Organic Kona Coffee Farming In Hawaii

Costco Promotes Hawaii in it's July Issue of "The Costco Connection"

2009-06-30T06:22:00.000-07:00

Cudos to Costco for giving all the Hawaiian Islands a big “thumbs up” in it’s latest issue of their membership magazine (“The Costco Connection”) under a headline entitled “Play it as it leis The Hawaiian Islands beckon”

On page 53 they devote 3/4 of the page to the article which states “Hawaii is an almost flawless destination...”

About the Big Island they continue: “Hawaii contains nearly every one of the earth’s ecological zones,...”

Yes indeed, we have 10 of the thirteen climates right here on the Big Island that are just within a six hour drive if you go all the way around the Island in a day!

We are happy to see this promotion, and hope you pick up your own copy or borrow a friend’s to look it over yourself!

Our local Costco now extends its hours all the way to 8:30PM during the week (6PM on weekends) and we have been there at 8PM ourselves and the place was still rather busy. Don’t forget if you come to visit that we have the same inexpensive hot dogs with a refillable soda specials that are featured all over the U.S. -- the only difference in price between here and anywhere else would be the tax structures (our GE tax is 4.166% which is less expensive than many places on the mainland)...

And don’t forget if you come to this side of the Big Island (the “West side”) Costco is your best bargain for gasoline.

Pig Damage -- Nothing too new on a big farm

2009-05-12T18:58:00.000-07:00

We had the great pleasure a few months back of accessing and archiving a bunch of family movies. The below shot is from an actual real preparation of a pig to go go into the pit for a luau, this picture is from abut 1962-1963. These relatives were on this actual Island and are related to Ric who is on this farm today. They were not so much coffee farmers as fishermen, although most everyone back then picked coffee and some had their hands into coffee farming from time to time. (We hear stories of such things as pulping the coffee by stepping on it like you would think of Lucy stepping on the grapes in her old I Love Lucy episodes.)

Yes this is “the real thing” authentic local people actually preparing a pig that the family and friends really ate, probably at a luau.

These days we think a luau is like you go to a hotel, get your picture taken (so they can peddle to sell it back to you later for $25 a pop), go thru a waiting line and then arrive at tables and tables of people. Sit thru a show that has various incarnations of dancers performing. And during most of this you are going back and forth to a smorgasbord of food.

That’s not exactly how it was at the homes of local people. They did eat much of the same thing, except these days they substitute and omit (the last “luau” we went to they did not have rice for example!). Also, you are not very likely to get pig right out of the ground at a hotel like in the old days -- they pretend they dig it up but those big platters with aluminum foil give it away if you think to notice (but all the same it is good theatre).

A luau in “the good old days” was more likely a gathering of relatives and friends who all sat around and sang playing their local instruments. I doubt there was much spear throwing or fire eating, but nevertheless lots of good music and songs everyone knew by heart.

We have pigs up here on the farm, but we have not yet caught and ate one. There are hunters that do come up and kill pigs and take them back home to slaughter and eat them.

We do have pigs that visit and make some mess in the fields...
Here are a couple of shots of what that looks like, maybe from a distance it would look like brown patches in a yard but we have acres of land with many different terrains so these are harder to detect. Sometimes you can see taller grass where it has a section pressed down where we assume the pigs stayed for the night!

And when I asked Ric to go out and take pictures, he took a self portrait -- look at those nice big juicy oranges we had to eat. They make really yummy fresh squeezed orange juice!

A Typical Discourse with a "New Kona Coffee Customer"

2009-04-06T13:17:00.000-07:00

I was actually in email and realised I send these sort of things out all the time to new or potential customers that don’t know much about Kona Coffee.

I thought this might be something of general interest so with a bit of surgery (getting rid of specific names, etc.) here is what you might have received had you emailed me asking questions about our Kona Comfort Kona Coffee:

Hello ______,

Nice to hear from you again and glad to see you are curious about our Kona Comfort Coffee.

Well if you can remember Kona Comfort (think Southern Comfort), you can find the coffee on our website and we also have a vacation rental website. It has been very slow economy wise and we are not sure how long we can hold out but hope to still have vacation rentals next year. We live on the coffee farm so believe we will be producing Kona Coffee for quite some time into the future.

coffee: http://www.KonaComfortCoffee.com
vacation rental: http://www.KonaComfortRental.com

But you can always just type in the http://www.KonaComfort.com and it will direct you to one or the other destinations.

