Saturday, December 6, 2008

So Where Are We Way Up on the Mountain??

This “aerial” photo is a set of several layers from some tax key maps and screenshots from Google Maps.
Way above us are the Rainforest Preserves. Right above us is the Sanctuary of Mana Ke’a Gardens
We outlined our plot in a light orange-yellow to help you find us.
The light squiggy yellow line curving its way down is our dirt road or coffee land road. It currently has no official name, that’s right we don’t have an official street address or rural route!

Way under us in a direct line is the City of Refuge.
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When we give directions for people to visit, it is based on Mile Markers (along the main highway) and watching your odometer for tenths of miles.

First time visitors often get lost unless they will set their odometers at the bottom of our road and watch it carefully. Then a few correct turns and you are there. But as you can see from the map -- it is a fur stretch -- a bit more than 2 miles up from the bottom of the highway!

Sunday, November 23, 2008

Happy Thanksgiving from the coffee farm and Dressing Recipe

I was just trying to remember where I had put my favorite Thanksgiving dressing recipe. Turns out it is in my recipe program (I use MacGourmet). And just in case you were looking to try a nice recipe, this one works very well whether for a pan of dressing or used to stuff the bird. Click here to download the recipe in PDF format.

HAPPY THANKSGIVING EVERYONE!

EVERYONE ENJOY THE HOLIDAY!

Monday, November 17, 2008

November 2008, We get more serious about the website

With the stock market going up and down like a butter churn and many businesses and industries having flat or slower than expected cash flow from flat or slower sales, we had already been adjusting and working on our websites on and off for several months.

It happened thru mostly a fluke that we ran into a website we had been to probably three years or a bit more before which made mention of an offer for Kona Coffee which used to come from this very farm. An email inquiry or two and we find our web optimization and marketing now being carefully considered and greatly assisted by Scott Supak...

"ta da:"


Scott has some common interests with us, like organic practices and sustainable living. He has even been to the farm here -- what kind of deja vu or voodoo is that?

We want to welcome Scott and we appreciate his help that's for certain.

You can take a break from our adventures (but be sure to come back!) and surf for a long time just following Scott's wide range of threads and the various sites he is involved directly or indirectly in -- perhaps the easiest to start with is the site named with his last name at Supak.com.

Saturday, October 18, 2008

October 2008_A Sampling of Sunsets and Moon Shots At the Farm

I don’t know about you, but sunsets are something I look forward to, but I have to admit some days we completely forget to look. Occasionally we remember to grab a camera to preserve the picture.

Here are but a few of hundreds of sunsets and moon filled skies we have experienced here in Hawaii.... (right click and choose "view image" to see the full-size version of each picture).

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Friday, September 5, 2008

September 2008_Aka Has A Birthday

We baked a small homemade cake for Aka, and although she had a long day she came by to share some of her birthday with us.

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I can’t remember -- oh yes, now I do, you know those annoying little trick candles?
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However, Aka took it as a divine sign she should get three wishes since the candles kept coming back, why didn’t I think of that when it happened to me?
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Well we are into the party spirit now -- with package wrapping on our heads and into reading the birthday wishes on cards!
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Looks like a successful party!
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Friday, August 1, 2008

August 2008_We add gift wrap to our coffee options

Ric actually loves to gift wrap. We used to have a retail store in St. Louis Missouri and two of our peak periods were Christmas and Valentines. We would have customers come back year after year for the special customized gift wrapping.

You can order most any of our coffee products with gift wrapping -- even the automatic monthly shipments!

Here are a few examples of his work with gift wrapping coffee bags!

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Monday, July 7, 2008

July 2008, What is so close to us -- Hokena Beach

We often work so hard we can forget we have a wonderful beach just about 15 minutes away from us.


Here we are July 7th -- with a very nice and relaxing spot.

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Lot’s of people see the beach, but what about what is up higher? This is a view from way up in the caves looking out from the side of the mountain! It’s a steep climb up to these caves, and no specific trail, but very doable. Take your water and also a camera!
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And what do the caves look like inside? Here Ric and I are in the middle of an inside fork.
As you can tell it is massive.
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People actually can come and stay for $5 a person a night at this beach. It has its own outdoor shower for washing from swims, and then a complete bathroom with plenty of hot water. There are a nice number of camping sites some with barbecue pits. You just need to select a site and see a park attendant to pay your fee before it gets dark... Since we are about mile marker 105, it is just a two mile trip down our mountain, then from 105 to 101 and then maybe another 2 miles down to the beach. Along the way there is a nice local grocery store where you can stop and buy sandwiches and drinks if you want. Often times (unless we just pick up and go -- which can happen if we get rained out from work) we will make our own tuna sandwiches or spam musubis.

