From nuts to beans

From nuts to beans was Originally Posted on November 7, 2004 by lavarock

My neighbor talked me into it. That is, having my macadamia nuts picked and sold. Although I kinda knew what was involved, it was something I was resigned not to do.

She convinced me that there was money in the nuts and it was a waste to let them go to waste. The fact that she was kinda doing the same thing with her coffee did not escape me

She contacted some pickers and they came by to look at the trees and farm condition. You can pay pickers less if the nuts are easy to pick, or they are desparate for work (and money). In my case, the mac nut orchard had not been picked in quite some time, and there were leaves all over the place. Still, I agreed to pay them a pretty good picking fee and they agreed to come on Friday and Saturday. There was and still is a possibility they will continue working next week, but I think they really only want to work on Saturday. The reason will soon become obvious.

On Thursday evening I went into town and bought a leaf blower which I would use to blow the leaves off of the mac nuts. Mac nuts fall to the grougn and are then picked up, evaluated by the picker and dropped in a bucket. The buckets are consolidated into special white woven plastic bags which are very strong.

So, on Friday the Mother, Father and a child were there. The family were from Micronesia. They picked a number of bags, mostly in the first acre of land. I had blown a lot of leave away and I could see that this would be slow going. The mother sat on the ground and picked nuts and put them in her apron. Then she would get up and dump it into a bucket. There was a small playpen for the child and it was under close supervision.

We ended the day with a few bags filled. I went town afterwards because I needed to try to find a concentrator for the backpack blower which would hopefully allow me to blow more leaves yet not blow the nuts away with the leaves.

The next morning the pickers said they would be there about 10am so I decided to sleep in a bit. Imagine my surprise when they showed up at about 8am… A younger girl and her sisters was at my door asking for “Manager Mark”. Well, that MUST be me They had walked down the long driveway to get me and I offered to drive them up. I pulled the truck around, dropped the tailgate and the girls piled on. Many people here have no qualms jumping on the back of a truck for a ride. Back on the mainland my Mother would have been worried that they would fall off. I think their feeling here is, just DON’T!

All together I think I had 10 or 12 people picking Saturday and we only had a few problems. There were a few younger kids there and they seem to pick any nut off the ground, while the older people are more selective. It also turns out that I am paying on the high side for the work. In reality, I don’t mind that. In this case I didn’t have to water or fertilize these trees since I was here and they did fine; so any money I got from them was free. Without these pickers I would have had no money from them. It would be impossible for one person to pick nuts on 9 acres by hand!

Worldwide children are asked to help on farms and here seems to be no exception. Until somewhat recently, Hawaiian schools woul;d close during coffee picking season so they could halp with the harvest. In watching the pickers here it was obvious that the children wanted to work and often played games to see who was picking the most, etc. Never once did I see a parent or older child scold a younger one for not working. All family members seemed to take breaks whenever and for how long they wanted. Over the two days I chatted with most of the family, although many of them spoke broken English, they seemed quite nice. Their reason for moving from Marshall Islands was so that they children could have a nicer school and perhaps a better education. They like Hawaii County and have not ben to the other neighbor islands. It sounded as though this place was nicer than where they were from, but I’m sure they still miss their old home.

I kept going through the “jungle” to each of the trees which were easy to get to. I would blow some leaves and see what quality and quantity of nuts were there. If it looked like a good spot, I would sweep as much of the area as I could. Blowing leaves the wrong way or too hard just moves them under the next tree.

It was an odd feeling while I cleared around the trees. It was somewhat like an Easter Egg Hunt but more like a Gold Prospecting Expedition. In prospecting for gold you have to pick a location that looks promising, then clear off the dirt and hope that you find a nugget. Even if you don’t find a nugget, the spots of gold all add up and the more you pick up, the more money you get. Here every mac nut helps fill the 5 gallon bucket, which then fulls the white bags.

When we were done I did my first count. The total was about 96 buckets of nuts (each about 23 pounds each) so this group picked a respectable 2200 pounds or so! Unfortunately, some of the nuts are not good and will be rejected and some will be bad and the pickers could not have known. Still, on Monday I’ll drive the two truckloads of bags down and drop them off. It will be interesting to see just how good they are and what I will be paid.

With the pickers I had to be a foreman, making sure there were enough buckets and bags and places to store them. I ferried some of the family around and did my share of work too. This was a great dry run for what it will be ike when the coffee comes in. Then I will have lots more workers and will probably have to have a foreman to control things. With macadamia nuts they can sit for a while and not go bad. Coffee cherry must be picked when it ripens (and there are many pickings throughout the season). The cherry must be processed almost immediately as it will begin to go bad soon thereafter. It will be a more immediate problem then if there are insufficient bags or facilities, etc. I’ll be ready for that!

Also, on Friday evening I was able to stop by the Kona Coffee Festival in town. I was hoping to be there every day, but will have to limit my trips because of this truckload full of nuts I have right now… I cannot imagine how much more gas a 1/2 ton of extra weight would cost me!

When I stopped by the Kona Coffee Council booth, I saw that the coffee I had donated was up for sale. I stood back and watched as people picked up different farms coffee and made their buying decision. I watched as one lady picked up a bag of my Pele’s Passion Coffee in her left hand, looked at the fron and read the back. Then she held that bag as she picked up and put down other coffees until she fould another competing coffee to buy. I now know what an artist feels like at a gallery. He stands back and watches people enjoy his work and possibly buy it. It is quite satisfying. I also took a few pictures of people while they had my caffee bag held up

Although the majority of my mac nuts will be sold, there are still plenty that I can open and enjoy, free of charge! By the way, should you wonder why the cost of mac nuts is so high? Well, for one reason, they are picked by hand. Then the company who buys them must inspect all the nuts to weed out the bad ones. They check moisture content and so on. Opening the nuts takes considerable work as these things do NOT want to open easily. You can drive over them and they still won’t open easily

I won’t be selling mac nuts on my https://itskona.com webpage, but will be including mac nuts from various suppliers in the gift baskets I’m creating.

However you get them you will soon realize why people pay as much as they do for them. They are FANTASTIC!