Another Week Gone By

Look how cute and tiny!

So, I have been procrastinating writing a post for this week because well, nothing particularly interesting has happened. It was hot. It rained a bit. We got woken up in the middle of the night by a giant moth trying to get into our cabin. I saw my first centipede and it had bright blue legs. We started playing Cribbage to entertain ourselves since all we brought aside from our computers, books, and writing/drawing materials was a deck of cards. Oh, and I made friends with a little baby gecko who lives in our cabin. I love the baby gecko and Dylan is constantly poking fun at me for this. Every night I wonder aloud, “where are you Baby Gecko?” and then get overly excited when she comes in for the night to hug a bulb on our string of Christmas lights to keep warm, I assume.

We have fallen into a pretty regular routine here and haven’t done much of anything that I haven’t already told you about. We made another batch of hot sauce this week and canned it so we can bring some home. We made another batch of tomatillo gazpacho to use up the little green and purple orbs that are taking over the garden. Now the jars of cold green soup are taking over our mini-fridge. But it is okay because we broke down and bought a giant bag of corn chips to eat with it so I think we’ll manage. We also made our first batch of guacamole as we came into a wealth of avocados that all happened to ripen at the exact same time. After three whole weeks of basically zero snacking, the chips and guac seriously hit the spot.

Mid-building lunch break=Dylan's introduction to the burger.

Last weekend, Dylan and the other men on the farm put together an epic play-set for little K. It took them all weekend but Dylan seemed to enjoy the male bonding while building and drinking beer part of it, that and our hosts rewarded everyone with what Dylan described as “the best burger I have ever had in my life, ever.” There is this little snack shack type of thing at the end of our driveway, which is really the closest thing to a restaurant for miles. It’s hardly ever open, really just for lunch and we never thought much of it, though our hosts rave about it and have a regular burger date each Friday.

Even though it’s local beef, completely free-range, hormone-free, all-natural, etc., the kind of thing that might tempt me to try out some red meat finally, I didn’t try it. Dylan, however, can’t stop thinking about it. They mix kimchi into the patty which when it cooks leaks out this sweet tangy flavor that is unlike any other burger. At least that’s what they all tell me. Perhaps beef will make it’s debut into my diet by way of a Kolamas burger but, right now I’m still more interested in trying their Mahi burger I’m also told is absolutely amazing. I’ll let you know what happens with the beef, I’m sure Dylan’s craving will get the better of him before too long and we’ll end up going down there for a second taste in the next few weeks. We have been good though, this was the only non-farm meal since our arrival and it was a gift from our hosts.

This is Kalama's, a few hundred feet down the hill from the farm and our landmark for first remember how to get home.

Anyway, enough about the burger that I can’t even vouch for. K and I spent our week playing on her new play set, which she could not be more excited about. We’ve had a great time bonding on the swing set. She asks me for help getting up on the swing and says “Auntie, push please!” (they call all adult women “Auntie” here). She is still pretty small for this thing, but that does not stop this girl, she is fearless and determined to explore the whole thing, no matter how small she might be. She has already conquered the rock wall after only a few days of practice. I am super impressed with her methodical technique too, it was as if she actually mapped out her path before climbing up, figuring out exactly which holds she needed to take in order to avoid getting stuck on the side. It is really fun to watch this not-even-two year old climb a rock-wall; she looks impossibly small, yet so powerful at the same time, it is quite amazing.

Today, I went to a baby shower for one of the women who often joins us for the weekly farm potluck. These people have such a beautiful, kind, and supportive community, it’s no wonder they all planted their roots here and will probably never leave. I can’t wait to have that again back in New Enland. It was fun to socialize for a bit since we mostly keep to ourselves. The passion fruit mimosas made the bits of awkwardness totally worth the effort. I don’t really know everyone and I was feeling weird about going, especially because I found out last minute and didn’t have time to craft a nice baby-shower type gift (being on financial hibernation means buying one wasn’t in the budget). So instead we came up with the idea of making a big batch of orange marmalade since on a drive the previous day we had collected five oranges from a basket on the side of the road marked “free fruit!” The marmalade is really delicious and was super easy to make, although Dylan should really speak to that because he made it, I just watched and told everyone how easy it was, like I usually do.

