Shears, and Machetes, and Weed Whackers...Oh My!

As some of you know I was becoming a bit bored with the sorting of the coffee beans which has been my primary task this last week. Hungry to dig my hands in the earth, the word came today that I would be weeding. You can only imagine how excited I was at the prospect of working in the field, sweating under the Kona sun. So why is it that the boys always get to use the fun tools? Joe being the chosen one here at the farm saddled up and strapped on the weed whacker. To be honest I am a bit afraid of weed whackers anyway. See my last experience with one was in grade school when my best friend, Jaime Rimer, decided to shave her leg with one. My reluctancy to see that all over again made it pretty easy for me to step aside and let Joe have all the fun. I instead, grabbed my handy pruning shears and set out for the field. I took to weeding aroud the coffee trees and unraveling any vines that had decided to try and choke the trees. I also had to cut down any Ti plants that I came across. For this task I got to use a machete, granted a much smaller version than the one Joe uses, but still a machete. I found that I was so afraid of hurting myself that the pruning shears worked much better. It was a great day despite my forgetting sunscreen until after lunch and my many falls onto the treacherous lava. Luckily only a rooster saw me. I quickly realized it helps to carry a stick to break the thousands of spider webs you walk into, it's near impossible to dig your hands into the earth when that earth is lava, and I now know just how big 5 acres is. We were rained out and as the earth is replenished here I can't help but think about how I have been restored as well. It's amazing what using sharp intruments will do for your soul.

Hitching

My first weekend on the island and I decided I would go to the beach. One thing about Hawaii is that transportation proves to be a bit tough. Biking is kind of out of the question because the roads are highways and people drive fast and recklessly. Not to mention the bike on the farm needs new brakes and I'm not sure I want to be the one to test it before a tune up...at least not my first week here. So my choices were to hitch or walk. I walked. On my 4 mile walk I listened to the island. A wonderful thing about this place is that the sounds of Hawaii are as captivating as the sights. As I walked I heard the chirp of so many birds; cardinals, doves, saffron finches, as well as the whisper of the trees, and the faint call of the ocean. There is always this music underlying life here, this constant noise. And so what I began to notice was the silence, how the absence of sound was so loud. I arrived at my destination and was happy to relax on the sand...oh wait there is no sand, I meant relax on the lava. Which in case you were wondering, does not invoke feelings of relaxation in the way of comfort. But it was nice to be amidst the energy of the ocean. I set out on my journey home and immediatley noticed my feet beckoning me to stop. Chaco's by the way, not a shoe for walking long distances. I continued even as my toes cursed me and now I ask you, in such a situation what would you do? You're 4 miles away from home and not only do the cuts the lava gave you hurt but you have new blisters to go along. Would you swallow the pain and forge ahead? Or would you cast your fears aside and possibly your mind, stick out your thumb, and give your best smile hoping some nice soul will pick you up? I walked. I am a city girl folks and we do not trust random people driving beater pickup trucks who can think of nothing better than picking up a haole in a skirt. Just as I began contemplating laying down next to the rodeo grounds on this road to nowhere I heard a car and I turned to face it. Okay step one of hitching is face the car, step two stick out your thumb but I couldn't and so I turned back around and kept walking. The mongoose that had just darted across the road now stood, faced me, and seemed to be mocking me. So I turned again and the car must have noticed my odd behavior because it had slowed down. All I could think was please let them have all their teeth. The car approached and a nice woman with all visible teeth still present asked if I needed a ride. She seemed nice and so I accepted and got in the car next to another WWOOFer she had picked up on the way. We talked about our travels so far and what we thought of farm life. When I saw my farm wizz past us in the car I found myself wishing there was more time to chat but I kindly asked the woman to pull over and got out of the car. As I walked away I thought, hitching isn't so bad...if you remember where your farm is and don't have to backtrack down the road on your blistered feet to get there.

Coffee Philosophy

As I was sorting the coffee beans again today I began to think about the rejected beans and what I could learn from them. I felt sorry for these beans who had been grown for a purpose, living under intense sunlight, with the fear that at any moment they or their friends might be lopped off, then picked, and pulped. Just when they think they may drown they are laid out to dry and then raked. You can almost here their shrieking. Only to be put through a milling machine which essentially tears a layer of their skin off, to then be put on a shaking table and you can only imagine the nausea. Then some person goes through them and decides if all that was worth something. Are they a good bean or a bad bean? This got me thinking about life and being grown for something in particular. What happens when you don't fulfill that purpose? Are you then nothing but waste. Thankfully I have more control than a bean within a cherry on a tree and I am able to shape myself and the things I do in order to be useful in a grander scheme.
Basically what Im saying is coffee sorting gives you too much time to think.
The other interns are now calling me Madame Megan, reader of coffee beans.

No Rest for the Weary or Jet-Lagged

Well I arrived in one piece a bit delirious but in one piece none the less. After 25 hours of being awake they let me sleep only to be put to work first thing Tuesday morning. Luckily it wasn't an incredibly labor intensive day, to be honest it was quite boring.
Here is an abbreviated version of what processing coffee is all about. After the coffee cherries are harvested they are pulped (separating the seed from the bean), you are then left with parchment (dried seeds covered with a stiff white skin), then the parchment is milled (removal of parchment skin and thin silverskin below), sized (using a table to separate beans into waste, peaberry, and normal sized green beans), and sorted.
Dragon's Lair not only grows coffee but we process and roast as well as provide that service for other small scale farmers here on the island. Yesterday I was put on sorting duty. Large scale operations sometimes have what is called a gravity table that will sort the beans for you. We do not so sorting is done by hand. We take large buckets of the green coffee after it has been milled and sort by hand the beans that may have defects. We looked for any beans that were split, or not whole, or black (called raisin), or a bean inside another bean (called motherbean). It was incredibly time consuming and a bit mind numbing and by the end of a 7 hour day we only had one and a half, five gallon buckets to show for it.

