she were scattering a flock of pigeons. “Go-go-go-go-go.”
FOUR
A pu’u, Gideon learned, was a volcanic cinder cone, a common, relatively minor vent in the long, sweeping sides of Mauna Kea, the colossal volcano that had created the northern half of the Big Island. Most dated back to the 1500s and before, so that by now they were grassy, treeless hillocks, smooth and symmetrical, anywhere from a hundred to five hundred feet high. It was these old pu’us that gave the Kohala uplands their characteristic hummocky, green-carpeted appearance.
While they trudged single-file up a narrow horse trail that wound around the hill, Axel, in the lead, prattled happily on about ranch operations without requiring much-without requiring any-feedback. The Little Hoaloha was a “cow/calf” operation, meaning that they raised calves but didn’t “finish” or butcher them. At six hundred pounds they were shipped by container ship to Vancouver, Canada, where they grazed on local grain until they reached nine hundred pounds, whereupon they were trucked to feed lots in Calgary, fattened for a hundred days until they reached twelve hundred pounds, and then slaughtered.
Now, Axel proudly pointed out, if John and Gideon looked around, they would see not a sign of over-grazing, even though they ran eight thousand head of cattle on their eleven thousand acres; a heavy load on the land-had Gideon known it took almost seven pounds of grasses to put one pound of meat on a cow? The lushness of the landscape was the result of a fenced paddock arrangement that Axel himself had devised, in which the cattle were rotated to a new grazing section every three days…
John, who had heard all this before, was mostly looking out at the view, humming a little to himself. But Gideon, who hadn’t, was also drawn to the constantly changing scene as they rounded the hill. They were at an elevation of four thousand feet. Around them were clumps of scrub oak, prickly pear, a few small trees, and some rocky outcrop-pings, but the overwhelming impression was of a wonderfully green, rolling grassland, dotted with groups of grazing cattle, that fell gradually but spectacularly away to the ocean in one direction, and flowed equally gradually and spectacularly up toward the distant, two-mile-high summit of Mauna Kea in the other. That, he realized, was why this stupendous landscape could be so peaceful, so calming. There were no vertical surfaces, no threatening precipices or jagged mountain walls. Just these welcoming, gently upsloping fields of green and brown, so gentle that it looked as if one could begin at the coast and easily, even pleasantly, stroll right to the top of the immense volcano, given the time.
From here he could see all the way to the gorgeous, gleaming hotel- and resort-lined Kohala Coast, thirty miles away, three-quarters of a mile below, and seemingly existing in some future century. Farther off and looking like Bali H’ai itself, was the island of Maui, from this distance a huge, mysterious, fog-wreathed mountain growing straight out of the ocean.
“… is piped by gravity-feed to on-ranch reservoirs,” Axel was saying, “from where it goes via one-inch plastic pipe to troughs that have been placed through mathematically computed-oh, gosh, where did the time go? We better go back. Gideon, I know you must have some questions.” He waited inquiringly.
Gideon searched his mind. The last thing he’d really heard was that the cattle were trucked to Calgary, but that had been a while back. He looked desperately around for inspiration. A quarter of a mile away, on a nearby hillside, were a dozen or so peacefully grazing cows. They were brown. They did not have white faces.
“I see,” he said with more confidence than he felt, “that you raise Jerseys here. Do you have Herefords as well?”
“That’s a really good question,” Axel said as they turned around and headed back down, with Gideon now in the lead. “We used to have
FOUR
A pu’u, Gideon learned, was a volcanic cinder cone, a common, relatively minor vent in the long, sweeping sides of Mauna Kea, the colossal volcano that had created the northern half of the Big Island. Most dated back to the 1500s and before, so that by now they were grassy, treeless hillocks, smooth and symmetrical, anywhere from a hundred to five hundred feet high. It was these old pu’us that gave the Kohala uplands their characteristic hummocky, green-carpeted appearance.
While they trudged single-file up a narrow horse trail that wound around the hill, Axel, in the lead, prattled happily on about ranch operations without requiring much-without requiring any-feedback. The Little Hoaloha was a “cow/calf” operation, meaning that they raised calves but didn’t “finish” or butcher them. At six hundred pounds they were shipped by container ship to Vancouver, Canada, where they grazed on local grain until they reached nine hundred pounds, whereupon they were trucked to feed lots in Calgary, fattened for a hundred days until they reached twelve hundred pounds, and then slaughtered.
Now, Axel proudly pointed out, if John and Gideon looked around, they would see not a sign of over-grazing, even though they ran eight thousand head of cattle on their eleven thousand acres; a heavy load on the land-had Gideon known it took almost seven pounds of grasses to put one pound of meat on a cow? The lushness of the landscape was the result of a fenced paddock arrangement that Axel himself had devised, in which the cattle were rotated to a new grazing section every three days…
John, who had heard all this before, was mostly looking out at the view, humming a little to himself. But Gideon, who hadn’t, was also drawn to the constantly changing scene as they rounded the hill. They were at an elevation of four thousand feet. Around them were clumps of scrub oak, prickly pear, a few small trees, and some rocky outcrop-pings, but the overwhelming impression was of a wonderfully green, rolling grassland, dotted with groups of grazing cattle, that fell gradually but spectacularly away to the ocean in one direction, and flowed equally gradually and spectacularly up toward the distant, two-mile-high summit of Mauna Kea in the other. That, he realized, was why this stupendous landscape could be so peaceful, so calming. There were no vertical surfaces, no threatening precipices or jagged mountain walls. Just these welcoming, gently upsloping fields of green and brown, so gentle that it looked as if one could begin at the coast and easily, even pleasantly, stroll right to the top of the immense volcano, given the time.
From here he could see all the way to the gorgeous, gleaming hotel- and resort-lined Kohala Coast, thirty miles away, three-quarters of a mile below, and seemingly existing in some future century. Farther off and looking like Bali H’ai itself, was the island of Maui, from this distance a huge, mysterious, fog-wreathed mountain growing straight out of the ocean.
“… is piped by gravity-feed to on-ranch reservoirs,” Axel was saying, “from where it goes via one-inch plastic pipe to troughs that have been placed through mathematically computed-oh, gosh, where did the time go? We better go back. Gideon, I know you must have some questions.” He waited inquiringly.
Gideon searched his mind. The last thing he’d really heard was that the cattle were trucked to Calgary, but that had been a while back. He looked desperately around for inspiration. A quarter of a mile away, on a nearby hillside, were a dozen or so peacefully grazing cows. They were brown. They did not have white faces.
“I see,” he said with more confidence than he felt, “that you raise Jerseys here. Do you have Herefords as well?”
“That’s a really good question,” Axel said as they turned around and headed back down, with Gideon now in the lead. “We used to have
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