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

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

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

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?

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

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

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!

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

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

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

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

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...