The shopping cart at the coffee site has various sales from time to time. When you actually sign up (register in the cart) and make an order, we set your account to get discounts off what newcomers would see; the motive is to reward our faithful returning customers. We have our fair share of customers who come back and order again all year around so it seems to be a system that is accepted and so far works very well. What many people may not realize is that with a natural product like Kona Coffee it would be counter productive to order a massive amount as it would not keep in its prime if not consumed. So we do have places that need large quantities and the cart gives them a break for ordering in volume, but for the home consumer, we give them a returning customer discount to help them out as well.

We don’t flavor our coffee, but we do sell it green (unroasted), roasted from very light to very dark and either whole or ground. A “medium roast” is what most people associate with the flavor profile of “Kona Coffee” -- past the first crack and just nicely into the second crack. A lot of people who are really particular buy our green and that way they roast it at home in small batches and that is the absolute freshest you can get. We used to do that as well before we got the farm — make small batches at home that would last a few days, then make another roast. Lots of smoke when you roast coffee! Now with selling coffee we always have some fresh at home from leftover batches. It makes so much smoke that we are covered with the roasted coffee smell but I don’t mind it at all it is pleasant to us, sort of like when you grind your beans in the morning for that first pot of coffee -- nothing quite like that wonderful smell!

Most folks get 8 oz. or 16 oz. bags for their own use. If they are giving as favors or at parties or corporate gifts sometimes they will order the 4 oz. Rarely does anyone want 2 oz. but we will send those as samples or when there is room in a box we are sending out...

Unless you are a big household or celebrating a holiday or get together with a house full of coffee drinkers, probably the wisest way to order would be 8 oz. bags, that way you can open one and use it, keep the others in the freezer. Once you open coffee and the air gets to the inside of the bag it WILL be progressively less flavorful each day. The bags are sealed when the coffee is still warm, it degasses and forces out oxygen thru the one-way valves leaving only carbon dioxide inside which does not age the beans like outside air with oxygen in it. Once the bags are opened, they resume aging and won’t keep as prime. Whole beans will remain much fresher longer than ground beans.

With green bean it can be many different volumes people ask for — but usually in pounds, one, two, three, five, sometimes even 10 pounds at a time. Green bean does not require a sealed pouch bag we can just put them into zip lock bags or if the order is big into food grade plastic storage bags -- and it is really amazing what will fit into the flat rate boxes when it is just a green bean order!

Well, I got to get to some stuff, it was nice to hear from you and nice to answer some of your questions,

Mike

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2009-03-07T04:21:00.001-08:00

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GMO corn may reduce fertility

2009-02-28T21:45:00.000-08:00

See the article for the details of how Genetically Engineered corn (or GMO corn) may reduce chances of having children..

Check out this article on How To Make Your Own BioDiesel

2009-02-23T01:39:00.000-08:00

This is a fascinating collection of recipes and advise on what many of us would like to do -- make our own vehicle fuel.
So check this site out, click anywhere to go to the bio diesel fuel article.

Check out this Article about Monsanto and their GMO seeds

2009-02-23T01:21:00.000-08:00

The article speaks well for itself if you follow this link to it..

Check out the Union of Concerned Scientists Website

2009-02-21T13:09:00.000-08:00

I recently got an email referral from a friend I’ve known for about 8 or 9 years who knows we are an Organic Coffee Farm (he even buys our coffee!)... Genetically Engineered Crops is something most of us has heard about.

Part of the email he forwarded to me read:

USDA Caves to Pressure: Second Chance to Protect Our Food
Dear UCS Activist,  Last fall the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) tried to rush through new regulations, including those relating to pharma crops--crops genetically engineered to produce pharmaceuticals and industrial chemicals. After thousands of letters from UCS activists and others, the USDA has been forced to reopen the public comment period.  UCS scientists and independent experts agree that if food crops such as corn and rice are engineered to produce drugs and other chemicals and grown outdoors, these substances are very likely to contaminate the food supply and pose serious human health and environmental risks for years to come.  This is your chance to tell the new administration that the USDA’s proposal will significantly weaken restrictions on pharma crops and threaten our nation’s food supply. We need stronger—not weaker—regulations for these dangerous crops!

I have clicked on the email link and was pleasantly surprised at what I found, and wanted to let the readers of this blog know about this resource as well.

At the website of Union of Concerned Scientists you will find easy to navigate topics that should concern most anyone, but is especially relevant to those of us in organic farming in Hawaii.

