Farm Animals

This is one of about three or four resident hawks that lives in the native Ohia forest on the farm. It is the native Hawaiian Hawk, an endangered species that intrigues a lot of bird lovers. They are very beautiful and magestic birds. It's kind of fun to wake up to them shreeking every morning even though their call is a bit shrill. It's cool to see them swooping down into the orchards for some prey. And for the last few days, one of the hawks has been perched on this Ohia tree, directly over Sarah as she weed-wacks invasives out of a portion of the forest floor. Almost like he is watching over her. Besides farming, a lot of our work has involved clearing out invasives from this native forest to save habitat for the hawk as well as other species.














This is Pea, the farmers' amazingly sweet pit bull that we get to take for a walk every morning as part of our work hours. Apparently she likes to chase and eat small animals for breakfast, so we have to be careful when we walk around the farm. But she is great and just wants to lick our faces all the time. We love her!

Farm stuff

My favorite farm rig! What a great way to reuse an old truck. And fun to drive too :)

La Casa

Our outdoor kitchen and living area. It's actually very clean! And that table with all the stuff on it in the back doubles as a ping pong table after work. Sweet!! Sarah in the kitchen right before watching the UNC v. Duke game. It didn't turn out so well :(

A hard day's walk

The "trail" to the beach over a Pahoehoe lava flow. There are two types of flows, thick solid pahoehoe and crumbly a'a. Niether one is much fun to walk over, but it is fun to look at.

















































You have to work to get to the beach here...but its totally worth it once you get there! I guess I should say that you have to work to get to the nice, more secluded beaches. Silly people don't like to walk over black lava rock in the blazing sun. Allison and I willingly do and have been rewarded the last two days by beautiful beaches. Makalawena rewarded us with silky white sand and fun bodyboarding (Allison is buried in the wave in the picture on the right). Kiholo Bay rewarded us with tons of sea turtles basking and swimming in the sun...such gentle wise creatures...kind of like an Allison. Not only did we walk a long way to get to this beach, but then we swam across the lagoon to the only sandy beach (the rest was lava rock) that stuck out on a spit. I thought we were pretty hard core.

Tropical Flowers

'Ie'ie native plant in flower. When clearing the wall, this was one of the plants that we saved. 'Ie'ie is a vine that grows up and around trees. We cleared out around quite a bit of it, becoming very familiar with the plant itself before seeing its odd flower.










Coffee in bloom. Recently all of the coffee estates on the hill we live on have seen their coffee blooming. They call it "Kona Snow" because its the closest thing to snow they get here (aside for on the 13,000 ft volcano on island). It fills the air with a pleasant sweet fresh scent as you walk by.

Tree Pruning

Lemon Harvest and Pruning


This week at the farm we did a lot of tree pruning. Coffee trees and lemon trees. It looks like most of the pruning is finished (there are two large orchards with many trees) for now, and we are just awaiting the chipper man to come so we can chip all of the dead wood. We also got to bag the coffee that was drying for several days to send off to be roasted. It must be roasting season because every now and then we get a whif of french toast and maple syrup in the air-- the smell of coffee beans roasting!

Snorkel Time!

Last weekend Douglas, the owner of the farm, took us snorkeling at Ke'ei Beach at one of the national parks on the coast. It was a little tricky getting in as we had to jump off the lava rock when the swell died down so we didn't get trashed on the coral. But it was well worth it, as we saw some beautiful coral and tropical fish. One of them was the yellow tang. A fish that used to be so abundant on the Kona Coast that it would turn the waves gold as they rose into the air. This is how Kona got the nickname of Gold Coast. But now, unfortunately, the unregulated pet trade has severeley diminished the amount of fish on the Kona Coast. Hunters use big sucking machines to just suck the fish right up. They can catch thousands in a day, ending up in home aquariums all over the world. Kind of crazy.

We ended up swimming all the way out to Palemano Point (in the center of the picture) where some nice waves were breaking. The water got super deep and dark, but then we road the current back to shore. Good thing Douglas didn't tell us about the time he ran into a tiger shark out there until after we were out of the water :) What a great day!

Beach Time!

Humpback cresting.
Whale spouting water.
Humpback dorsal.
That dark spot to the left in the water is a humpback.

Woo hoo!!

Today, after our first three days of work, we took a day trip to the ocean. A great place called Kua Bay on the North Kona Coast. Old lava flows surrounded us on the beach and sank into the soft, white sand and crystal clear water. This beach was pretty close to perfect. There were some killer body-boarding waves, and, to top things off, humpback whales frolicking past the breakers!

Coffee Harvesting & Processing

But wait, it's not done! The bean must then be laid out in the sun for several days to dry and remove the last layer of skin. It also must be turned several times throughout the day. Once this process is done, the bean is then finally ready to be roasted and then consumed. Most farms do not do the roasting themselves. Some farmers also do not do most of the processing, but sell their crop as cherry. No wonder good coffee is so expensive!
Then it sits in water for at least a day and ferments to get the next layer of skin off.


And comes out the bottom like this, with the red skin left over.


Then it is milled or pulped in this neat contraption to get the outer red skin off. It goes in the top of the machine as cherry.
And the fruit looks like this before it is processed. This is called cherry. The beans are inside.

First it is picked and bagged.



Coffee is the main cash crop on this farm. Harvest season is pretty much over, but we arrived for the tail end of it and got to help out with some of the processing. It's pretty cool, but also labor-intensive. I don't like coffee, but I love coffee ice cream, and I have a whole new respect for the people that grow it!

Living Area

A few pictures of our living space. Pretty sweet! We also have an outdoor kitchen and common area. I love being outside all the time surrounded by trees :)

This is a view of the sunset from the farm. Its kind of a bad sunset because of the vog (volcanic ash and sulfur in the air which makes it hazy) but its still pretty sweet. Today after work we went to the beach down there. Sea turtles and lots of fish swimming around the coral. I even saw a whale on the car ride down.

One of the sea turtles came really close to me. I didn't see him until he was about to run into me, so I had to hurry up and move it.

Welcome to the Jungle!

Sarah working on the wall.

We just finished our second day of work at Lehua Gardens (or Bong Farm as it is also called). It is 2000' up one of the smaller dormant volcanoes south of Kailua-Kona on the Big Island. We started yesterday by harvesting a few ripe banana bunches. (They have a lot of apple bananas here--small sweet creamy bananas--delicious!) Then yesterday and today we worked on clearing a very old wall made of lava rock that is being taken over by invasive ginger and vines infringing on the edge of the property. Apparently the wall extends 2000' all the way down to the ocean. Hopefully we won't be clearing it that far! We ended the day by milling some freshly picked coffee "cherries" to separate the outer fruit from the bean. It is edible as a fresh cherry, and tastes nothing like coffee.

Aloha!

We made it! After a rough few weeks of moving & packing and a long plane ride. To the other side of the world! Where strange crazy things grow and the weather is awesome! I could go on with exclamatory statements! It feels great to be here. Bananas are one of the many fruit trees on this farm, and they have a strange looking flower. There is also a huge banyan (ficus) tree in the middle of one of the coffee orchards. The same tree you see in small pots on the mainland.