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<<CLICK HERE To download this whole brochure about Hokena>>

Sunday, June 22, 2008

June 21, 2008, Kona's First Annual Gay Pride Event

Another historical event, Kona does it’s first ever Gay Pride Parade and Fair. We spent a lot of time scurrying to get all our stuff in order to attend. We were invited right at the last moment and there was some confusion several times, not too difficult to imagine since this was the first ever time and they were doing everything from ground zero.

We were next to some realtors, not far from a health booth and across from the Pilagro for Mayor booth.

Here we are -- we were in a narrow slot with landscaping all around us.
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Jerry came with and helped us with the pre-set up and set up, and he helped sell products during the expo.
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Our menu so to speak...
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We were visited by royalty..
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The group poses -- very cute!
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As usual, Jerry knows a lot of people!
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Tuesday, May 20, 2008

May 2008_We Make Spam Musubis

Musubis — we make those ourselves when we know we will have a beach day. They often sell these for $2.00 a piece at yard sales even. Problem with making them is they are best that day — hard to really refrigerate rice and have it taste good.

Nothing complex about them, and when you have the little plastic assembly device they are very easy to form, cut and handle. We do ours with rice, spam, eggs, seaweed and Furikake [say frutikaki] (which unfortunately many places these days omit and without that seasoning sprinkled on it is a totally different experience)..

The first two pictures show you what you should end up with. These are actually from some we made at an earlier session.

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And for this photo series, this was the setting -- in our farm kitchen, Ric on the left doing most of the process and Jerry on the right to help and give his input...

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Cut fairly then and then pan fry your spam like these below..
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Fry up some eggs, they don’t need to be too buttery or oily and well done, flat not fluffed up, you’d certainly not want scrambled.
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A nice big hot bowl of white rice, not too watery, not too hot if possible, definitely not cold.
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This mold and press device is what helps make the procedure go smoothly.
They make this small size and also one much wider.
Wal-Mart, Longs, most of the grocery stores should have this device in stock.
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Don’t forget the Furikake -- these are deluxe seasonings that really make this treat stand out.
We show three but there are dozens of choices with the many flavors and brands on the market.
You can find these at Wal-Mart, K-Mart, even the grocery stores as these are very much part of the local food.
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The seaweed wrap will also be essential to bring out the full flavor.
Available all over even so much in demand that Costco’s sells it in BIG packages.
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We begin with the seaweed and the mold...
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Traditionally you would put a bottom blanket of a tea leaf into a nice container to prepare for when you have these ready to transport. The tea leaf is often planted near the entrances to gates, the surrounding peremeters of homes, next to your entrance doors of any home or business, and put onto the dashboard before you take a trip. They are supposed to keep evil away and protect you from things you can’t see but they repel.
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We will always trim the seaweed to better fit the mold we are working with. This makes it much easier to wrap and the taste will be better balanced for what is inside the wrapper.
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After you have the wrap sorted, you put rice into the form about a finger high it looks, and you press the plunger down.
A scoop, like an ice cream scoop, might make it easier to judge how much (since you’ll be doing this several dozen times) and keeps your fingers from getting so much rice which can make it harder to do the other parts of the processing.
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Now add a layer (a piece) of spam.
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Press a generous portion of egg on top, but you don’t want too much or it will overwhelm the other flavors.
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Spread out the egg as evenly as you can over the whole layer.
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There you have it -- one of the most important parts is adding the seasonings on top of the egg!
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Add rice on top next.
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Here’s about how much rice we used for our set this time.
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Press the last layer of rice down, and you can see it is rather a firm press with both thumbs.
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Lift up and you are done with this step part of building the musubi.
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Once you are done -- wrap it up to keep it moist and anything else (like flies) out.
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The finished product. Most people could probably eat two or three. But they are sort of like “Chinese Food” you can eat a couple and then still want more an hour or two later.
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The finished product, looking forward so you can see the layers.
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