You can sign up for various newletters and alert feeds...

Coffee Can Be Good Medicine for Asthma, Bronchitis and Allergies!

2009-01-15T10:34:00.000-08:00

According to the book Food Your Miracle Medicine by Jean Carper:

“To dilate bronchial tubes, try caffeine...For one thing, coffee drinkers appear to have less asthma. A major study of 72,284 Italians over age fifteen concluded that regular long-term use of coffee, presumably because of caffeine, both reduced the intensity of bronchial attacks and prevented their occurrence. In regular one-cup-a-day consumers, asthma odds dropped 5 percent; for two-cup-a-day drinkers, the odds fell 23 percent, and for drinkers of three or more cups, the risk went down 28 percent...The doctors said the caffeine in three cups of coffee had about the same bronchodilating effect as a standard dose of theophulline.”

The book continues to quote a study in the US by Harvard researcher Scott T. Weiss, M.D., that looked at over 20,000 Americans and found that:
“regular coffee drinkers had about one-third fewer asthma symptoms than non-coffee drinkers. Coffee drinkers were particularly less likely to suffer attacks of wheezing, as well as bronchitis and allergies.”

“One of the commonest and best reputed remedies of asthma is strong coffee” -- Dr. Hyde Salter, Edinburgh Medical Journal, 1859

So Where Are We Way Up on the Mountain??

2008-12-06T16:18:00.000-08:00

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.

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!

Happy Thanksgiving from the coffee farm and Dressing Recipe

2008-11-23T20:08:00.000-08:00

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!

November 2008, We get more serious about the website

2008-11-17T03:22:00.000-08:00

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.

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

2008-10-18T19:59:00.000-07:00

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).

September 2008_Aka Has A Birthday

2008-09-05T21:56:00.000-07:00

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.

I can’t remember -- oh yes, now I do, you know those annoying little trick candles?

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?

Well we are into the party spirit now -- with package wrapping on our heads and into reading the birthday wishes on cards!

Looks like a successful party!

August 2008_We add gift wrap to our coffee options

2008-08-01T18:33:00.000-07:00

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!

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

2008-07-07T17:56:00.000-07:00

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.

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!

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.

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.

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

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

2008-06-22T01:51:00.000-07:00

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.

Jerry came with and helped us with the pre-set up and set up, and he helped sell products during the expo.

Our menu so to speak...

We were visited by royalty..

The group poses -- very cute!

As usual, Jerry knows a lot of people!

May 2008_We Make Spam Musubis

2008-05-20T18:32:00.000-07:00

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.

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...

Cut fairly then and then pan fry your spam like these below..

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.

A nice big hot bowl of white rice, not too watery, not too hot if possible, definitely not cold.

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.

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.

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.

We begin with the seaweed and the mold...

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.

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.

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.

Now add a layer (a piece) of spam.

Press a generous portion of egg on top, but you don’t want too much or it will overwhelm the other flavors.

Spread out the egg as evenly as you can over the whole layer.

There you have it -- one of the most important parts is adding the seasonings on top of the egg!

Add rice on top next.

Here’s about how much rice we used for our set this time.

Press the last layer of rice down, and you can see it is rather a firm press with both thumbs.

Lift up and you are done with this step part of building the musubi.

Once you are done -- wrap it up to keep it moist and anything else (like flies) out.

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.

The finished product, looking forward so you can see the layers.

April 16, 2008_We run an intranet ad at the St. Louis Police Department

2008-04-16T20:17:00.000-07:00

This is the year we want to try to really start selling our coffee. So far, there has been a lot of stuff to do that did not leave much time left over for “extras” like promotions. A friend of ours from St. Louis gave us a ring and offered to put us on a private internet and so this advertisement was created to meet that need. It follows through with the theme from the brochure...

March 2008_New business cards and a brochure

2008-03-16T18:46:00.000-07:00

We decide it is time to get our brochure together and to re-make our business cards...

Here is an inside look of our three-fold brochure.
You can click in this sentence to download a full copy of our coffee farm brochure in PDF format to your computer.

Also, we thought the new version of our business card turned out very cute...

February 2008_Aka Presents a BreadFruit Seminar (Can you say Ulu)

2008-02-23T17:50:00.000-08:00

This is a flyer that advertised Aka’s Workshop on Ulu

One thing about moving to a farm is trying to learn what grows all around us that we can harvest and eat. This is also in line with the idea of sustainability -- you should find and eat what you are growing, and plant more of those things you might want to eat. One of those things is Ulu or Hawaiian Breadfruit.

