In Celebration of Earth Day

As if caring for the plants that I live amongst and have already developed a fondness for was not enough to commemorate this year's Earth Day, we made our way to Tane and Maureen's daughter Saffron's school to help out in their very ambitious plan for the afternoon. From my recollection, Earth Day was always a half-assed attempt to rake the leaves off of the playground or plant some wilted flowers that would soon be reduced to dried roots. This Earth Day, however, was a symphony of involved parents, organized teachers, and enthused kids. The school already has a working vegetable garden which I am told is the source of great pride, especially for the elementary school, who like to show off the progress of "their" plants to their parents. These youngsters have clearly developed an impressive knowledge of horticulture as evidenced by a comment from one first-grader to another, "Let's plant our tomatoes right next to each other so they can be friends!" But really, it was both heart-warming and encouraging to see kids from elementary to high school so enthusiastic about something so old-fashioned and mundane as gardening. I was with sixth graders most of the time helping put soil and then seeds into various raised beds while in the mean time getting a crash course in the intricacies of the social mores of the age.

The kindergartners piddling around

The sixth graders hard at work

Kylie, another member of our farm team, finishing up the work of the first graders

Adventures with Macadamia Nuts

Like anyone else not from Hawaii, I was enamored of the idea of eating my very favorite nut by simply cracking open one of the many husks that literally litter the ground around here. In my pursuit of roasting my own Macadamia nuts, I came to realize why they cost so much -- the labor! (feel free to laugh at any innuendos, they simply could not be avoided)

First, I collected all of the green husked nuts I could find that had just fallen to the ground. These are preferable to the myriad of brown husked nuts as these tend to have nuts that are too soft are have taken on tiny tenants.

I then pulled out the trusty Mac nut cracker to take off the green husk and laid the hard, brown-shelled nuts out on a cookie sheet to dry off for a few days.

Once the nuts were able to shrink enough to allow cleaner cracking, I had a pile of raw Mac nuts that were delicious all on their own, but were destined for the oven in order to fulfill my vision

Before heading into the oven I tossed the nuts in salty water and roasted them for a lot longer than was suggested, but necessary due to the oven's imperfect sealing...

EAT

In conclusion, this whole process was probably not "worth" the effort and I would probably not undertake this task if Mac nuts were always falling on the ground around me, but twas a novelty and I must say, these are some of the most delicious Macadamia nuts I have ever enjoyed.

Setting up Camp

After only nine days on the farm, I'm feeling adjusted and already in a routine that is both satisfying and challenging. Hawaii is lovely and the family hosting me could not be more darling or welcoming. I do believe that all of my travel in the third world has given me the perspective to really enjoy my jungle shack. In other words, I've already dealt with

cockroaches, rats, bizarre toilet contraptions, black outs, creative sleeping set-ups, etc -- I have never, however, been faced with an opponent whose main interest was eating my underwear. On my first night I experienced proper solitude for probably the first time in my life. I have been in secluded, quiet places before, but never alone, at night, and for an extended period of time. By 8 at night it is completely dark and the only sound is that of the insects -- I find myself at night struggling to read more than a few pages of my novel for I am just too content to lie in peace and drift off to sleep without a care....Until the morning when I find that another personal item of mine has either been tampered with or taken off with all together. There were four days of devastation in which two pairs of underwear were chewed through and a nail file was missing along with my toothbrush -- we deduced that the culprit was a rat, and a kinky one at that.

My lovely jungle shack that I have all to myself!

The view out the front window from 1800 feet down to the ocean

When I envisioned myself living and working on a sustainable, organic farm for a few months, I had images of wearing flowers in my hair while I planted seeds and watched them flourish to harvest under my care. I did not expect to be doing pest control in the form of spearing slugs trying to eat my African Basil and setting up slap traps in the hopes of finding a few pounds of rat meat in it come morning (I've had two big kills and have had a few nights without incident, but am somewhat compelled to string the rats up over my front door to claim the jungle as mine -- that, however, seemed a bit too Lord of the Flies). Alas, this is life on a farm and I really love it.

The farm is owned and operated by a very knowledgeable couple that not only successfully harvests and sells from their own farm, but have a business in collecting from other organic farms on the Big Island and selling their produce through their CSA (Community Supported Agriculture) and directly to restaurants and health food stores on the island. They are committed to creating a balanced agricultural system for Hawaii in which the food grown by Hawaiian farmers is actually eaten by their fellow statesmen, instead of being sent to far off lands as mass exports. I was told that if the barges from the mainland carrying food and other supplies were unable to dock here for whatever reason, Hawaiians would have 7 days before starvation and chaos would take over. On an island where so much can be grown all year, this is a feasible, albeit challenging, task. The farm grows a wide array of specialty produce from Corn Shoots to Micro Red Basil in the greenhouse while the other 7 acres or so is covered in herbs, Macadamia Nut Trees, Avocado Trees, Pomelo Trees....Suffice it to say that this vegetarian is loving the land that provides her with a pound of kale every single day along with other gifts that drop from the trees!

Lovely sunset seen from the main house