This coffee season is over,now we can slow down with farm work, and enjoy our relaxing time in Hawaii.

There were always different stories with each year’s crop, picking crew, pruning crew. Doesn’t matter what the story was, we always got through harvest season at the end.

We had a small crop this year, 6 picking rounds and most were small. We bought some coffee cherry from our neighbor, an organic farm, we’ll be able to offer this new item to our customer. Our picking crew picked the last round right around new year, the upper section of our farm was done. So Terry and I started pruning, Sonny helped dragging branches to road side (he just did two day during his winter break), we hired a man to chop the branches.

Then we waited our picking crew to strip the trees ( picking off all the beans from the tree ); meantime, I found one guy who was willing to do this job, we paid him by the hour. I worked with the man, Terry pruned right after we cleaned out some area. Later on, two pickers came, finished picking the rest of farm.

Terry didn’t want to think of pruning the rest of farm by ourselves, he’s been doing this for so many years, he is tired of pruning. But I really wanted to do it ourselves, or even by myself. Past few years, whoever we hired to prune seems left too many big old branches behind, some area was so bad, it’s very hard to pick.

We hired the same guy to chop, I did the most pruning, Terry did some pruning and some chopping. This Tuesday we finished the job, the whole farm is clean now.

Next, we need to spray BotaniGardES, this is the best and most efficient time to kill CBB. We hired someone to spray past few years, the spray machine was too heavy for both of us, it weight about 60 pounds after fill up the tank. The man came to spray around 10am whenever he had time, but sunny day or rainy day are not good time to spray. It was almost impossible to have the man to spray at perfect weather condition. We didn’t have many choices, just glade that someone was doing the job.

From the article of CBB research, the most important thing about spray BotaniGardES is the perfect weather condition. The best time is after 3 or 4pm, cloudy, no rain; before or after coffee flower bloom. It left very small window opportunity to spray, very hard to get someone to do 3,4 hours work at this late time of a day. If we want to get CBB under control, we have to do it ourselves.

Terry bought a smaller size spray machine, the engine weight 12 pounds, the tank can hold about 3 gallon of liquid. I was very enthusiasm of using the sprayer, I wanted get the job done before the coffee flower bloom.

On this Wednesday, Terry loaded up all the materials in the truck, mixed the formulas and hauled to the field as close as could be, filled up the tank for me; I sprayed. He set out CBB traps while I was spraying. It only took 3 minutes the refill the tank,14 tanks I sprayed, and we took 4 hours to cover about half of our farm. Terry asked me to quit a couple of times ( he was worrying about me ), It was dark when we finished, I felt OK, not too bad. Next day, we started a little earlier, quit before getting dark. My shoulders were very sore after 5 tanks, at the end, I let Terry sprayed once so I could take a break. We did two more hours yesterday to finish the job, now we are relived that we did the work at right time. We did our part of work, let the nature do its part to the farm.

Terry already bought fertilizer, unloaded them at several spots in the farm, waiting for next good raining day.

Right after new year, we had a week with stormy windy weather, clouds were  very interesting and beautiful at sun set time, sun light lit on the constant changing clouds, seems brought them to alive. It conducted a silent symphony I couldn’t hear, but I saw and felt the power of moving changing force, through the colors the sun light painted on the sky.

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.

We got plenty of rain this summer, every thing grows fast here, including weeds and extra coffee shoots. Usually we start picking coffee in September, but this year our coffee trees loaded with green coffee, green coffee grow bigger day by day, seems not eager to change their color.  While we were waiting for the coffee getting ripe, Terry and I pulled suckers one more time last month.

When we were working on the farm, we noticed few ripe coffee here or there, and they already tracked borer beetles inside of them. Since we were doing nothing except waiting for the harvest season start, I convinced Terry to pick this ripe coffee with me. It took us 2 weeks to pick the whole farm, every morning we picked about 20 to 30 pounds between us. It was not a fun job, but glad we did it.

Last weekend a coffee picking crew came and picked our real first round coffee, they didn’t finish picking the whole farm and came back yesterday. It still has one corner of the farm with ripe cherries need to be picked, they couldn’t finish it yesterday and no time to come back. I told them that we would do it.

