Alright, time for some catching up and to fill you in on what has been going on at my new farm. First, this place is completely different from where I was before. Bonnie was telling me before that this side of the island gets lots more rain and wouldn't be as nice. Well, I must say that I much prefer the Hilo side of the island to the Kona side. On Kona it would rain every afternoon around 5, but would have grey clouds and threaten to rain from about 1pm on. Here the clouds change constantly and it usually rains once a day at a random time for not very long. The scenery here is so much more beautiful and there isn't a jungle here so I can see the sun for most of the day. There are a few mosquitos that come out in the evening, but that is a much more normal and manageable way to coexist with the buggies. There are no rats or millipedes or ants in my cabin so I am much happier.
As you may have seen from the pictures, my "cabin" doesn't seem like much of a step up from my previous place. When I got here, it was full of garbage from the previous wwoofer who left abruptly without saying goodbye. There was a lot of random junk that I had to go through, but once I shook all the fabric on my floor out (and my car rug), the place has been very comfortable. It has the only toilet on the farm, which is indeed connected up to a septic tank, but there is no water running to it so you'd need to bring a bucket in order to use it. I just use it for storing my laundry and it works quite well for that. I also have a three-legged table in here which I added the fourth leg to on my first day. I've got two futons to sleep on which don't exactly fit across the room but it works. I have lots of windows and a big sliding door and I can see the sunrise over the ocean in the morning from my pillow. The room also didn't have electricity until yesterday which made things a little challenging. I've been using my flashlight for light but wanted an outlet so that I could charge my phone and my laptop. I did end up running a cable that they got at costco for me, but I had to improvise as it was 25 feet too short. Anyway, I can now charge things in here so that is good. And I have internet access which is amazing.
When I arrived I was greeted by another wwoofer who was quite interesting. She is from Portland, OR and was pretty helpful at showing me around the place. However, the baby sitter was there at the time and she came out to my cabin to warn me that the girl knows nothing and does nothing. And I must agree that she was right. The wwoofer was telling me how she didn't pack any pants with her so she had to borrow some from these people, showed up to work the next day at around 10am in a bikini and flip flops, and then couldn't figure out how to pull weeds because even after repetitively doing that she didn't know what was a weed and what wasn't. On Friday when the family went to Kona for some appointments and to go to Costco, she went with them and then asked me to finish doing her laundry for her even though it turned out that she would have had plenty of time to do it. She kept disappearing in the evenings but would show up for dinner and would do a good job of getting in the way of everyone. Yesterday she had somewhere to go for most of the day (an appointment?) but she left wearing her belly dancing skirt and returned with paint handprints on her arms and legs. She decided that she needed to go to a farm with more people, a commune type thing, so she left last night, after getting in the way again, and using the vacuum over and over again to suck the air out of her luggage. And with that she still left a lot of clothes here which is a bit crazy. So now I'm the only wwoofer here.
Anyway, so the people who are here are quite interesting. The father hails from Vermont, but has lived in Seattle,all over Central America, and in the Philippines. He is interesting (awkward) but smart I'd say. He has this farm and then runs several online businesses to make a living. The wife is 8 months pregnant, but is still pulling weeds and hauling watermelons along with me. She is from the Philippines and has asked me to help her with studying for the citizenship exam. She is very nice and is just a bit younger than Veronica which is interesting. They already have three daughters, who end up spending a lot of time running around with no clothes on. The oldest is 4 and has a different mother who is in Nicaragua. Spanish was her first language but she is learning English now too. She will be starting kindergarten soon but still has a lot of tantrums and can be very immature. The 2 year old is good but gets picked on a lot by her older half sister. She was very quiet at first but has slowly warmed up to me. The youngest is 16 months old and is a very spunky little girl. She is the messiest eater in the world and will happily eat any kind of food (and quite a few non-food items too). I have been helping take care of them and have learned quite a bit about being a nanny. It's fun but definitely very messy. They have a dog who spends most of his time in a cage and then a handful of chickens that roam free and have to be chased out of the kitchen.
So, this is a five acre farm along the road up to Akaka Falls. They grow quite a lot of things here and have crops planted everywhere. Most of what they harvest either gets sold at the stand along the road or gets sold to other vendors at the Hilo farmer's market in exchange for other produce and vegetables. So far, I've harvested peanuts (lots of peanuts everywhere), okra, watermelon, eggplant, cilantro, collard greens, and tomatoes. There are banana trees of all varieties everywhere, but not many are ready to harvest yet. Today we just went and got 25 trees from a neighbor who had these special Marshall Island variety of bananas but didn't want them anymore. They have ice cream bananas and red Cubans and yellow Cubans and many others. They also have sweet corn and sunflowers and basil and taro and many more that I'm sure I can't think of right now. The two adults do spend a lot of time either working out with the crops or manning the stand along the road. I'm just overwhelmed with how much there is that needs to get done everywhere, especially since things need to be harvested, weeds need to be pulled, new plants need to be planted, and the children have to be watched constantly. I've been helping out with a bit of everything whenever I can.
The first task I was given was to build a shade structure over the area where he wants to start seeds. I figured out a way to make a pretty good structure with the supplies that he has and will just need to put it all together in the next day or two. There will certainly be pictures. I also have helped them out by driving when needed (the wife doesn't know how to drive) and spent the whole day that they were gone working out at the stand. There actually are a lot of tourists that stop by and buy things. The majority do seem to be from California, but there have been people from Switzerland and Germany and lots of Asian tourists. One of the things we have at the stand is fresh coconuts, so I have had to learn how to use a machete to cut one open. The first few were definitely pretty rough but after about 10 I'm getting better. Still not a pro, but I know the concept and can add that skill to my resume. ha.
So yes, while this farm is indeed a bit rustic, it is a much happier place to be than the other farm. I just "showered" for the first time in a week, but since I keep playing in the dirt it doesn't matter too much. The children get SO dirty all the time. I do want to visit the volcano area before I leave this island so I'm going to try to either arrange to take a few days off to do that or to leave here early to do some exploring. The buses are very random and don't really seem to go anywhere useful at reasonable times so we shall see. Alright, I think that sums things up for the moment. I'll add more in the next few days. Look through the pictures. Ta ta
Farming Pictures
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