You never know what you're going to encounter when you travel around our island...
Earlier this year we were returning from the Avocado Festival at the Amy B. H. Greenwell Ethnobotanical Gardens in Captain Cook, which is on the southern part of the West side (Kona side) or our island; as I was driving along, my peripheral vision caught a glimpse of a zebra as we were zipping right along....
Whoa.... a zebra? By the time it registered, we had driven a few yards pass the place and I decided to find the first drive to make a turn and go back...
Sure enough, there was a real, live Zebra behind a fenced-in area right by the road!
The zebra and a little burro were companiably eating their supper and completely ignored us.
Just on the other side of the same pen, there were some strange looking cattle I later learned were originally from Africa and called Watusi. Doing an internet search I learned they were actually called Ankole-Watusi and the most remarkable thing about them are the long horns and that they can live on very limited amounts of food and water.
In the same pen with the Watusi were a couple of American Bison or American buffalo...
A couple of months later, I found myself having to go back to the gardens in Captain Cook for a meeting and made it a point to stop again on my retutn home, but this time I wanted to find out more about them and how they had all ended in this sparcely populated area of the Big Island.
I turned makai (towards the ocean) of 'Aina Lani Road which forms a corner by the fenced in pasture where these definitely not Hawaiian natives live. At the first (and only) house I found a roadside stand with labeled and bagged coffee being sold as well as an assortment of fruit and avocadoes.... and met Miss Sudy.
Miss Sudy is a very warm and welcoming woman who had a Hawaiian grandmother, but was born and raised in Alabama and speaks with a soft Southern lilt. She married her husband Leonard Jose who is a 5th generation Portuguese born in Hawaii. Leonard brought Miss Sudy back to Hawaii with him and they found the property where they settled, which is a very nice place with views of a mountain on one side and views of the ocean on the other. Here they grow coffee, have a few fruit trees and Leonard has his 'pets'.
Besides Leonard's 'pets', Miss Sudy has her own pets; several friendly pigs, what looked like dozens and dozens of chickens and roosters, and a peacock who roam all over her yard and didn't seem to bother her flower beds and plantings around the house.
If you find yourself driving on Hwy 11 between Ka'u and South Kona, be sure to stop and visit with Leonard's 'pets' and then mosey on down 'Aina Lani (Heavenly Land) Road to buy some of Miss Sudy's 100% Kona Coffee....Of course, I chose the Zebra Blend, which has both medium and dark roasted beans....
There are signs on the fence advising lookers to not feed them, as they need special food. Please heed them. The sales of coffee and fruit from their land goes towards purchasing the special feed the 'pets' need to eat.
Darn it, I REALLY love this island!