Now after our days work was complete we headed out to 2 step which boasts the best snorkeling on the island. What I haven't mentioned to you yet is how unbelievably beautiful it is here. It is like the whole world is grey in comparison to the vibrant color here. Almost as though I am seeing color for the first time. Once I overcame my apprehension to enter an underwater universe I was amazed. There was a lot of traffic down there. So many fish I couldn't possibly name and the reef like a village of strange shapes and colors. A sea turtle floated right to me and for a second I thought it might shake my hand. I decided I was finished however, when a man swam by me with a speared fish. A little to close carrying a sharp object for my taste. I figured it was best to get out before I was next.

I then returned to the farm to witness my first Hawaiian sunset. From the lanai (porch) I could see the ocean and the sun setting, as well as, papaya, hibiscus, banana, mangoe, coffee, pomegranate, orange, lemon, mac nuts, some flowering hallucinogenic, avocado, plumeria, and lots of chickens.
I could get used to this!

A Lesson in Coffee

I thought it would be appropriate to give you all a quick lesson in the history of coffee.
So as legend has it coffee was discovered accidentally by Kaldi, a goatherd in Ethiopia. He noticed his keep behaving a bit oddly after eating the cherry like fruit of a certain plant. Intrigued he decided to try it and subsequently experienced the first human coffee buzz. Now the story goes that while Kaldi was dancing with his goats a monk passed by and scolded him for partaking in "the devils fruit." The monks then soon realized that this bean came in pretty handy when needing to stay alert for extensive prayer sessions. These events are thought to be what led to the consumption of the coffee bean in Ethiopia.
Fast forward through the path of distibution which has been met with a lot of intrigue and controversy and we come to
Chief Boki, governor of Oahu. Chief Boki acquired coffee trees in Brazil and brought them to the Hawaiian Islands in 1825 by way of the British warship HMS Blonde. Then in 1828 Reverend Samuel Ruggles brought the first coffee plant to Kona from the ornamental gardens of the Hawaiian chiefs on Oahu. Presently Kona coffee is grown in an area 20 miles long and 2 miles wide on the slopes of Hualalai and Mauna Loa. The area contains approximately 600 independent farms ranging in size from 3-50 acres. Total Kona coffee acreage is over 2000 acres and annual production is generally over two million pounds.
Dragon's Lair Farm, the farm I am on is about 5 acres with 2000 coffee trees. This is a small farm that not only grows but also mills and roasts their beans.
Now that you all have my intro to coffee history you will be prepared to learn with me about the actual plant and cherry that will become the coffee you may drink.

I carry with me...

I am sitting in my empty apartment and feeling a bit more than destabilized. It was only 13 months ago that I moved my possesions into this place that I would soon call home or at least the closest I've ever felt to a home. And now there's nothing left except large dust bunnies and a recycling bin. My pets are just as disoriented as I... Stella (the cat) confused because there is no place to hide, and Kenya (the dog) ecstatic because she can now chase Stella without any furniture to obstruct her path. I've sold most of the stuff I have accumulated in preparation for this move to Hawaii and as I look around I feel a sort of emotional vacancy. I am not one to be attached to stuff but I can't help but feel a sense of loss. A loss of the experiences those possesions carried and the things they witnessed.

Now I carry with me stories
I carry my worry, I carry my concerns
I carry with me the front steps of every house I've lived in
I carry keys to the storage unit where the objects that are an extension of me are waiting for me to return
I carry my phone, full of numbers of those I call and those who don't call back
I carry my grandfather's fishing lessons, my mom's creative spririt, and my father's voice
I carry vintage scarves telling stories of another woman's adventures
And I carry every fresh start
And every final drive away
I carry the desire to go unnoticed and at the same time not be forgotten
I carry laughter
I carry Stuart Little, and Charlotte's Web, and Nancy Drew, and Pippy Longstocking, and Punky Brewster
I carry my dreams
And the dreams of my ancestors

This isn't the first time I've started over and I know that it will only be a matter of time before I begin collecting stuff that fits into my life again. I guess the question is what will that life be and what will it look like?

What is a blog anyway?

I have generally stayed away from blogging with the belief that they are simply structured environments for exhibitionists to well...exhibit, and exist merely as a breeding ground for narcissism. So one would ask, being that I am in the process of blogging, am I an exhibitionist or maybe a bit narcissistic?
I am choosing to believe that when there is an overall objective or purpose to this type of public journaling such judgements can not be made. My purpose in all of this is to share my adventures in coffee land. I have been accused of late of being a boring blogger, not posting anything. And folks just to clear things up that's because I am still here in good ol' Cincy.
However, the countdown has begun and if you are following along we are at 13 days before I leave you for the land of hibiscus, and mango, and macadamia nuts, and kava, and snorkeling, and lava...oh yeah, and coffee.