We just happen to have currently staying on the farm one who knows all about this subject, Aka Dooley. And so on Feburary 23rd, Ric and Jerry attended what was to be an all afternoon affair.

In the pictures below...

On the left you see the small group participating in the workshop as Aka is at the outdoor stove whipping up some ulu-fare and showing the group exactly how it’s done!

Right Aka inside has many platters of food ready for participants to take home to savor!

We will probably have much more to say about Aka, but just a brief introduction...

Aka and Brody live in the cottage that is near by our house on the farm.

Aka is quite a ham, she loves to have her pictures taken and we will oblige and put a couple more below for you to see..
Aka is very multifaceted, right below left she is “at home on the farm”.. Then on the right she is more formalized..

This is Brody, Aka’s husband..

Aka is a teacher, is thought to be a healer, and much more. Below, a friend of ours from St. Louis “gets a reading” by Aka on our back lanai at the farm in Honaunau

January 2008, We get a sorter/grader for the dry mill

2008-01-24T02:59:00.000-08:00

eJanuary 25, 2008_We get a sorter/grader ... this means we can separate out the PEABERRY!

This was built by a local coffee farmer. It is an interesting device, green beans are shaken and they bounce over several sets of screens in a progressive manner (small screens going toward larger screens).
As the beans shake across the screens the are sorted in the buckets below.

Depending upon what you want to grade or sort out and the nature of your beans you could use any combination of these screens. The unit comes with a full set!

September thru December 2007, The Mill is Finished, We Sell Out of Our Prior Business for Good, Huller Get Installed at the farm

2007-09-08T19:58:00.000-07:00

September 2007_We sell our building in St. Louis, after having owned it for 18 years. I mention it because having a Kona
Coffee farm like ours (almost 12 acres) is pretty much a full time hobby. So other distractions you have that take your
energy and time cannot “help” you with focusing on your farm. This transition is a welcome turn.

At the farm, we had a family that had moved in and they were supposedly to help, primarily with weeds. After slacking for almost a year they take a 3 week vacation in the middle of our heavy weed season -- after being asked to leave a few weeks prior. Amazing.

So we have been picking, weed whacking (although that chore was supposed to be “gone” surprise it is not gone), and winding up some old distractions.

October 2007_About to get all the pieces together. We have bags supposedly on the way. We got a sealer and a nice
weight scale at yard sales (did you know we are yard sale fanatics?). The huller got here from India last month and it should
get installed after the Kona Coffee Festival activities in early November.

November 29, 2007_Yes the huller did finally get to the mill and here is a picture of all the fanfare...later a guard is added but the machine is operational at this point...

July and August 2007, Wet Mill is finished and another coffee picking season starts

2007-07-08T03:34:00.000-07:00

Outside, we seem to be graced by some of the neighborhood peacocks!

July 2007_Wet Mill is done

Besides having a climate controlled room put into operation quite some time ago, we also now have a wet mill to take the pulper portion of the equipment (taking it off the sundeck).

August 2007_Picking season

We don’t get started as late as last year!

June 15, 2007, New Kitchen Cabinets get started at the farmhouse in Honauna HI

2007-06-15T19:55:00.000-07:00

June 2007_Kitchen Makeover Time and “Happy” the dog appears!

060407, Happy appears after he insists on sitting in the middle of the coffee land road as Ric tries to go down one day...not the best place cause sometimes people speed down and might not be able to stop -- he did not seem to want to move! Since he had a dog tag, we turned him into the Humane Society so they could try to locate his owner. They never responded, so about 10 days later we picked him up and brought him back home.

We take some time to get in kitchen cabinets and have them “mostly” installed. The installer turned out not to be so
talented at finish cabinetry. But it is still 1000 times better than before!

061507, the cabinet top has not been put on yet here!

February 20, 2007, We get Spencer the White Bear Dog from a lady doing a yard sale in South Kona

2007-02-20T18:53:00.000-08:00

February 2007_“Spencer” the dog appears!

022007, Spencer comes to our home. We had seen him at a yard sale and the lady said she was looking for a good home for him. We took her number and later called her back, three days later we went and got him!

