Picked rambutan, longton, and persimmon

 

Harvested rambutan, longton, and persimmon on an off the farm glean — sold some to a grocery store, gave some to the farmer, donated some to the local food pantry, and kept some for us! Mmmmm, rambutan!

Medicine for the People where AMAZING last night in Hilo. Thought we were out of luck with tickets and people watched in the lobby during all the warm up acts — some excellent people watching. Hippies like you could not believe up in here. But made it onto the balcony somehow and saw the main act and couldn’t have been more blown away. Nice show guys! Thanks for the ride Raven 🙂

Also, worked on the sun garden as shown above — added lots of lettuce as we decided we needed more leafy greens happening on this farm. Hawaiian Chilies are to the left and Mullen is the tall plan in the upper right that is great for the lungs.

Noticed today that standing in line at the grocery store takes FOREVER. No sense of hustle whatsoever in Hawaiians. Said with much love. Aloha.

beach at sunset.

Arrived in Hawaii  last Saturday and will be living here for several months WOOFing. WWOOFing is work trade on organic farms — a web site holds a database with farms worldwide, but Hawaii is an expecially popular place to WWOOF with over 150 farms listed for just the big island. Under the supervision of a botanist, I am learning with fellow interns, about growing produce/medicinal plants as well as the ins and outs of operating an organic farm/sustainable living/education center.

This past week, I’ve been trained in mainly by a WWOOFer named Rebbecca. In June, she returned from Kenya where she served a two year Peace Corps term and soon after took off for Hawaii. Hannah arrived the day after me and has been WWOOFing Hawaii for a couple months on a different farm and has a working knowledge of the plants here as well as island culture. And, she’s an Alaskan (from Anchorage) — sometimes we get out of control with our Alaska reminicing and realizing people we both know — turns out I’ve had a beer with her brother and my friend Jill once at the Midnights Sun brewery. Hannah returned from 4 years of school in Scotland last spring and is applying to teach in Japan after leaving the islands (another amazing skill, speaking Japanese).

I’ve learned to harvest figs, starfruit, citrus and more I’m not remembering right now. Lots of information this first week, hopefully it will begin soaking in more the more I encounter some of these weirdly named tropical wonders. Much will change this week as a couple more WWOOFers show up and the owners return home. Looking forward to meeting more of the community here and hoping they’re as awesome as the ladies I’ve gotten to know this week.

Love walking the paths to the orcherds or greenhouse surrounded by butterflies 🙂 Watching out for scorpions and cain spiders but haven’t seen any yet. Saw the milky way a couple nights ago — sometimes the vog is a little too thick to see it.

Swam with dolphins at the beach a few days ago 🙂 Canoed next to a pod yesterday morning — we got up at 5 to get to Kona in time to join the Kona canoe club for a sunrise paddle in Hawaiian boats. Then, we had our errend day in town. Very useful but felt good to get back out into the country where everything seems more awesome to me.

Printed business cards and am feeling more official and adult-like. Excited at the prospect of teaching yoga at a couple beautiful locations nearby — hopefully more updates on that soon.

Goals are to focus on learning about the farm well enough to be able to train someone else in on the basics. Also, teaching and practicing yoga 5 days/week. Would like to work on a neighboring macadamia nut farm and but especially on a goat farm.

Aloha folks 🙂

More photos can by found on my google + account — search for me, I’m clairemurphyduluth@gmail.com

Socializing with a local at the market