Getting ready for the shower, that's my mimosa in front of the Bird of Paradise flower, we also gather here for our potlucks.

Anyway, the marmalade was a big success, she loved the gift and it made a big enough batch that we have one jar in the fridge and one canned and added to our “to be shipped home” collection of goods we’ve made while here, along with our hot sauce and pickled fennel. We just opened the pickled fennel today and it is so tangy and delicious! I am usually not a fan of fennel, but I will eat just about anything pickled and I have quickly fallen for this licorice-flavored plant. Dylan added tangerine slices to mellow the fennel flavor a bit and it worked beautifully. We already plan to start another batch in the next few days so we can share with everyone on the farm and send more of it home. There is tons of fennel in the garden and no one else seems to use it very much, which means lots and lots of pickles and a very happy Josephine.

On the menu tonight is an Asian style vermicelli rice noodle dish with bok choy, broccoli, basil, mushrooms, and some Hawaiian red peppers, the same kind we use for the hot sauce. And probably another rum smoothie. This week we were introduced to Rollinia, a big creamy yellowish fruit covered in spikes that turn black as it ripens. It tastes very much like custard, or maybe pudding pie. It is banana/vanilla-like in flavor, but more mild and very tasty. The texture is quite unique. Dylan didn’t love it but I cannot wait to get my hands on some more of these wonderfully strange things. Dylan decided to blend ours up with a mango and a bunch of rum and it was delicious, as usual. We drank a huge jar of it over a game of Cribbage, which I won. Dylan says I have a knack for strategy games because I always over-analyze and excessively plan everything, which comes in quite handy when it comes to strategy games—and finding us jobs and places to live, I like to remind him. I have already begun scoping out the apartment rentals in Portland, just to get an idea of what to expect a few months from now...like he said, I tend to over-prepare just a bit :) 

Developing a Routine

It is Friday, February 15, 2013 and we have just completed our first full week at the farm. We are starting to settle into our lives here and have begun to develop a basic schedule and routine, which is nice. Having a routine helps me feel grounded and Dylan is feeling much more at ease now that he has a pretty good idea of what needs to be done each day and has, for the first time, been able to relax completely since we left Seattle and became essentially homeless. The transient lifestyle is definitely not for us in the long term, but being stationary here in Hawaii for a few months is not a bad way to spend our time, especially since we’ve had a few cloudy days to escape from the sun.

Aloha! This hammock makes a nice spot to relax at the front of the farm, check out those coconuts hanging from the trees!

So here’s a basic rundown of our daily routine thus far. We wake up nice around 6:30ish and slowly get ready for the day. I have never been one to allow more than 15minutes or so to get ready when I have to be up early so having over an hour is an amazing luxury that I feel like I missed out on when I was younger. I guess that’s one bonus of going to bed before 10pm every night, we can wake up slow, have a cup of iced coffee with almond milk, pick out what to wear, fill up and drink down an entire water bottle and fill it back up again, and eat a little breakfast. Oh and then spend about 15 minutes applying that all-important sunscreen.

At 8, I head over to the house to hang out with my little buddy K, while Dylan heads off to move the mobile chicken coop, feed all the chickens (there’s a second much larger coop with free-ranging fenced in area), and start his projects. K and I sometimes tag along and help with the chickens, she likes to toss them some grains and watch them peck around for a bit. Then we usually head back to the house and read some stories, or splash around in the water table or whatever else she feels like doing.

Check out that nice mulch work Dylan's done under the mango tree, lots of shoveling, he's doing all the trees on the farm.

This week, Dylan has gone from planting a border of lemongrass and comfrey around the perimeter of the garden, to mulching the mango trees. Since he spends much of his morning working independently, he’s started taking his phone out and listening to NPR podcasts while he works and zoning out in nerd-heaven. At some point in the day, little K decides it’s time to make “salads,” an activity consisting of ripping up pruned and discarded leaves from the front bush, and using them to fill a salad bowl that she delivers to Dylan so he can take a break from mulching to pretend-munch on her carefully prepared lunch. She loves this activity that came about as an attempt on my part to positively redirect her desire to rip the pages of her books, and now we bring Dylan about 2-4 salads a morning. It’s so cute to hear her say “Dylan” (sounds more like Dalyn) when I ask whom her salad is for.

