day one

It’s 4:22am.  I open my eyes and its pitch black so I can barely make out the frame of our shack, our new home for a month.  There are two roosters crowing on repeat and there is a breeze rustling the trees outside the screen windows.  We made it.  We made it through the first night.  

Albert picked us up yesterday in a big blue Ford diesel truck towing a trailer of mulch.  His hands were dirty but he welcomed us with a smile.  After about twenty minutes on perfectly paved, steep, windy roads, we arrived at our first Kona coffee farm.  We drove past the roasting and packaging building, then the mill, followed by the pulper and continued up the hill.  With a quick “See you at eight”, Albert dropped us off and headed back down the road.  So there we were.  On top of a huge hill, thousands of miles from home, surrounded by coffee trees over looking the sea, we chose our shack- the one with the best view. 

“What the hell were we thinking” crossed my mind a few times as we, well mostly eric, cleared the spiders and hornets out of our lovely 8'X10'.  The perfectly clear view of the neon pink sunset eased our worries as we reminded ourselves that this was what we signed up for. 

Once the sun came up we ventured out into the shared kitchen and found- can you believe it- a bag of fresh 100% Kona coffee.  Eric’s first taste of Kona coffee was had amongst the same trees it was grown from, pretty cool.  Before our workday started we scoped out our surroundings a bit...  Scattered through the trees we spotted wild cows, pigs, ducks, chickens, and yes, that rooster that was still crowing.  After picking and eating a coffee cherry (when in Rome), we were ready to begin.  With open minds and a couple pairs of work gloves we were off to meet Albert down at the mill to start working.

I cannot believe all the things we did in one day.  We eased into things with feeding the ducks, geese, and chickens which was quickly followed by us both being handed gas powered “weed-eater’s” aka weed whackers on steroids and then matching machetes to chop down trees and vines (Eric was in heaven, I was being eaten alive by insects).  One of today’s highlights was definitely when Eric was able, after 13 attempts, to start the 1982 Isuzu with a rusted screw driver and drive us- somewhat- safely up the 300 foot accent, to our shack.  

It doesn’t take long to realize that life on a farm is not a cake walk.  Our backs are sore, our arms are scratched, our legs are swollen with insect bites and stings, but today was a pretty awesome day.   

“Firsts”

-Woke up to roosters crowing 

-Ate a coffee cherry off the tree

-Ate a banana off the tree

-Drank 100% organic Kona coffee

-Picked an avocado off the tree

-Saw wild cows

-Used a “weed-eater”

-Used a machete

-Used a gas leaf blower

-Started a car with a screwdriver

          

"Shack with a view" 9/6/2012

Casey on deck  9/6/2012

First view of "accommodations"  9/6/2012

Ripe coffee cherries  9/6/2012

Eric driving Isuzu  9/6/2012