Spencer has turned out to be a very happy and fun dog. He likes to play “catch me if you can” and he is very fast to get away, then he’ll run upstairs and hide under the bed or under my desk. Later he comes out and gets on the bed to take his afternoon nap. He has extremely good hearing: we can be downstairs and pop open a flip top can and he’ll run down to see if there is anything he can beg or get into.

January 2007, A Coffee Seminar on Tree Pruning and work continues on our mill at the South side coffee farm

2007-01-08T18:51:00.000-08:00

January 2007_Seminars and work on the mill continues...

We go to a coffee tree trimming seminar January 6 2007, with featured speaker Bob Smith.
Bob Smith actually came up to our farm just before we got possession and advised us of the REAL condition of the trees (we had thought big and tall trees were just extra healthy -- but really it indicated many had simply not been trimmed for years -- but with some hard work you can correct that at least)...

January 12th 2007, the parchment storage room is in progress (it is at the very back)...The forward area is the dry mill section where the roaster, huller, etc. will go.

December 15th 2006, For Christmas Santa gave this Kona Coffee Farmer a nice Kona Coffee Label Logo

2006-12-15T18:49:00.000-08:00

12/15/06 Our logo is finished...

Joachim did a fine job!

Give Joachim Oster a call today at 808-328-1401, or [click here] to email Joachim and get the ball rolling — what you waiting for?

__________________________________________________________________________________

In December 2006, One highlight is attending a Kona Coffee Farmer's Seminar at a local organic kona coffee farm

2006-12-11T18:46:00.000-08:00

December 2006_Our Climate Controlled Coffee Storage Room Project starts; Get our coffee logo completed!

12/11/06 Getting it into the final planning and design stages. It will involve some moving of soil, building the frame, determining
what type of dehumidifier or air conditioner or a combo unit will be used. How to monitor the humidity in the room, etc.

12/13/06, We attend a coffee workshop about drying methods. This is a coffee dryer!

12/13/06, Bob Nelson shows his custom made coffee rake! This is his farm we are at where the seminar is being held.
Bob has got the rake in his hand. Recognize the guy far back left? That’s Rick Funk again who a couple of months prior was pulping our coffee before our mill was ready to work. Rick has a similar dryer that he built so he had some input at the seminar.

October 15 2006, Big Earthquake hits the Big Island but we have little harmful effects

2006-10-15T19:41:00.000-07:00

101506, EARTHQUAKE, for us just a few things thrown, some glass items that fell shattered and a few wall board seams broken. We had power back in about 40 minutes while Kailua town was out for 4 or 5 hours. We sat at home and watched the national news coverage (and put it on the DVR machine)...

It was amazing how powerful and a scary thought to think what something like this would do if it continued past the 20 or 30 seconds that it was! This reached Oahu where many of their power generators were kicked offline and each had to be carefully re-started. Some people had rock walls collapse, big bolders rolled into some highways, walls of some homes tumbled. But all in all it could have been much much worse.

October 2006, We get to roast our own coffee for the first time!

2006-10-06T02:40:00.000-07:00

October 2006_We have roasted and it is VERY GOOD!

We have roasted a sample batch of our coffee and boy it is good!

On October 5th our pulper was put into place temporarily on the drying deck...
This is an Estrada pulper from Columbia.

September 2006, We get our plastic cover put on our drying deck at the Kona Comfort Farm

2006-09-17T19:36:00.000-07:00

091406, Hoops Up!

091706, We get the plastic greenhouse cover (hoshidana cover) fully erected -- yeah!!

This actually went rather smoothly. It was fed up from the bottom and unrolled from the middle.

September 2006, We get to process our own coffee beans to the parchment stage: "whoopie!" Yes, those are our coffee beans in the blue tub af

2006-09-08T02:16:00.000-07:00

September 2006_Picking Season

We are a bit late getting started but there is plenty to pick. Much of our cherry is very nice size.

September 7th -- we get things we need, like a moisture meter, a scale, and a plastic shovel (like a snow shovel) that
works well on decks to scoop parchment.

Here Christine and Ken Sheppard get the hoops ready to go on top of the sun drying deck. The whoops will support the plastic that will cover over the deck to help it keep hot and also to protect the wood from getting excess exposure to water...

September 13th -- we take some of our coffee to Rick Funk to get it pulped while our deck gets to it’s finishing point. Rick was a neighbor right up the road from us and the first President (and a charter member) of the Kona Coffee Farmers Association.

August, late 2006, The mill is getting close to being finished at the farm

2006-08-23T19:30:00.000-07:00

082306, The Mill Progresses fairly fast at this stage...