When noontime rolls around, K heads in with her mom for some lunch and a nap while Dylan and I retire from the intense midday heat for a nice long sit, some reading, more iced coffee, and lunch. Every other day or so we brew a big pot of really delicious Kona coffee, put it in a big mason jar and pop it in the fridge so that we always have some of the precious black gold on hand to cool us down and replenish some of the energy the sun has inevitably drained away. Dylan makes the coffee on the weaker side so I can actually drink it (watered down further with ice cubes and a few tablespoons of almond milk) and so that the coffee lasts longer. Coffee is expensive here even though it’s harvested and processed next-door to us in multiple directions. Coffee flowers fill the air with a sweet, light fragrance all over the island; it is really lovely.

Some kitchen staples provided by our hosts include coffee, brown rice, beans, oils, vinegars, salt, tuna, spices (chili powder gets used most), quinoa, almond milk, dried beans of a few varieties, canned tomatoes and tomato paste, and salt and pepper.

Coffee is a big part of our morning, accompanying our granola, or quinoa with VT maple syrup (thanks mom!) and a fresh mango, papaya, or banana. At lunch, we pair our deliciously nutty iced coffee with a garden fresh, mixed-green salad topped with some combination of garlic greens, red onions, canned tuna, quinoa or brown rice, pumpkin seeds or macadamia nuts (my latest island obsession) When they eventually ripen, we’ll add some avocados into the mix. It is so hot that the idea of anything warm at lunch time is enough to kill anyone’s appetite, so we’ve stuck with daily salads to munch on as we sip our coffee and read and write for a few hours under the shade of our kitchen awning.

I love this part of the day. It is much like Europe’s Siesta I imagine, and it suits us quite nicely. Noontime hits and just as we all feel like we’re melting in the sun, everyone heads off to their respective spaces for a few hours of relief from the heat. Dylan rinses off since he gets pretty dirty working on the farm, and plops himself down at the table, chugs a bunch of water and opens his book (he’s already read 741 out of almost 900 pages of the Huey Long biography since we’ve been here!). Since his work is far more physically draining, I have taken on the role of lunch prep and pour us a cup of iced coffee, go out and harvest some greens and make our salads while Dylan gets his energy back.

I have been using my Siesta time to catch up on my Pinteresting, to upload pictures, and do a little education research and writing for K and the preschool project as well as for my other blog, Searchingfor Sparks. This week I also created a professional page on Facebook for my Ed. Blog so I can post more pictures, share links, quotes, and more of the resources I’ve been accumulating now that I have a few hours every afternoon to dedicate to it. Have I mentioned yet how much I LOVE being self-employed? I feel so much more productive than I have ever been! It’s great to finally be able to get caught up on all the reading, writing, and projects I was forced to put off when I was working at the preschool because I just didn’t have any energy left after an 11 ½ hour day.

Dylan, too, has taken to farm-life with great relish. Being able to work hard for a few hours and make a ton of visible progress, brainstorm and prep food projects, cook dinner and have plenty of time to read and write and philosophize, or whatever it is he does while I’m working away on my laptop, really suits him well. We’ve already been daydreaming and brainstorming ideas about making this kind of life possible once we get to Maine. Neither of us is particularly interested in being full-time farmers trying to make a living from farming, it’s too much work and our love of farming comes from our love of eating well, not necessary from working the land, though that is an enjoyable part of the process, it’s not the motivation. I don’t want to get ahead of myself so I won’t share the results of our brainstorm sessions quite yet (Dylan is constantly calling me out for doing this) but fear not, I doubt I’ll be able to keep my excitement under wraps for very long.

