win-a bag-a Kona!

Looks like reading this blog is finally going to pay off! 

To show our appreciation to you, and to celebrate the end of our time on our first farm, we will be giving away a pound of 100% Organic Kona coffee to one lucky reader!

Prize: One pound of 100%, hand selected, sun dried, perfectly roasted Kona coffee, direct to you right from this farm! Kona coffee is considered by many coffee gurus to be the best in the world. It can sell for around $70.00 a pound!

Rules: See that "subscribe by email" on the right column of the blog? If you haven't already (shame on you), just enter your email address, hit submit, and verify it by November 8th. Congratulations! You're in. We'll put all our subscribers in a hat, pick one at random and announce the winner in our next blog post!

Odds: Unfortunately for us and luckily for you, there are very few subscribers so far, so your chances of winning are actually pretty high :)

Thank you SO much for all of your support and feedback. Feel free to forward this to your friends and give them a chance to win too!

Good luck!


*We have announced our winner in day sixty four!

Thank you to everyone that subscribed! Keep reading planting seeds. You never know what you might get out of it.*

day fifty

This week flew by. Monday was spent doing some training with one of the top coffee roasters in Kona. The rest of the week was spent working on several different projects on and off the farm. I hope we stay this busy...we haven’t touched a weed-eater in four whole days!

This post is short and sweet because we are also posting the story of how and why we came to Hawaii. Click the link below for part one!

why are we WWOOFing?: part one

"Roaster Training" 10/22/2012

"Casey and Duck" 10/25/2012

"Eric and Mulch" 10/25/2012

"Banana Picking" 10/25/2012

"Hike to 3,000 ft." 10/21/2012

why are we WWOOFing?: part one

The place itself is easy to love. The moment you walk through the front door, you are welcomed in by the sweet scent of freshly ground coffee. There’s the high, tin ceiling, rich wood display cases, the intricate tiled floors, and the burlap sacks filled with green coffee beans from all over the world. Your drawn to the cherry red roaster that hums while filling the surrounding city blocks with the perfect aroma of smoky, roasting coffee. And of course, there’s the celebrity owners who are often engaged in chit chat with the loyal patrons. It’s the kind of place you walk into and all of your senses are consumed. Monkey Joe Roasting Company. My first job.

In the beginning, like every sixteen year old, I was just happy to have a job. But over the course of six years, and without really realizing it, I developed a deep connection with the shop. There was something fulfilling about arriving to work in the cool, dark morning, warming up the machines behind the counter, preparing the first pot of coffee, and awaiting the rush of folks as they made their way in to start their day. There was something remarkably special about working in a ‘Mom and Pop’ shop that was built from the ground up by people who genuinely cared about their business, their employees and their customers.

I have a particularly fond memory of one specific day, a couple months into the job. During a typical, sunny afternoon shift, a young guy donning ripped jeans and a popped collar walked through the door. He ordered a drip coffee and a toasted bagel, I thought my heart would explode. Nearly ten years later, Eric is now my husband and has become the most important person in my life. 

For me, working at that cafe was much more than a job. At times, it was a place of refuge, a place to be around others, a place to learn, and a place to be inspired. It is where I found a sense of community with my hometown. It’s where I developed a taste for specialty coffee. It’s where I discovered that a cafe is not just a place to get a pick me up and that coffee is much more than a drink we enjoy each morning.

To be continued...

day forty three

I just held a duck! My favorite time of the day is feeding the birds. For one, it means the day is finally over and second I just love those darn birds. So today, I went over to my favorite duck and just picked her up. I think it was pretty good for both of us. In addition to my tender moment with the duck, it's been a big week. We met with one of the top cuppers in the coffee industry, the Iron Man Triathlon was in town, BARBIE IS FIXED (thank you for all of your concern), I didn't break any more farm equipment, and Eric's been nominated for his lead role in the "video tour of WWOOF camp"!

Although Eric and I were warned by locals to avoid town over the weekend as thousands of people from all over the world took over the quiet town of Kona, we did just the opposite. We woke up at 5am and headed straight into the heart of the Iron Man Triathlon madness. We were there as the cannon went off and watched as athletes jumped into the clear, choppy water to begin their 2.4 mile swim. We were there a couple hours later when they got out of the water and climbed on their bikes to ride 112 miles through the windy, hilly desert. And yes, we were even there cheering and high-fiving the athletes as they came in from running 26.2 miles with the 95 degree heat bearing down on them. In total, we committed 16 hours to the event, surviving on the same stuff they did; free power-bars and energy drinks. We left inspired and to be honest pretty exhausted.

Wednesday we took a VTO day (volunteer time off) and met with coffee expert Shawn Steinman, who has literally written a book on coffee. Sitting in white rocking chairs on a long wooden porch at a coffee farm down the road, we talked nothing but coffee for several hours. With tourists flooding in to the bright, open storefront, overlooking the farm, Shawn gave us an introduction to coffee cupping. Coffee cupping is basically like wine tasting. It involves comparing, identifying and analyzing the different characteristics and attributes of individual coffees. Together we cupped several different Kona coffees and found they had drastic differences. In these particular coffees, we picked up on hints of grapefruit and lemon, intense earthy aroma's, and lingering aftertastes. It will take a lot more practice to get on Shawn's level (like eight years) but for our first time we did pretty well. It was a great experience and got Eric and I really excited to learn more...and although we spit out most of the coffee that day, we still got a pretty good buzz.

All in all we may never be Iron Men but we are one step closer to our goal.

