would have let him.

See these fermenting blobs that look like brain experiments?  Ever heard of noni juice?  I guess it has a ton of health benefits.  They pick the noni fruit, put it in a jar, set it in the sun, after a while a juice starts seeping out, then they let it ferment, then the bottle it and sell the lovely rotted stuff.  Yum, sign me up for that MLM.

They had a bunch of different kinds of goats. And they told us all about them. All very interesting, I am sure. But while they were explaining all this, I just watched this silly goat.

Then we moved on to more tasting of their amazing produce.  I started paying attention again. Eva got to eat a flower.

And we got to see how heavy a bunch of apple bananas are.  They pick their while they are green because the birds get them as soon as they are yellow.  These yellow ones had already been attacked.  Apple bananas deserve a post of their own.  My family eats a ton of them (including the baby.  He LOVES them).

And this little guy was one of the most delicious things I have ever tasted and so I was sure that I would never forget the name of it but a little google and I got the whole thing settled.  In Hawaii they call it a poha.  We got to try some other stuff like grapefruit, orange, and katuk, a leaf that contains protein.  We ended at the dairy section of the farms where they showed us where the milk the goats and make the chevre.  We got to sample their different flavors of chevre like artichoke heart and lilikoi (passion fruit).  They also had some tasty pesto made with mac nuts.  So tasty that Daniel ordered a jar of pesto and a spoon.  His mom didn't let him, but it was that good.  

The farm was so picturesque and the couple made it sound so easy.  The farm boy in Karl was loving it.  And with every question that he asked, I got that much more nervous that he will seriously want to live on farm one day.  I kept telling them to tell Karl how hard it was.

It turns out, we all loved this little tour.  It was great to see where our food comes from or most can only hope that their food comes from such a lovely place.  So maybe saying, "I went to Kauai and I toured a goat farm" doesn't sound as cool as "I went to Kauai and I learned to surf" but let me tell you, it was totally worth it.  Sound cool?  Maybe not.  Great memories and a lasting impact?  Very much so.

 The kids also learned about a bijillion times more than they would have in the classroom that day.