Check out those bananas up there growing next to the potting station in the main garden! These little guys are called "apple bananas" and they are so sweet, a little tangy and have skin that is yellow and velvety soft when ripe, I'm in love with them

Anyway, once we’ve had our fill of reading and writing, or rather, once we’ve cooled off enough (usually around 3-4pm), we head off to do something fun before it’s time to feed the chicken, collect all the eggs from the day, and start cooking dinner. Monday we headed off to the super shaded part of the farm to do some yoga, that’s right, I got Dylan to do a full hour yoga session with me and he actually enjoyed himself! Tuesday we headed into town in search of some items we needed, like flip-flops for Dylan, a nail-brush to get the garden out from under our fingernails, and a bottle of white wine to sip on. We lucked out and found a shopping plaza (after a lot of stressful driving and searching) that had a drug store that happened to have a decent wine selection. Rather than our typical preference for oaky, buttery, California Chardonnays, we opted for a light and refreshing Chennin Blanc, on special for 7$, perfect for our state of financial hibernation (thanks Dan Eling for coining that phrase).

Every Wednesday there is a farm pot-luck dinner and the theme for this week was “Greek,” though it was really more Mediterranean because I think only one dish could claim it’s culinary roots to Greek cuisine but, but everything was so delicious. It was cool to hang out with everyone on the farm for the night and get to know everyone a bit. Dylan made another batch of our farm-variety caponata, a tangy roasted eggplant relish, since we had an abundance of those delicious purple vegetables this week, and a big plate of sliced and grilled kalamata olive bread to accompany it. Others made humus, baba ganoush, whole-wheat pitas, beef kababs and yogurt chicken skewers with big slices of red onion and whole mushrooms. I stuck to the chicken and it was stunningly tasty, but Dylan raved about the beef kababs. We ended the night feeling satisfied, sleepy, and full of good food and good company. I think I am going to like this tradition and I know Dylan is happy to show off his culinary skills to an eager and appreciative weekly audience.

Harold H. Higashihara Park

Yesterday, being Valentine’s Day and all, we decided to head out on a little adventure. There is this giant, amazing playground and park we kept driving past on our way into town that I wanted to check out and photograph for Searching for Sparks, so Dylan offered to take me there. We wandered around this incredible play structure, with the ocean down the hill in the background and played like little kids, imagining how hard it would have been to drag us away from this place had we come here as seven year olds. It was a ton of fun and Dylan even agreed to snap a few pictures for me since I’m always the one behind and never in front of the camera.

After we got our fill of playing and photographing, we headed off to search for a bottle of Hawaiian rum to mix with the spectacular array of tropical fruit we have accumulated this week. We headed to Island Naturals, the local natural food store that happens to be closing its doors at the end of the weekend. We got a great bottle of rum and stocked up on a lot of basics like olive oil, granola, mixed nuts, and a few other things that were seriously marked down as part of the closing sale. We also picked up a ½ gallon of milk since our hosts are going to teach us to make Kiefer, a fermented dairy product similar to yogurt but more drinkable (and sour) and full of even more healthy bacteria. They make it all the time and mix it with the tropical fruits of the farm and it’s perfect for smoothies, not to mention the insane nutritional benefits. More on that once we get our first batch going.

This was the best cauliflower I have ever had!

We ended our trip to town with a delicious gelato at a cute, islandy sweets shop next to the market. We split a cup of “Moka Mudslide” that was Kona coffee flavored with mac nuts and chocolate chunks. It was so, so good, especially since it was the first sweet treat we’ve had since our arrival, except for all the fruit of course. Back at the farm, we made a tasty dinner of sesame fried kale and blackened chili cauliflower, both of which we harvested only a few minutes prior to cooking. We celebrated the day with blended rum cocktails with the papaya, mango, and passion fruits we gathered earlier and watched a cute romantic comedy called Switched with Jason Bateman and Jennifer Aniston. It was a lovely Valentine’s Day and filled with Dylan’s favorite joke, “hey, want to go to Hawaii for Valentine’s Day?”

So now it is Friday afternoon and it’s time to start the weekend off with a trip to the beach. It’s about 3:30 here now so here’s hoping we’ll avoid another sunburn! Who knows what we’ll do this weekend, so far making pesto and going for a hike are our only plans but I’ll be sure to let you know next week what kinds of adventures we ended up on!

I actually got Dylan to smile for a picture! Happy weekend everyone :)