Haley

Last week I had the idea to not only say happy birthday to my family here but to write a bit about each of them on their birthday. I'm already a bit late for the first one of the year, Haley. But I figure I'm going to try to keep up with this all year and to paraphrase an email just received from Jackie, you're last "hahahaha". Haley turned 12 a few days ago and is a very talented young lady. She sings, plays french horn, acts, and was student council president last year. Most recently she had a part in Suessical the Musical at school. She has tried out for both acting and singing parts in the local community also. Plus she emailed me last marking period that she had received all A's. She really loves swimming so I am looking forward to having her here to go snorkeling with. I must mention soccer as we went to not only her games but all the kids games when we were back in MI and look forward to seeing some more this spring/summer. Just a few nice things to be said about one of my granddaughters, since I am a bit far away but it wouldn't be the same if I wasn't able to keep up with all of them on their day to day affairs. I know she had a fun birthday because she told me so!! Her 'great' mom also tells me little funnies that they say and bring up. Haley told her mom that she wanted to visit a coffee shop. Nic asked her why because she didn't think she ever had coffee. Haley said 'well it must be good because I love the smell of fresh roasted coffee'. Wait till she smells Kona on a roasting day!!

This weeks musings & coffee update

Funny how when you know what you are looking for it is much easier to see isn't it?? Heading out on an early morning paddle our captain steered us out further from shore. The purpose of our float plan would be to see more whales out there. Between us and shore at about 10 o'clock a blow spout when up as there was several whales between us and shore. Our stroker lost count he was so excited so we stopped and watched until they dove of with a wave of their tail. I believe it is called a fluke. I learned that once you see that they are diving and will be down for about 20-25 mins. before they come back up and you see the blow spout again. Ron was wondering why we hadn't seen the whales from our lanai but Sunday morn during breakfast he pointed to several spouts and with our binoculars watched as they entertained a boat of either whale watchers or snorkelers. Whichever they got a great show and so did we. The boat was actually a big zodiac style which is a large tube looking boat somewhat like the river rafts only with an outboard motor and much larger. From our vantage point you could see the whale as he was underwater near the zodiac and he was much larger than the boat. Now these zodiacs carry probably 20 people or more so you can imagine how large our humpbacks are.

I also want to mention that we do coffee farm sometimes. Well Ron more than me. Well, I mean he is out there pruning (yes, his buddies are teasing him that he really is running the farm 'one handed'). But the pruning is for next seasons crop. We are also getting another blossom in another area and more on some of the trees that already had a blossom. We can only hope that this means a good crop this year as we are already running low on parchment. Parchment is what we take to the mill to get milled and roasted for retail. We are not sure but it looks like we won't have enough to take us thru to the next picking. We will be coming to the mainland for awhile in June-July and hope to bring some back with us but maybe not. Moral of this post is if you are thinking about ordering any coffee from now until August or Sept. let me know now so I can save it for you. We only sell coffee grown and processed from our farm (some farmers will buy cherry or parchment from others and sell it). The former owners had picked their crop and we bought the product with the farm so we don't know how much we will have next year when we produce it ourselves. And sometimes, as all farming goes, it depends on the seasonal weather conditions. So far we seem to have had ample rain. We only irrigated a bit in Jan. and then the rains came and right now the trees look healthy and beautiful. Ron is doing a topnotch job pruning and the orchard looks great. There are coffee berries, green, and about the size of a small pea already growing. We can hardly wait till picking season. More fun!!

Whales

Yes, we finally saw some of those famous humback whales of Hawaii today. We drove up the Kohola coast a bit to the Mauna Lani and saw a few spouts and tails flapping. We then drove up for some beach time at Waianea Beach and all the good spots were taken so we went a bit further to Hapuna beach. There even the overflow lot was being used so we headed back down to Anaehuumalu, better know as 'A' beach down by the Hilton. Ron sunned and I swam a bit and we sat on the sand watching the whales seeming to play around as they were flipping tails and spouting and breaching. It was time for lunch so we headed down to the Four Seasons. They have an awesome location and we sat right on the beach at the beach bar and saw more whales. We tend to forget how pretty it can be up there and always sunny. It truly was a nice day.

I have to add a addendum to the blossom tale. Ron told me that on Thur morn as he walked out towards the orchard all he could hear was the hmmm hmmm hmmm of all the honey bees out there. They love those coffee blossoms. Sadly the hard rain turned them brown, no more snow. But now we saw blossoms on some of the higher elevation trees on our way back today.

I've had some requests from Canadians on my website for our coffee, so in the morning I'm off to the PO with an order to see how much to send them 2 pounds. We get a lot of Canadian visitors here and it will be nice to be able to get an idea if it's feasable. And happy birthday Haley, your birthday present will be on it's way also.

Fragrant mornings................

waking up to the sweet smell of coffee blossoms wafting thru my bedroom window the last few mornings has been my new favorite thing. Now that the blossoms are open fully and the scent stronger I can lie in bed and smell them and I would say they are a mixture of gardenia, jasmine and orange blossom. So our Kona snow is fragrant! I took a walk down our road and all the coffee plantations on the makai side of the road are in a strong bloom. We do get several blooms a year but this looks like the big one and in seven months we will get most of our picking done because those cherries will be ripe. Rain has finally come and we have a good soaking of the trees roots and of course now we have to go on a weed chasing expedition. We have a good chance of sharing the pickers. I made a wrong turn out of Lowe's yesterday and took the high road back home and none of those trees up mauka where in bloom yet. Yes the lower warmer elevations do bloom first.
That was the good news, a little accident the other day slowed Ron down some. He was pruning coffee trees and laid on the loppers a bit to much and cracked a bone in his left hand. He sees the ortho on Tues and hopes to get a small splint cast. Right now he has his arm wrapped and in a sling to keep any swelling down so this week he held the ladder for me while I climbed up and picked avocados. A first for me. I also picked some papayas on the way back. Tomorrow I'm out to pick some Kona limes. Our limes here are orange when they are ripe and reeeeally tangy! They make a good vodka & tonic though and also puts some extra zest on the avocados and papayas.

http://www.konalisacoffee.com

Kona Snow

We're gonna have coffee!!! In 7 months that is.

Blossoms

We have blossoms!! Coffee is in bloom and it is luscious. They call it Kona snow and now I know why. It actually looks like new fallen snow hugging to the edges of each branch. Coffee is related to the gardenia plant and has a fragrance close. But as I walked down by the trees I also got a sense of orange blossom scent. Pictures are coming. We are getting a bit of rain this evening which is good as we have been low over here on the leeward side. The last 4 days Hilo (on the windward side) has been getting pounded. It was reported that on Sunday they received 9.5 inches of rain. We got none. Rivers were swelling over and the surf was surging. About 150 homes were flooded. That is the prime reason (besides coffee grows better over here) that we don't live over there. Too much rain!! It's great for a visit, as it is so lush and green with many gulches and beautiful high surf areas. We like the dryer side better except for when we have to irrigate the coffee.