"Coffee Cupping" 10/17/2012

"Slurping and Spitting" 10/17/2012

"Morning of Iron Man" 10/13/2012

"Camera's on Winner" 10/13/2012 

"Painted Church" 10/15/2012

video tour of WWOOF camp

Many of you have been asking about our living conditions here on the farm so we decided to throw together a quick tour of what we call WWOOF Camp. Join Eric as he guides you through the luxurious accommodations that we have been enjoying for the past month and a half!

day thirty six

Barbie died and we totaled the Gator.  

Barbie. So Monday morning, a six mile visit to a coffee farm on our moped turned into a 100 mile joy ride to Waimea and back. However, we ran out of "joy" around mile 80 so I guess technically it was an 80 mile moped ride and a 20 mile pickup truck ride. The first 80 miles of the trip we’re going smooth. It was great scenery, beautiful ocean views and we even found a secluded beach with sea turtles (see video below). To celebrate the success of the first leg of our trip, we stopped for a hearty slab of carrot cake and a few cups of joe at the Waimea Coffee Shop. I don’t know if it was the sugar high from the carrot cake or the caffeine boost but on the way back down the hill, I spotted what seemed like a good opportunity to set a moped land speed record. Well, Barbie must not have been in the record setting mood because just as we hit about 55 mph (which feels like 200 mph on a moped) she decided she had enough fun for the day. Twenty miles from home, in the middle of the hot, black Hawaiian desert and with 2% battery remaining on the phone, our fun had also come to an abrupt stop. Luckily Albert picked up and before the phone died, mid-convo, he got our location and came to get us...three hours later.

The Gator. Yesterday after lunch, me, Casey and Albert took the Gator up to about 2,500 feet, to the orange trees. It’s a steep, rocky, wet ride up to the orange trees but it’s well worth it. They were some of the best oranges we have ever had. After 15 minutes and a few juicy oranges, we headed back down to the farm except this time we took an alternate trail; an even steeper, rockier and wetter trail. Why Albert decided to take us on the steeper, rockier and wetter trail and not the one we had barely survived on the way up, is a bit of a mystery. Anyway, about halfway down the hill, we were blocked by a giant tree that had fallen across the trail. Unable to turn around and climb back up the mountain, we had no choice but to walk down and take the tractor, the blue Isuzu and a few chain saws back up and clear the trail. Once we cleared a path, we headed down; Albert in the tractor, me in the Isuzu and Casey in the Gator. Long story short, the Gator got away from Casey, coasted down hill about 100 feet and ultimately crashed into a coffee tree. Fortunately, Casey wasn’t in it and thankfully wasn’t hurt. Unfortunately, the front suspension and frame of the Gator weren’t as lucky.

In the interest of Casey’s health and the prevention of any additional property damage, Casey has officially retired from operating any John Deere machinery.

"Joy Ride" 10/8/2012

"Eric at Waimea Coffee Co." 10/8/2012

"Barbie's Final Resting Place" 10/8/2012

"Gator, Blue Isuzu on Blocked Trail" 10/10/2012

day twenty nine

Lucky. That's how I feel right now. Along with proud, invigorated, excited, alive, and so happy. We have been here for a whole month and as much as I would like to complain some more about sharing the bathroom with a spider and wearing the same outfit every day, I can't. This month has been so thrilling, challenging, eye-opening and really, really fun.

Boogie boarding in the rough waves at Magic Sands Beach, snorkeling above coral reefs with sea turtles and schools of bright yellow Tang fish at the pier, cruising to town and enjoying a cup (or two) of award winning Kona coffee feet from the sea, can't bellyache about any of that. Spending a night making 270 Lau Lau's (pork and beef wrapped in a Taro leaf, wrapped and tied in Ti leaves and left to steam for five hours in what I'm pretty sure used to be an oil drum), trying Kalua pig, lomi-lomi salmon, Poi (or what Eric would call "Common Paste") and listening (and attempting to speak) to the locals talk-story in pidgin ("Choke lau lau, eh brah?")- this was just the weekend! All that and we toured three more coffee farms- Kona Joe's, Heavenly Kona, and Hula Daddy.

Our original plan was to only spend one month at each farm but we have decided to extend our stay at Holualoa Farm for a second month. The shack isn't so bad after all! Now that the coffee pickers are here and the first pick has officially started, there is too much excitement to leave. The pickers, armed with their baskets and holding hooks (to bring the high branches closer), begin at the bottom of the farm and work their way up. At the end of the day they all head to the mill to weigh their bags before the coffee gets processed. The pulper was fired up this week and we got to watch the first 700 pounds of cherries go through a series of machines removing the fruit from the seed.

Along with all the anticipation from the fresh harvest, it's been a great week. Sure, I busted the exact pipe Albert told me not to hit with the mower, cutting off the water supply for the entire farm (I knew getting on that thing wasn't a good idea), but we learned how to fix driscopipe. And yes, it was a sad day when Eric had to bury one of the calves (the one we aptly named 'Mangey Moose'). We came to learn about organic coffee farming, who knew it would be so all-inclusive?

So, one month down but many more ahead. We have a big week coming up- we hired coffee expert and author of The Hawai'i Coffee Book, Shawn Steiman for a private training on coffee cupping and we will also begin shadowing the Master Roaster at a nearby farm. It is amazing what happens when you take a chance and open yourself to new experiences!

"Lao lao luau" 9/28/2012

"Morning coffee" 9/30/2012

"Kealakekua Bay" 9/30/2012

"Pulper/ Demucilager" 10/3/2012

"Eric mowing" 10/4/2012