Aina Maluhia
Last Updated On: May 13th, 2025 at 09:58AM MST
Contact information
Farm Address:14-3650 RailRoad Avenue
PAHOA, Hawaii, 96778
Primary Contact: kevin fray
Secondary Contact: Omya Fray
Primary Phone:
Type: Cell
Number: 9168406652
Email: kevinfray92@gmail.com
Website:
Internship information
General Farm Description: The farm has two locations that are 2 miles apart. One we lease, one we own. The lease is 5 acres; here, we rotationally graze two Jersey/Brown Swiss milking cows. There is offgrid power and rainwater catchment. See “Housing' for more details. This is the location where you would stay. It is 15 minutes from the town of Pahoa, HI. 2 miles further down a dirt road is the place we own. In 2022 we bought 8 acres of land that has been fallow for 25 years. It was full of enormous trees. Now, about 4 acres of it has been bulldozed and many trees have been planted. We're now ready to move down to the land we own and are in need of apprentices to delegate the 5 acre dairy operation to. Many people in the community love our milk. The farm is near the extreme eastern tip of the Big Island of Hawaii. About 3 miles from the coast as the crow flies. It is a beautiful spot. It is humid and lush – a great place for growing food. There is 100 inches of annual rain here, though most of it comes at night; most days have plenty of sun to be merry about. The place is on the slopes of an active volcano. It seems that there is a large eruption every 30-50 years. There was a large eruption in 2018 – you can see what places got covered in lava on google maps satellite view. I think about 300 years ago the land that is now our farm was covered in lava. This makes it so that, despite the lush growing climate, there is little soil. And lots of rocks. Within a few hundred years our farm will likely get covered in lava. Impermanence. We are still a small and young operation. My wife and I are 32 and 27 respectively. She moved here in 2018, I did in 2020. We have a 9 month old baby girl. :) We are not certified organic but could be if we jumped through those hoops.CRAFT Member Farm? No
Internship Starts: Ongoing
Internship Ends: N/A
Number of Internship Available: 2 person or 2 couples
Application Deadline: N/A
Minimum Length of Stay: 3 months
Internship Details:
The core of the position is for someone who can commit to reliably milking two cows twice a day in exchange for both a place to live and for the opportunity of learning how to run a dairy. One session off per week is allotted, making 13 required milking sessions per week. Additional sessions off can be negotiated. If there is more than one person living here, than this workload can be shared.
It is difficult to express the requirement in an ‘hours per week’ format. Kevin is able to hand milk two cows, start to finish, dishes included, in under 50 minutes. (And 5 of these minutes is just petting cows).
Currently, one of our cows is not in milk. She will be in her third trimester of pregnancy and will be needing a break from milking. While there is only 1 cow needing to be milked we feel that an additional 6 hours of work of our choosing would be required. This work would take place on our land we own which is 2 miles away from where you and the cows will be staying. (We lease the 5 acre that the cows are on).
Staying on top of a few chores, in addition to managing the cows is also required. This is minor compared to the management of the cows. The largest of these chores is in managing customers who occasionally come by to pick up milk. We will deal with the majority of the customers- the ones we meet in town or at market, but some neighbors just pick up on site. We trust these people to pick up when we are not even home, though sometimes they need some assistance -which will be your duty. Other chores include keeping the inside places clean; the outside places mostly weeded; and keeping an eye on the solar and water catchment systems. Oh, and bottle feeding the calf too if the birth (expected late July) goes well.
Before there are two cows in milk again we plan to have installed a milk machine. This should decrease the workload.
We reserve the right to decide if we want additional people to live in the other carports and thus make the kitchen a communal space. It is possible for 1 person to run the operation and have the place to themselves, however, it could be advantageous to have another person living here. If a person was managing the place by themselves, and the 2nd “carport-bedroom” became inhabited, we would decrease the workload of the person who formerly had the place to themself. It would be negotiated how the newcomer would alter the work dynamics. For example, maybe the milk requirements would be split in half and both people would do a few more hours of work down on the land we own. Or, the newcomer may just be a backup milker and earn there keep by predominately working on our land, or by paying rent. We care about your well being and wouldn’t want to have people that aren’t a good fit share a kitchen. We consider training any potential newcomer a shared responsibility. We want you to be confident enough in all the work requirements to be able to train someone yourself. We will still come over and help train any new apprentices too, but it is a shared responsibility.
Our applicants need to be have the intention of staying for at least 3 months. The reason for this is because it’ll take time and energy on our part to get someone orientated to Hawaii and trained on how to do many of the farm tasks. We’d prefer to not have to train someone new every month!
We require a $300 damage deposit. This will be returned so long as you haven’t cost us $300 in repairs. Have stayed for your 3 month commitment. Have cleaned the place before leaving. Have given us a 25 day notice of when you’ll be leaving. And have spent 8 hours training a new person how to do your tasks (assuming there is a person living here in need of training). If certain emergencies arise, we can negotiate returning your damage deposit even if some of those conditions aren’t met.
Installing a Star link for satellite internet is negotiable. We enjoyed living here with one and plan to take out Starlink to our land when we move. We will leave the Ethernet cables where they are; so it’d be simple to install another Starlink. Installing a Starlink is negotiable.
We will also require apprentices to have rubber rain boots.
Alright that’s about it. Think over these agreements and let us know if you are interested in our apprenticeship.
We can email you pictures of the farm.
Aloha
-Kevin and Omya Fray
Educational Opportunities: It'll be more than just milking cows, it'll be forming a relationship with them. They are full of lessons. You'll also learn how to manage them with fencing, including electric fencing, and the importance of rotational grazing as promoted by Allan Savory, Joel Salatin and others. You'll lean to read their body condition and fertility cycles. Exposure to offgird living. You'll learn the basics of solar and water catchment. Very useful to know. There's also all around orientation to living in Hawaii. It's a good quiet place to get familiar with the climate and fruits and people. There can be opportunities to learn how to climb coconut trees and so much more. Based on how much you help me on the land I own you'll learn about agroforestry. Forest succession, stratification, nursery care such as grafting, plant spacing. I'd like to develop better garden beds for more annual based crops such as taro, pineapples, sugar cane, and more. And construction skills too. If you're a women there's an opportunity to do things with my wife. She free-birthed our baby and is an awesome mother.
Skills Desired: A great attitude. Physical health. Ability to comfortably live close to the earth Communication Skills Honesty. Transparency Motivation. Food Values.
Meals: Milk within reason
Stipend: Not yet.
Housing: Expect clean, simple, rustic. There are two available 200 square feet 'carports'. They are Costco carports. A wooden floor has been added and there is a bed, some furniture and electricity. Starlink ethernet is negotiable. They're nice, we have lived quite comfortably in them ourselves. Again, it's nicer below 60 degrees here. The carports are your bedrooms. And, there is a 1000 sq. ft. structure with a kitchen. There is a power, water, a hot shower, and a place to store a few more things if needed. There is a composting toilet nearby too. We discourage regularly eating in your bedroom as this can invite cockroaches. Don't worry too much about the cockroaches, I see one maybe twice a week and they just run off. But yes, they do exist.
Preferred method of Contact: email