Good luck

Good luck for the new year. A beautiful rainbow and I fed the dragon for look for the new year. I have a lot to post, so I apologize for not writing more!
I celebrated Chinese New Year, tried a ghost pepper ( hottest pepper in the world) went to Coquitos a Latin American restaurant for valentines day, we went to North Shore and watched the surfing, started to juice fruits and vegetables, min went to electric beach to snorkel, and today went to ko olina again to go snorkel another private beach next to the resorts. Will go into more detail later!

Surprise for my grandparents

Also PS please don't tell my grandparents of my return flight. This is a surprise for both of them but also I want to surprise my grandma for her birthday! This is really a message to all family members who read my blog. Thanks and see you all soon :)

Good News

We have decided to back to New England! No, we didn't miss the cold or shoveling the snow but we do miss our families in VT, NH and our bald peak family. We have booked a quick trip to Big Island and are excited to see the volcano, black sand beaches and new ecosystems. We will fly to Boston on march 12th but only arriving there the night of March 13th We will stay in Boston the night after probably not sleeping in 24 hours! Can't wait to see my family and get to enjoy spring in NH. We will hopefully be helping Mr. C and bald peak get the club back to its potential after it has gone through some major renovations. It will be nice to start work a little early, get settled in and make some money! Will keep you all posted on our travel plans!
Again - happy Super Bowl Sunday Funday. I am off to Ko Olina to a Super Bowl party at the pool and grill! It is very weird that the Super Bowl is at 1:30 and not after dinner.

Simple Farm Life

I haven't posted in awhile because there hasn't been too much excitement here on the farm.  I went to the Farmers Market for Naked Cow again on Saturday.  It is getting much easier, however there are still some questions that people ask that I have no idea what they are talking about.  Min and I went to Hanaras a local place to eat and had korean/hawaiian food.  It was really good, cheap and they gave us way too much.  We went swimming as much as we could, but the current was pretty strong and the tide was coming in so we could only swim for a little bit.  Next day we ventured to Ala Moana a huge 200 + store outdoor/indoor mall so Min could get a book we had put on hold there.  It was actually a nice bus ride because we got to see the whole west/south side of the island.  We had lunch there and looked around before heading back.  We had a busy week harvesting since we have picked up three restaurants.  A cuban place which is owned by one of the board members here, Roys Hawaiian restaurant which is in Ko Olina and also Monkey Pod which is a new place that is just opening in Ko Olina.  We are trying to do our best to keep up, but it is hard since now 3 out of the 5 days we are harvesting which only leaves 2 days for planting, upkeep and other farm maintenance stuff. They have decided to up our hours to 35 hours a week which is okay but does take away from some of our afternoons. Well I am off to the farm. Will post pictures and such in next post. Happy Superbowl Sunday!

About Kahumana

I wanted to write this post earlier, but I wanted to wait until I knew a little more about the program etc.  Kahumana is located in Waianae which is historically one of the poorest areas of Oahu.  Since 1974 Kahumana has been providing social services to the community. Kahumana was given it's name which means "guardian of the life force or spirit".
Currently, the Kahumana community is the base of operations for Alternative Structures International, which manages transitional housing for families and serves the Developmentally Disabled population. However, originally Kahumana was an intentional residential community serving and healing those suffering from mental illness. Kahumana switched focuses in 1987 to start addressing and helping the growing homeless population with their transitional housing facilities. I have been fortunate to meet some of the people living next door and they have been a great help to the farm since they are all hawaiian born and know and understand the land. Although Kahumana is no longer a community for those with a mental illness it still helps some of the core/founding community members.

In front of Kahumana

Kelly waiting for the bus in front of Kahumana

Besides helping families in transition, the Kahumana Community has a cafe.  The cafe is where people from the transition program can get a good work experience and education to help them get jobs in the hospitality/tourism industry.  Tourism is Hawaii's largest industry, so if they are able to get jobs in the industry, they will be able to get on track to financially supporting their family.  The cafe is about 3 years old and grows everyday just by word of mouth.  It is one of the nicest restaurants to eat at, especially on this side of the island.

Helena and Todd washing the lettuce

The farm originally was used to supply the cafeteria where the patients and community members ate. However as time went on, the farm grew in order to supply not only the community members, but the cafe and the weekly CSA boxes.  Currently the farm is being managed by Robert's (the cafe manager) son Christian who grew up on the farm and just moved back home after college.  He is working hard to get the farm back to its full potential by growing the CSA program and by offering greens and hopefully more produce to local restaurants.  Just last week we dropped off a 1 lb. bag of baby greens to Roys Restaurant in Ko Olina and they let us know right away that they wanted to order from us 3 times a week.  It is a great time to be at Kahumana because you are able to physically see the farm grow, from more plantable space to supplying more and more people and restaurants.