Terry raked the wet coffee, and talked story with two friends who were visiting. I was glad to be among ripe coffee trees, I picked 50 pounds before lunch. I love picking coffee, especially at time like this, when the beans are so beautiful,and I’m picking coffee without pressure. It’s a simple job, but it requires long hours of persistent and patient work. Not everyone like to do it, and not everyone can do it well. As a coffee farmer, she or he should have picked many  bags of coffee  themselves.

Sonny seems very excited whenever we have coffee pickers. When he was younger, he followed them. If the picker brought their kids, he played with them or brought the kids to our house to play. Quite often he had lunch with our coffee picker, he likes bean and tor torttias, and soda (which we usually don’t have in the house). Sometimes, there were coffee picker’s kids playing with Sonny, they had lunch with us too.

I remember one coffee season, Sonny was 4 years old, he was asking for soda to drink. I told him that those soda were for our coffee picker, the workers. Later, Terry drove truck to pick up coffee bags, Sonny went with him. When they came back, first thing he said, was ” Mom, do you know I’m a worker now ?” I said:” good “. Then he asked:” So, can I have one soda ?” It made me laugh right away.

After his long hours of watching TV and playing toys, he saw some pickers near the house, he got a small bag and ran to them, and picked beside them. When I took this photo, he said:” Mom, do you remember? I picked one this bag last year and you paid me 2 dollars.” “Yes, I remember.” ” So, can you pay me 2 dollars for today?” I looked his bag, said:” Your bag is not even close to full, you might get a quarter for what you picked.” ” OK, give me a quarter.” One quarter is enough to him, he was ready to quit.

This year’s coffee is big and beautiful. We can see it right away when we were pulping; hardly any CBB damaged beans came out from demusalage machine, not many floating beans in the soaking tank. Coffee on the drying deck looks very nice, we are going to have a very good crop this year. The rain helped; CBB trap helped; fertilizer helped; spraying “MyControl” helped; and all the time and labor we put into the farm, make it a good promising year.

We’ve been very busy last few weeks.

Coffee borer beetles make our life as coffee farmer not easy anymore; even we are fighting those beetles hard and constant, it seems no hope to really get rid of them at all.

Last season, after coffee had been picked, pulped, soaked over night, on the drying deck beetles kept eating away the whole time. That made us thinking and decided to buy a coffee dryer, it will not only dry the coffee but also kill the beetles still live inside coffee bean. Sun dry coffee time is over, we ordered a small coffee dryer hope to get it before this coming season.

Then we need to find a place for the dryer; one decision lead to another project. Terry decided to take the rolling roof down, rebuild and raise it up, make a permanent roof and a place for coffee dryer.

When Terry decide to do something, he’ll just do it and move on. He worked very hard at time like this. It only took him 2 days to take apart the old roof and rebuild it, I only can gave very very little help. Only a few times, he needed me to hold a lumber straight with level, so he could nail it down. I couldn’t hand him a piece of metal sheet of roof, it’s too heavy; I helped him to move these metal sheet around though. I washed all of the clear plastic sheet, took nails out from old lumber to prevent any bad accident.

During the whole working time, only few drizzling times; lucky we got the roof back up over our heads before rain pouring down, since it’s raining season.

In Sonny’s card to Terry for “Father’s Day”, he even wrote ” You are my hero because you built the roof in two days”.

Here is another conversation I had with Sonny on ” Father’s Day”.

We didn’t prepare any gift for dad, he suggested:” We can buy a present for dad and me”.

I asked :” It’s Father’s Day, not a young boy’s day. Why should you get a present ?”

Guess what he said, he said :” I’m a boy, when I grow up, I will be a dad too; so I should get a present for Father’s Day too.”

I’ll never guess this answer myself, said :” Well, wait until you are a dad, then you can expect getting a present on Father’s Day. ”

I found this old photo, green roof was the rolling one, blue lumber was the rolling rail. It’s a nice photo, you can tell, it was a beautiful sunny day.

