Moonglow

While driving in the early morning taking the winding Napo'opo'o route last week, I seemed to be in full daylight. This, of course, was due to the full moon that night. The moon was glowing onto the water of Kealakekua Bay and shining on the slope surrounding the Captain Cook monument. I don't believe I ever understood the meaning of moonglow until that morning. What a way to start the day!! I was on my way to paddle up at Keauhou Bay and hoping to spot some whales. Friends have been telling me of seeing the whales out paddling and even from shore. So far the only one I've seen was before Christmas and it was way out. But it did breach for us! Reports are that there are numerous whale spottings up at the Mauna Lani beach. So we are going to take a drive up there soon so I can report on the whales.

Saturday turned out to be a remarkable day at the market. We sold out of everything. We have been trying to estimate how much to bring each weekend. But each weekend brings a different crowd and we never seem to out guess our customers. We always take stock back and that is carrying coffee in and out. So it would be nice to figure out a pattern. Last Sat. we thought we had plenty but sold it all. Sure was nice not to have to bring merchandise back. The first 'Chef Series' was the draw. The market is promoting a 'cooking & eating Hawaii grown foods' series put on by local chefs and using foods sold at our market. There were bigger crowds there last Sat. and all the vendors said they did better. We will be looking forward to next months chef and will hopefully be better prepared. Check out the coffee at
www.konalisacoffee.com.

I am such a whimp. Because it has been cool the last few mornings I have not gone up to water jog in the ocean or paddle this week but I did walk 3 miles yesterday. Fortunately I ran into a neighbor I had not met yet and walked with her for awhile. That's the reason I scheduled a massage appt. for tomorrow. She pushed my pace up a bit and my back is squacking at me today. Or was it the 50# bag of coffee I lifted later that day. No matter Keri said she would fix me up tomorrow.

Ron's pruning is continuing. He says it will most likely continue for awhile. Like the next month or two. We finally got a few good dumps of rain. One good one Sunday eve and one yesterday. Amazingly we had a couple drops of hail with the rain. It started out raining hard but the sun was still shining. Pretty soon some dark clouds came in and it cooled down really fast. After it rained I headed up to the store and my car showed 66 degrees and that was at about 2 pm. but the store is at about 1500ft. We are at 800 ft. Next we are finding out about tropical pests. TERMITES! We were warned about them in TN but never had them. It's a given here. You just constantly treat for them. We have them and we are getting our house tented Friday. We'll be spending the night up in a cottage at Ka'awa Loa Plantation while those critters get fumigated. Al loaned us his pet crate as the kitty goes with us. We don't want him fumigated as his job is to keep other pests away. So goes it for life in the tropics as we learn more about it every day. One thing Ron is looking forward to is blossoming. The story is that after a good rainfall you get new coffee blossoms which starts the cycle for the nexts years coffee cherry. Although we hear it's either 5 or 7 months after blossom that you harvest. I think it depends on elevation so we will be counting.......