083006, The Mill Progresses...The rain is unrelenting...

Later when the floor is down, it is treated to help preserve it.

August 2006, Work on the coffee mill continues and we get more weed whacking equipment

2006-08-10T07:04:00.000-07:00

081006, We get a second Shindawa Trimmer (the real thing!) from Farm and Home

We also had picked up a truckload of wood for mill construction...

081406, Christine and Ken Sheppard work diligently on the mill, even when it rains which it did a lot...

August 2006, Our Sun drying deck to sun-dry the coffee beans is about ready as coffee picking season comes close

2006-08-02T19:25:00.000-07:00

August 2006_Drying Deck is built and just about ready for service

Here is the very start of where the main structure of the mill will sit...

July 2006 is a busy time as we get inside features worked on all over the home!

2006-07-02T19:23:00.000-07:00

July 2006_House renovations are almost to the point we can actually get to move fully in.

Here the spiral staircase is getting it’s turn -- this is one of the last things to get painted..
070706, The spiral staircase turned out to be much harder to do than anticipated, it had to be stripped first.

070206, The washer and dryer are finally moved all the way to the garage to make way for the utility room to be more versatile.
At the same time a utility wash sink is added.

Window Coverings Arrive 070806

June 26, 2006, More Trash Duty and a 1st look at "the cottage"

2006-06-26T06:35:00.000-07:00

062606, And we continue to clean truck loads of junk -- where in the world was it hidden?!

Eventually this cottage will be leveled, put on a good foundation, and painted..

June 23, 2006, We try a big DR Trimmer on our weeds!

2006-06-23T06:24:00.000-07:00

062306, Our DR Trimmer arrives...

062306, We put the trimmer into service fairly fast, but unfortunately it does not like lava rocks!

June 21, 2006, Solar Hot Water System Gets Replaced

2006-06-21T06:10:00.000-07:00

062106, When we checked into repairing the old solar hot water it became more practical to replace it. We put in an oversized system but you have to remember we are up at the rain forest and we have naturally cloudy afternoons and often it rains.

We did good: we can go for two days without sun and still have hot water unless everyone washes clothes!

Surprise! When the hot water system is finished and we go to turn on the water, the main valve fails -- no water for us this night!

June 19th 2006, Invasive Species Investigation crew surveys our organic farmland in South Kona

2006-06-19T19:13:00.000-07:00

061906, Are these invaders from outer space?

No, just a crew surveying for Miconia, they did find one or two!

June 16th 2006, At the farmhouse, we actually get to start putting some things in place

2006-06-16T19:20:00.000-07:00

061606, The farm living room in progress

June 2006, Painting inside the farmhouse continues and some new solar water is in the works as well

2006-06-07T19:10:00.000-07:00

June 2006_Painting is in progress...Ken Sheppard starts doing some work...New Solar Hot Water...Washer and Dryer being moved to garage...

060706, This is one of the first days Ken Sheppard was around the farm, here I think he is building a base for the solar water heater to sit on;
Ken is the same who lectured at the Small Equipment Seminar back in October of 2005. He continued to help outside where he would build the coffee mill and with that get us started in the right direction.

May 24 2006, The farm house is getting an interior refresh at our sustainable kona farm

2006-05-24T19:08:00.000-07:00

052406, In the meantime, the painters start work and COLOR comes to the upstairs of the house!

All the windows are out so the glass can be cleaned.
We used to bring the dogs sometimes (you can see Alex trotting about below) and we would come late and clean up after the painters and try to work ahead of them doing things like taking all the glass out and cleaning the wood frames before they would need to touch with a brush. We learned that it gets COLD up on the mountain late at night and that windows are very important to have so you can CLOSE them to keep the cold air out (shiver)...

May 18, 2006, The Truck Blows Up that had come with our organic coffee farm

2006-05-18T19:06:00.000-07:00

051806, We don’t even get to really use the truck one time until it throws a bunch of oil -- just what we need, it is late in the day and it has already been a long day we did not need this. What can you do? We take the load from the pickup truck and move it again by putting that load into the Honda Element and a Honda CRV.

We try to put more oil in but it just gushes out. So we have to call a tow truck rather than leave the pickup sitting -- it sure won’t budge on its own.

