Coffee harvesting season is over, but our daily life seems still very full; I couldn’t find much time for working on the computer, or when I had time in the evening, I was too tired to turn on the computer.

Pruning is the hardest job of coffee farming, at least, to us.

Every year, after harvesting coffee, we need to cut down some old branches and extra young shoots, leaving 3 or 4 nice branches to grow. Then, chop up those old branches one by one with machete.

Why don’t we use a chipper ? Well, some parts of our farm are very rocky, not flat, lots of branches have to be dragged a long way to reach the road where the chipper is. One year, Terry rented a chipper, and two friends helped him. At the end of work, they were too exhausted to eat any food, which one friend’s wife prepared. Ever since that experience, Terry doesn’t want to use a chipper for this particular job.

I saw Terry pruning with a hand saw many times, it’s doesn’t seems very hard. I tried, and gave it up right away when the saw stuck half way through a big branch. I stick to chop branches with machete, I’m pretty good with it. I still remember some moments, at that time, I was pregnant 4/5 months with Sonny, and chopping  coffee branches. That year, Terry’s university friend Bill was visiting, he helped  with the job too. He thought it’s a hard labor work, not a retirement for an old guy.

Terry was very busy with our project, so I managed to take care the farm work.

One of our coffee picker needed some work, and he knew how to prune coffee trees. I hired him and worked with him the first day, he seems like a fairly hard working guy; next day, I hired his friends too, another of my coffee pickers. They did the most pruning and chopping, I feel so grateful about their work, helped us get through this big job.

It’s my first year of pruning, I felt so good to cut down some old ugly branches, next picking will be much easy. I used hand saw, it’s not hard at all, I didn’t meet any of challenging branch. I told Terry ” I’m much stronger than before, thanks for 8 years training “.

Second day of my pruning, my spirits were very bright and high. I felt so happy to learn a new thing, and be able to work.

Right now, I’m in middle of stripping the coffee tree, picking all dried, or red, or green cherry off the tree. The picture shows my tools: clippers to snap extra young shoots, hook to bend some tall branches, machete and hand saw, bucket to pick cherry, one glove and small shoulder bag for picked cherry. Since I’m on the job alone, it will take me some time, but I’ll carry the job to the end.

We had some rain last week, and some cool cloudy time this week. It will do the coffee trees good, they need it. On my morning walk, I noticed lots of coffee flower buds.

Look at the picture. Can you imagine? An excited energetic fairy live inside each of those tight closed buds, waiting for the blooming moment to see the world, and sent forth their sweet delicate fragrance to the coffee country.

What an excited moment they are living in!

What a lucky life we have! Be able to slow down our pace and pay a close attention to the things around us, observe their amazing transformation.

Yes, I feel very lucky already.