We were so busy at this harvest season, even I was thinking about update our blog, but no time and energy for it. Now we are slowing down, I can share some of our farm life with everyone again.
This year’s coffee started to ripen very late, it was Oct, 23 when the pickers finished our first round coffee. You started picking coffee, touched every tree, it seems get the message and change their fruit color. Two weeks later, we were ready for next round picking. Our second round picking was right at the time of the Kona Coffee Cultural Festival. Unfortunately we didn’t have enough dried parchment to enter the cupping contest, and we couldn’t participant any activities of the festival.
This is busiest year ever to me. We didn’t know, could we get coffee picking crew when we need. So we were out there picking almost every day while we were waiting for the crew; and 3,4 locals came to help picking too, they were not as fast as our picking crew, but their picking were perfect clean.
Other years we usually get between 10 to 20 bags cherry a day, we collect some bags after lunch and start pulping; 4:30pm get the rest bags and pulp again. It hasn’t been a hard job, machine works very well. 7:30pm to 8:00pm were the late time when we finished pulping.
But this year, our crew picked 20 to 35 bags a day; even we started pulping after lunch, we still worked until late of night.
First day we got over 30 bags cherry, at the same time, the coffee dryer we purchased from Columbia arrived too. After the coffee bags got weighted, pickers got paid, those strong men lent a hand to lift the dryer to our deck.
I pulped the coffee for a while, Terry helped Sonny with his homework; then we worked together, Sonny played on the deck with his scooter until we had to tell him to have a shower and practice piano. 8 o’clock, Terry asked me quit, put Sonny to bed. There were so many things going on, so excited, he didn’t feel tired at all, he would finish the job.
I picked coffee too, I was very tired and fell sleep very quickly. I woke up once when the machine stopped, it was late and very cold night.
Next morning I found out that Terry worked until 12 o’clock, the auger which is moving cherry skin out to trailer was jammed up, and stopped. He forgot press the off button before clean the auger, over sudden, the machine started running, his one finger got cut. He closed the finger in his fist immediately, didn’t even want to see how bad it was. He quit there, took a shower, examined the wound, and relieved to see the big chunk of flesh still attach to his finger. He took care his wound. He showed me the wound, I shut my eyes as soon as I glimpsed the cut. He said:” it was very sore last night, but it’s OK now.”
I finished pulping the rest in the morning, not very much. Usually Terry is the one who empty the trailer with cherry skin, it’s lot of shovel work. I asked him to drive the truck to our compose pile, I would empty the trailer. First time I learned it’s a quite labor work, it took me an hour to do the job.
At that day, the drying deck was full and might be another 30 bags come in, we ran out of drying space. Terry tried to set up the dryer, but he couldn’t do it himself, he got really frustrated.
Same like the day before, I pulped some coffee after lunch; Terry pulped for a while, I put Sonny to bed and back to work with Terry. We kept each other company and worked together, either of us had to bear the whole working pressure alone. Cold breath came down from mountain, I had my jacket and rubber boots; Terry had his jacket on but bare feet. That night, pulping went well; 9:30 finished the job and Terry had a shower and went to bed; I cleaned up the machine, went to bed at 10 o’clock. I was tired but couldn’t sleep right away, read half hour to calm down before sleep.
Luckily our crew had to go other farm to pick, they didn’t come back to finish this round a week later. In next couple of day, a man from neighborhood helped Terry to set up the dryer, we had all the coffee dried and bagged before our picker came back. Those days were cloudy, it’s impossible to sun dry the coffee at that time. We couldn’t ask better time to have a dryer, another bigger benefit from the dryer is that CBB will get killed at the same time.
This year’s coffee looks very nice, lots of big cherries. We have a few yellow cherry trees, they bear a lot of fruit, I like to pick them when they have so many ripe cherries.
Pulped the coffee, soaked them over night, next morning Terry put them on drying deck. When he is in mood, he can rake the coffee and make all kinds of image, make his work more fun. He is a quite creative person in his way, a fun friend to hang out with.
Last Wednesday our crew finished another round, pulping machine worked until 9:30pm, then it got some problem and we had to quit there. Next day, Terry fixed the problem and I was going to finish the job; Terry had to take Sonny to a dentist appointment after school.
The machine ran for a while, then a chain fell off. ( the machine has three chains, Terry replaced one chain this year, another one got worn out too.) I watched Terry put loose chain back on one time, so fixing it by myself was the only option I got there. Luckily I had many time of experience of putting loose bike chain back on, when I was 12 to 16 years old, I rode old bike to school every day. I was quite confident and I did it. The machine ran about 15 minutes, the chain fell off again. I fixed it again, and made sure the screw tighter than last time. Guess what happened next? The chain broke on me, I had to wait for Terry.
After 4pm, Terry and Sonny came back, I planed not to pour out the problem to Terry right away. But things didn’t going the way I planed. Terry drove in garage and cheerfully asked:” Is everything OK?” I paused a second and said:”No.” I told him what happened.
He knew the chain wore out and bought a new set that day, then he started fixing it right away. I finished the pulping job later.
Last Friday was the first relax day for us in last 6,7 weeks.