May 11, 2006, Time to Work on the farm truck that came with the organic farm in Hawaii

2006-05-11T05:36:00.000-07:00

051106_We take the farm truck from the farm to the other house. It takes a couple of days to clean it up, replace turn signals, make some rail holders for the back end, change the spark plugs and wires. We really liked the idea of a small pickup that we thought would come in handy for hauling coffee bags and stuff like fertilizer -- and it could help us with the move of course.

The oil came out like sludge..

May 9, 2006, Work is in progress at the coffee farm house where we will live in South Kona

2006-05-09T19:00:00.000-07:00

050906, The farm house interior before was all one color of -- well, white!

May 4, 2006, We are still working in between old and new places, Lucky gets lots of attention

2006-05-04T05:18:00.000-07:00

May 2006_We are boxing up and packing up at the old home to move to the farm...The farm “came with” an existing dog called “Lucky”. The story is that he was “Lucky he did not get shot” when he wandered onto the property. He was in his twilight time but still had some spunk. He liked to stay in the garage or in the flower beds and all the people coming into and out of the house doing their work became friends with him.

Lucky sometimes gets in the car whether you want him to or not...

May 1st 2006, A new fence is installed at the sustainable farm.

2006-05-01T18:58:00.000-07:00

050106, The house has a nice big back yard, but it needed a barrier fence to keep our dogs contained and safe...
One thing about being “in the country” is that there are many dogs (big ones) that tend to run and roam.
Our dogs are small and probably would be attacked if they are not kept within the boundary of the back yard. Thank goodness the back yard was already well located to the back of the house, well suited for the dogs, and not impossible to retrofit!

April 23 2006, Some unexpected junk needs to be picked up and moved off our South Kona Farm

2006-04-23T18:54:00.000-07:00

042306, Unfortunately we discovered loads and loads of trash we needed to haul away...

April 2006, Friends Help Us With Our Work

2006-04-06T04:54:00.000-07:00

Lawrence and Ikaka visit and get “Tom Sawyered” into helping. Besides coffee we have some wonderful citrus that we pick and enjoy during its season..

Here we see "Uncle Lawrence" who has a fruit picker that comes in very handy to reach up into the trees.

Ikaka (below) helped us many many days try to weed eat with the residential style whackers...

With those "hardware store" things you seemed to move just 40 or 50 feet after working all morning!

April 2006, We Get Possession of our Hawaiian Farm in Honaunau Hawaii

2006-04-04T18:50:00.000-07:00

April 2006_We get possession of the farm

Yes, finally we get possession and it is a long period during which we move from one place to the other and at the same time attempt to get started with clearing out some junk left by the previous owner.
While getting things to the final packing stages at the previous house, we get this house painted on the inside.
We also start getting a new solar water heater system put in.
We continue to try to control weeds all during this time.

We quickly found out the weeds are a BIG chore -- with everything else we can’t seem to keep up.

We look at a SKAG mower that is supposed to make short work of this problem. I wonder???

March 2006, "We Are Trying!" to get some weed and overgrowth control at the organic coffee farm

2006-03-19T17:42:00.001-08:00

March 2006_We work on the back fields even before we get possession of the farm

This seemed never ending. Of course we were using weed whackers from Home Depot and Lowes (big mistake)...
This picture is from March 19, 2006 -- everywhere overgrown coffee trees!

We eventually learned the hard way that when it rains it can rain a lot. We kept getting our cars stuck because by the time we would get our gear together and get to the car to leave, the soil would be saturated. Now we rarely take a car into the fields but the ATV is a different matter -- it is light enough to pick it up and get it “unstuck”!
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January 2006, Our first attendance of an Election at the Kona Coffee Council Turns Out to Make A Bit of Kona Coffee History

2006-01-21T17:39:00.000-08:00

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January 2006_The Kona Coffee Council “is taken over”

Our first real meeting and it became quiet a controversy. Apparently lots of “proxy” voting that upset lots of people.

Lots of people left the KCC and a new organization the KCFA was born.

There are some farmers who stay members of both groups.

Visit the KCC on the web.
Visit the KCFA on the web.

01/21/06, Many of the candidates for office are in this shot -- which at the time we did not know would become know as the ” takover of the KCC.“

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December 2005, We decide whether to keep the Kona coffee farm's sheep...

2005-12-01T17:33:00.001-08:00

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December 2005_We get a taste of handling sheep...we eventually decided we have much too much to do to also take on taking care of sheep!

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November 2005, We find a slightly used Honda ATV at a Hawaiian yard sale and bring it back to put it to work at our coffee farm

2005-11-05T18:43:00.000-08:00

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November 2006_We get a Honda ATV from a yard sale

Believe it or not -- we find amazing things at yard sales, in this case a hardly used almost a year old ATV...