Terry was wearing red shirt on the roof, screwed down the roof. Sonny was saluting to me, pretend to be a soldier. Mimi, our cat walked into the scene just to be a part of the picture. All three of them made this photo unique, my camera captured this special moment.

This is how it look like right now. We like to have our meals at the front part of the deck, nice view up there. Another good part of it is, Terry made two laundry lines on back section. I love it, a scene with clothes drying on laundry line is wonderful and homey. A scene tells story of alive household without a single person in it.

When we were working on this project, we hired Tom who is live in neighborhood, sprayed BotaniGardES for us.

Last week, we threw another round of fertilizer, ran out of fertilizer, Terry just finished last four bags yesterday.

Last two weeks we have been working on pulling suckers, they are extra shoots growing on coffee stump and branches. We cleaned half of the field.

Quite often we see bird nests on a tree, I saw this nest with three eggs last week. Sonny was in Summer break, and was hanging out with us in the field. So I showed him this nest, he was very happy to see it. Even myself felt very good to see it, it added an interesting little story to our working day, lighted up my spirit.

Last Thursday I saw another nest with three baby birds, pink tiny little things without any feathers. Today I visited them again with my camera, they grew twice as big and full of feathers, it surprise me how fast they can grow. They might just had a good meal not long ago, since they didn’t wake up from their dream when I bended the branches to take a shot.

Our gardenia is going off right now, so many and so beautiful.

Even we are doing same job, but we are quite different on the way we are doing. Here is how Terry works in the field.

We had an inch and half rain last Thursday evening, ground is wet and trees look happy. Next morning, Terry and I threw some fertilizer, covered half of our farm. Yesterday morning, we finished fertilizing the rest farm in 2 hours. Terry was soaking wet, and I hardly sweat at all. It took us 4/5 hours to throw 1500lb fertilizer on 4 acres, I thought our team work is getting better and more efficient than before.

The first few years of my farming life, fertilizing was a hard work for me. Carrying 5 gallon bucket fertilizer on the rocky land, visiting and giving 2or3 hands full food to each coffee tree; and the ground is wet, tree is wet, or it’s raining, we were soaking wet when we done the work. Quite often I wanted quit the work earlier than Terry, and he wanted to finish the whole work as soon as we could.

I told Terry, I felt quite easy with the work now. I don’t think about how big the field is, or how heavy the fertilizer pile looks like any more. I used to think in that way, and it wore me out before we had done the work. Now I took one step at a time, threw one hand full at a time, no ambition for big goal, I can quit whenever I want to ( that’s the best part, and I know it ). This attitude of mine might not fit in other career, but it fits in my career very well as a coffee farmer.

We noticed the second big round coffee flower buds show up, love to watch their transformation.

Now we did our part of work for the coffee trees, we can relax and let them do their part of work in their own way.

There is never ending of work on a farm, and we are not eager to do everything in one day. We’ll do something every day, feel accomplishment at the end of a day. There will always more things for tomorrow, there will be tomorrow, and we have tomorrow to look forward.

We hung some traps for CBB (coffee borer beetles) on our farm border. I remember Terry hung some traps on the first day, a couple hours later, I walked around to check. Those traps already caught some beetles, some traps had about a hundred CBB. The trap seems working, even we know we can’t only depend on the trap to control CBB population, I’m glad somebody invented the CBB trap, every single bug  killed counts.

Every couple weeks we need to check and maintain the traps, changing or adding liquid of the trap.

About 2 weeks ago, a young tourist couple came to visit our farm, I showed them around our farm and had a nice chat. They bought some coffee and wanted buy some mac nuts from a small farm, ” small farm like you “, that’s what they said.  I sent them to our nearby friend, Mike & Debi’s farm. Later, I heard they had a good visit there too.

Monday I received a small bottle pure maple syrup, product of Vermont, from their town . So nice of them to do that, we’ll enjoy it a lot. It might become a spotlight, whenever I use maple syrup.

What a wonderful way to meet people in our life.

And I love the photo card they sent, share it with everyone.