Blossom to bean....the process

Aloha Everyone!

The coffee farm is in full bloom and beautiful! I will do my best to describe the process of getting the coffee from bean to bloom! (I am new at this so bear with me please) When we got here January 11th, the coffee trees needed some major TLC. We have been working hard to give them some much needed pruning, picking, and fertilizing. It has been back breaking on some days, and really fun on others! My mother-in-law, Sandy Nolen was with me for an entire month and she worked hard to clean up many, many trees from vines that were choking them out and to feed them with the TLC they needed. We could not have accomplished all that we have without her. (plus her company was great!) Much thanks to you Sandy.

Giving coffee trees TLC is hard work!

My beautiful daughter-in-law Amanda, who is working harder than all of us as a full time mother to my two wonderful grandchildren!

So, once we freed the trees from their oppression of the jungle (which by the way is full time job in itself-this jungle wants to thrive and will do anything to do so) and some much needed rain (catchment is full again, yeah!) we started to see much happier trees, they stood up straight, got some new growth, and shouted "Mahalo, Nolens!"  We were able to pick some cherry and process a couple bags from growth that was already on the trees. But now?? OMG tons of blooms that hopefully will be tons of Coffee Cherry!!! Once the Cherry is dark red we will pick it and process it. In the pictures you will see some of the coffee we already picked and processed. There are some different shades of coffee cherry but it is all the same coffee and will be the same flavor.

               Tree overgrown with vines

                                                                        Coffee Cherry that needs picking

 Do you see what I see? Didn't even know he was there until I just posted this pic!

There are bees all over the blossoms busy doing their jobs! 

Cherry blossoms are from the Gardenia family, they smell wonderful. 

These green cherries are from the last bloom about a month ago. There were not as many blooms last time, but as you can see after the TLC-looks like we will have a lot more this time! This process continues throughout the season-blooms and cherry at different stages, so when we are picking there are some that get picked and some that do not.

After the cherry is picked (we hired pickers the first time to show us how it is done) it goes into our pulper and this machine separates the cherry from the bean. The beans fall into a tub and the cherry is composted to re-use as fertilizer. Once all the cherry has gone through the pulper it sits in a tub in water for about 24 hours and ferments. Then it gets rinsed and moved to the hot house (also needed TLC to get it working correctly)  were it dries. After it is dry (about a couple of days depending on the temperature and humidity outside) the beans (I think they look like peanuts) are in the parchment stage and they get put in burlap sacks and put in a shed where they sit with a de-humidifier for as long as we want them to. When we have enough parchment it gets taken to the Coffee Mill in Hilo and they process and roast the coffee for us. (we are not at this stage yet)

                 Fermenting after pulped                            Coffee cherry husks and beans separated (have                                                                                       to do some by hand that machine misses)

   Parchment on Drying racks

                                                                          112 degrees in the hot house! When I am homesick for                      AZ I go sit in it. LOL

Hot house worker Jimmy 3 the Coffee Farmer. After much deliberation from the 3 Jims (and one trip to the hospital for the original Jim)-they came up with a pretty good way to get it operational! (Jim the 4th had no input.) 

Before Pruning

Chain saw fun!

After pruning

Our trees are also in need of some major pruning. My husband has done many hours of research on how to best do this. Of course there are many different ways to prune coffee trees and everyone believes their way is the right way, so this has been a very arduous task for him. He finally settled on the best way to do this and my son has been working hard with the pruning. There are many rows way in the back that are too tall and need cutting. He has already gone through one chain saw blade and is having the time of his life!!! We are optimistic that this part of the farm will be giving us coffee next spring! We are also optimistic that all these blooms will yield coffee for all who want it and hopeful for rolling out product in the fall! My hubby is working hard on the label, bags, and marketing that is needed to get us up and running! Thanks Honey! 

That is all for now, see ya'll next time!

Aloha,
Crissy

We are not in Kansas (er..AZ) anymore!

Aloha!

Second blog post! Woo hoo! So this time I am going to show ya'll exactly where we are living with pictures and video of the landscape. Yes, it's obvious that we are in a tropical paradise, however, we are also about 1200 feet elevation on a volcano in the middle of nowhere! Well, it feels like nowhere when compared to our urban living we are used to.

When pinpointing exactly where the Nolen pioneers have settled there is actually a crazy way of saying it. We are on the Big Island on the east side (Hilo) in the Puna district, in the town of Mountain View, in the community of Hawaiian Acres. This side of the island is very wet and we get an average of 150 inches a year! However, we are in a bit of drought and have had only one good rain storm since we have been here.

Speaking of rain......we are on a catchment system. The entire house pulls water from a catchment that is filled from rain. Because it hasn't rained in a while and we now have my son and his family here we may have to purchase water to fill our catchment. ;( Pray for rain! Our drinking water comes from a spring that we drive to. There are spickets and everyone just pulls up and fills water bottles! The water is free and the is good. Living here I have realized how much waste we have on the mainland. No unnecessary water goes down our drains! I have buckets in the kitchen sink and we re-use our gray water outside on the plants in the front yard! I am very proud of the changes my family has already made in conservation and recycling.