The weekly CSA (Community Supported Agriculture) is a great program that we do every friday.  For about $25 a week we make a box filled with all sorts of organic fruits and veggies (including herbs).  This current week we filled the boxes with eggplant, long squash, oranges, carrots, beets, radishes, baby greens, stir fry greens, arugula, cherry tomatoes, tomatillos and herbs (cilantro, parsley, celery herb, oregano, sage and thyme). People sign up for the program that fits their needs and then they pick up their box on the farm anytime Friday afternoon.

Baby Greens

We have also started to go to Kapolei Farmers market on Thursday evenings.  This has led to having us have two long harvesting days.  Thursday we harvest, bundle and pack up the trucks to send people off to the market and then Friday is mostly harvesting and preparing the boxes.

Leeks

Chives

Kale

Radishes

Purple Carrots (great for color in the salads at the cafe)

Below are pictures of us getting ready to put everything we harvested early in the morning in the boxes for pick up.                                    

  

                     

            

almost finished box

Group of us showing off all of the produce we picked that day

  You can look up more information about the Kahumana community at www.kahumanafarms.org 
I have really enjoyed my time at Kahumana and although half my time here has already passed, I am looking forward to learning more about the program, farming and exploring the land and culture.

Christmas Weekend

Started the weekend off right by waking up at 4:30am on Saturday to work the farmers market again for Naked Cow dairy. Found a new stand on our way home called Aunty Nels where she cooks all of her own food (her specialities are pork laulau tacos and cheesecake).  We picked up lunch to go and brought it back to the cafe to eat.  I served that night at the cafe which was surprisingly slow before the holidays.  

On Sunday Min and I relaxed in the morning and then after lunch a group of us went to Yokohama, "Yokes" and enjoyed the afternoon snorkeling and swimming.  I was pretty worn out from such a "hard day" that I went to bed at 8pm and only woke up at 8am Monday morning to the breakfast bell.  

It was Christmas Eve on Monday and although I was starting to get more sad that I wasn't at home for Christmas, I was thankful that I was at Kahumana Farms and that I was with good company! After breakfast Kelly (another wwoofer) and I started to get pretty restless.  It was not prime beach weather at all, so there wasn't much to do before our big Christmas dinner at 6.  We hopped on a bus and headed towards Kapolei ( a small city about 20 minutes away).  We went to a vegetarian store called Down to Earth and many other stores to pick up some last minute treats for the holidays.  Also, all of the wwoofers decided to do secret santa, so I had to pick up another small gift for Kelly.  We wondered around, got coffee, shopped, went to Genki Sushi (this restaurant that sushi comes around on conveyor belts and you take off the one that you want) and also printed/cut a game to play after dinner called Cards of Humanity (similar to apples to apples).  We headed back just in time for Christmas dinner.  The room was beautiful and all of the food smelled so good.  Min carved the turkey and I "helped".  

Robert's Wife and Susie (one of the ladies that lives on property)

Robert starting off the readings

Ranjii's (the chef) daughter. 

There were about 20 people at dinner including 2 people that had stopped by Kahumana in hopes of eating at the cafe.  Robert led the readings at the beginning and then people from the community read different parts aloud.  It was a small ecumenical service, but it was nice to have prayer and lighting of the candles before the meal.  We had Thanksgiving pretty much all over again as Lucus, Robert's youngest son was not here for Thanksgiving as he was at school in Oregon finishing up his first semester of freshman year.  Nobody could complain because the food was incredible all over again! 

I went back home and played a few rounds of the new game.  It was a lot of fun and a good game to play on Christmas Eve.  After the game, we went back home and turned on the Christmas lights, pandora Christmas station and started Miracle on 34th street. 

I woke up Christmas morning and I looked outside and it was cloudy out! I was sure it was going to be a gloomy boring day.  We went to breakfast and then opened our stockings that mom had sent us.  We opened the other gifts from my grandparents and then called our families.  It was great to talk to my family and hear about their Christmas morning.  After organizing my stocking goodies, a bunch of us decided that we needed to leave the farm and find something to do.  Jake, Kelly, Min and I drove around Waianae Valley which we had never seen and then got starbucks :). We headed back in hopes of having Thanksgiving leftovers, but instead had curry and rice per usual.  We decided at lunch that we would set out again for "Yokes" and see if people were surfing today.  

Jake spinning fire as the waves come 

We got to Yokes and the surfing was great.  There were a lot of people out.  The waves were incredible and it is crazy to think that they will only get bigger by at least 10 more feet.  

We started walking down the trail that takes you to Kaena point.  It was beautiful and we took many pictures.  It wasn't a clear beautiful hiking day, but it was perfect for this hike.  I had a lot of fun and although I missed my family tons, I had a good Christmas!