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November 1-2, 2005, We Attend Classes to Learn How to Cup

2005-11-02T02:25:00.000-08:00

This two day class was rather fun and we certainly got to learn some new things. It is important when you produce coffee to know if the flavor profile is “on the money” or not. We learned that many factors can cause coffee to be average or inferior. Some of it is how you roast, and this class helped teach us what separates the “men from the boys” and also made us acutely aware that each stage of coffee processing needs to be done with care and knowledge. The old saying that an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure is almost applicable -- as you can prevent bad coffee but there is not much you can do to cure it once it isn’t perfect anymore!

November 2005, We Meet Enthusiastic Kona Coffee Farmers...

2005-11-01T17:31:00.000-08:00

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November 2005_We meet enthusiastic coffee farmers and we sign to buy the farm.

110505, We attend the Kona Coffee Festival Art Stroll and meet a couple of local coffee farmers that convince us even we can be coffee farmers and be happy. (You can see a photo about this on our “About Us“ page.)

We do find a property and sign an offer which is accepted. Since the farm is located on lease hold land, it takes a while from the time you sign your offer papers to when you actually get possession of your farm! In this case we did not get possession until April 2006.

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October 2005, We attend a Small Equipment Seminar for Kona Coffee Farmers

2005-10-01T18:29:00.000-07:00

October 2005_We have been studying and learning about coffee farming since February 2005. We attend a “Small Equipment Seminar” that is lectured by Ken Sheppard. (You can see a photo about this on our “We own and operate Kona Comfort organic farm” page.) Ken actually designs and sells some coffee farm equipment and can consult with you and install other equipment. As you might suspect not all coffee equipment is equal. Take a look at his website here: Ken Sheppard’s Coffee Equipment Home Page

This is Ken Sheppard giving his lecture at the Small Equipment Seminar October 2005

January 2005, We learn about coffee farming before we start to look for a place to work as coffee farmers

2005-01-10T03:30:00.000-08:00

We started actually thinking about Kona Coffee farms in small "what if's) as far back as I believe December 2004. But in January we actually started keeping documents and notes and trying to put conclusions to the details.

Although coffee farms and Kona Coffee was all around us, it is one of those things you can take for granted. There are also car repair shops, grocery stores and massage therapists -- these all blend into "that's the environment" but think "it does not directly affect us".

But then we considered that:

(1) Our favorite area of the Big Island is South Kona, and that is where the majority of Kona Coffee farms are located.

(2) Combine that with the fact that you can live and work at the same place -- that's a definite plus.

(3) Other businesses we had followed or were interested in, none went very far past "just looking".

(4) A number of Kona Coffee Farmers seemed to be successful and happy.

Then it dawned on us (forest for the trees):

Having our own Kona Coffee farm in South Kona would address many important issues:

(1) To be able to live in our favorite area;

(2) To be able to produce an actual product from Hawaii;

(3) To be able to make a living in Hawaii;

(4) To have a simple and laid back lifestyle more in line with the philosophy of Hawaii;

(5) To have hands on control of a small operation as opposed to a big company like we had evolved from.

We spent the next several months trying to learn as much as we could about how farmers work, what they needed to produce to generate what amount of money, what amount of property would it take to hold the number of plants that would yield that money, and on and on.

In other words we wanted to be able to verify to the best of our ability that within some reasonable range, there were existing methods that would yield consistent results. After all we were totally new to this, we did not grow up as farmers, we needed to try to make sure that there were existing "farm recipes" or "plans for operation" or "business plans" we could follow as a guide and not end up assuming we could figure it all out in the process. We did not want to just leap and hope we could figure it all out, we wanted to learn what would make you successful and what might hamper you.

From hearing other farmers' stories, quiet a number of new farmers had simply come over and seen a piece of land and fell in love with it. You hear the same thing happen when people buy an expensive car or a house.

A prospective coffee farmer needs to carefully consider if the farm he is thinking about has the potential to support the costs and the farmer's personal income needs. A four acre farm may be very cute but can it support you? If not, and you have to work two other jobs what will come of the upkeep and potential of the farm? If you have lots of money in the bank -- maybe that is a model that will work, but what if you need to make a living from a farm? Lots to consider and it can't be learned in one seminar or one club meeting, in one day, or in one month even.