So Tired

So Tired was Originally Posted on September 15, 2011 by lavarock

I am often out with the tractor and mower (or shears) trying to get the weeds away from the coffee and fruit trees. It is a losing battle it appears. There is just so much work to do that I can’t catch up.

I just finished cutting the grass and weeds between the coffee rows the other day. I started on the orchard part and only got a few rows done before it started raining. I still have two and a half acres to cut and that area has more rocks and boulders so I must be very careful. The last problem with the tractor cost me over $1000 to fix.

Many people in Kona have moved here, purchased a farm, and decided to grow coffee. The first year of a real crop they go out and try picking it themselves. A could of days of that and they are ready to hire pickers. We pay pickers a very decent wage I think. A good picker can make $200 a day.

With my finances the way they are at the moment, I am having to pick, pulp, clean and dry my own coffee. The coffee cherry ripens quickly in the field and it is hard for one or two people to keep ahead of it, let alone process the stuff too.

There are costs all along the way from bean to cup and every item I can do myself saves a bit of money.

For example, here is the procedure to actually go from tree to cup of coffee.

We pick the coffee cherry and immediately wash them off. Any “cherry” that floats is usually discarded. Then we pulp the cherry. I have a pulper that looks like a cheese grater on a wheel. It nicks the cherry and removes the skin. The skin is discarded and we keep the inside. That inside is usually 2 beans (that look like peanuts), covered with a parchment and a sticky muscilage. We soak the parchemnt to remove the muscilage and set the parchment-covered beans out to dry. We protect them from rain and test their internal moisture. When it gets to about 12%, we scoop the stuff off the deck and bag it. Those bags can be kept for over a year in the proper place. Then when we need roasted coffee, we pull some of that parchment and have it milled. Milling removes the parchment and leaves a green bean. That bean can be stores under proper conditions too.m We take the green coffee and have it roasted to our specifications. It is possible t oroast as little as a half pound in small home roasters, however you need big roasters for any kind of reasonable coffee orders.

If your order is for ground coffee, we or the roaster must grind it. Then either the beans or ground coffee is weighed and placed in a bag. Many of these bags have a one-way seal to let the gasses out and keep the oxygen away from the beans.

These bags are then labeled, sealed and ready for shipment.

Many neighbors sell at farmers markets or on the internet. I run websites for some of my neighbors, in direct competition to myself.

If an order comes in, we print invoices and/or packing slips, many of us use USPS or FedEx or UPS so we go online and print labels and/or postage.

Then when we catch a breath, we await pickup or drive to a drop off location with the package.

As you can see, in my case, I do lots of this myself AND do the farm work and care for my dogs. That is not to say that my neighbors don’t do this and more. Add to this the fertilizing, pruning and pest conttrol and it makes a very time-consuming project.

Then I have an orchard of fruit and spices to work on.

It is no wonder that when I do have a bit of time to write a blog entry or do a newsletter, that I just don’t have the enthusiasm to spell check, so please forgive me. I hunt and peck and often find that I hit the same keys in the same wy to create the same problems. For example, the phrase “to do” would often come out as “t odo” because I hit the space bar a bit too soon. I only use about 3 fingers to type anyway. I save energy that way!

For those who think I really am putting in all this time on the farm have to understand that I also take opportunities to nap half the day or go into town for a meal.

Today I went to Sandras house and helped her with a project. Then we went t oSam Choys new restaurant and had a nice lunch. We saw Sam as we were leaving and chatted a moment. He sat next to Snadra on a flight from California to KOna a while back, but don’t know if he recognized her. I met Sam a few times and have reminded him that we have a friend in common. That is MY claim to fame.

I made some lemon bars from my own lemons, but got the recipe from the Internet. I am not a chef so he has nothing to worry about