We do not have trash pick up out here. We have to haul our trash. So I have about 10 different trash cans and we sort as we make our trash. The transfer station (like the dump) is about 5 miles away and we throw it all in the back of the truck and take it there. I am so excited to be more responsible with trash and water! I am happy to also be in one of those states that is on the back of class bottles, cans, and water bottles- 5 cents baby! We are currently drinking our way to many riches! :)

Back to the landscape. In Hawaiian Acres the roads are mostly dirt 1 lane and very narrow. Our main road is paved for a while then about 1/2 a mile from our house it turns to dirt. (well not really dirt, more like smooshed up volcanic rock. There is no real dirt. When planting you have to bring in soil.)  It is bumpy and fun to drive on! The roads are labeled by numbers going north to south and letters going east to west. It is on a very easy to follow grid. The also have Hawaiian names but everyone just calls them by there number and letter. Our road is Road 1 or Uhina Ana and Road F or Ale we live on road 1 just past road F. So we live at F and 1. Say it all together it will give you a giggle. (F'in 1) hehe.

Our farm is not far from the beach! If we go to the beaches to the north of us it is about 30 minutes and if we go to the beaches to the south of us it is also about 30 minutes. Both areas are beautiful and we have found something we love different about all of them.For example we have 2 that are perfect for the grandbabies and we have also been to a clothing optional beach! Lots of nudie patooties plus spinner dolphins jumping out of the water! (Pretty sure they were trying to get a look at the naked hippies-old, young, fat, skinny, it didn't matter!)  We could also drive to the Kona side which is about 2 hours over the volcano. This is the more touristy area with big white sands beaches. Our side has very little sand and is mostly volcanic rock and volcano warmed water! We have seen whales just about every time we have headed to the beach from the shore. I have yet to get a picture because they are so far out. They jump and their entire bodies come out of the water. It is an amazing thing to see.

I am including pictures and video of some of our drives and views. Hopefully you'll get a good picture of our new life's landscape! :)  Coming soon: Views from the coffee farm and the coffee farming process!

Aloha,
Crissy

Yep nude guy boogie boarding

You bought a what?

February 11, 2015

Yes! We bought a coffee farm! Where? In Hawaii? What? You are quitting your job and moving to Hawaii to farm coffee??? Crissy, come on, you don't even drink coffee! Yup.....I know crazy. It all started way back in 2000 when my in-laws, Jim and Sandy Nolen took us on a wonderful family vacation to Kauai, HI. We feel in love with that island and returned 2 more times-2005, and 2010. During the 2010 trip my husband and I started talking that we need to make living on the islands a reality. 

Over the next few years we continued to talk about and play around with the idea more seriously. Our youngest daughter, Chelsea graduated from high school and fulfilled her dream of going to the university of Hawaii to study Marine Biology (yes, she fell in love way back in 2000 when she was only 4 years old). So, with her move set to Oahu, we started talking even more and looking into how to make this a reality. My husband started by looking at properties on multiple islands. He sent me various links to many different ones. Then I got an email with "holy crap, never mind look at this one!" in the subject line. Sure enough, I agreed with the holy crap comment and could not believe what I was seeing. It was on the Big Island (did I mention we had never been to that island?) and perfect. 

Long story short.....the property looked beautiful, the house looked perfect and with a built in business and income! I mean really.....how hard can it be to farm and process coffee? So we talked to our children-our son Jimmy, his wife Amanda, and their two children said they would move with us and help run the farm! So we made this dream a reality and here we are! Our daughter Chelsea is now only a short flight away, with in-state tuition coming soon! And our other daughter Courtney will hopefully be coming over soon as well. We said goodbye to our wonderful friends and family in AZ who I miss terribly, and did it! 

My hubby only stayed for two weeks, and had to go back to AZ to continue to get the pets ready for the trip and to work. He should be here officially in May. My wonderful mother-in-law, Sandy is here so I would not be alone until Jimmy, Amanda, the first group of pets (their two cats) and my grand babies arrive (which is today-how would you like to be on that airplane? ) Yippee!!! 

Me and Sandy have been working hard getting the house ready and doing some clean up of the farm, as well as fertilizing the coffee plants. I have sweated a lot, and have literally worked my ass off (15 lbs of it!) this first month and love it all! 

This first blog is dedicated entirely to the move and the craziness of moving 4 adults, two very young children, 4 cats, two dogs, and way too much stuff (even though I felt like I purged a lot of my stuff-nope I still have way too much!) 

As this blog progresses I will be adding details of the farm,the coffee process and all the adventures that go along with living on the Big Island!

Disclaimer-please do not judge my writing! I am not a writer, nor profess to be clever or witty enough to publish an awesome blog. I will do my best with editing (which means reading it once before publishing) and will try and bring this awesome adventure to life with pictures and text to all that read it! 
 Aloha,
Crissy