Mele Kalikimaka!

Mele Kalikimaka!

This is my favourite Christmas song and has been since I was little, now I am finally in Hawaii and I get to say it. It's a little dream come true, might be lame but it makes me happy.

Merry Christmas, hope your day is filled happiness and love!

Pirates of the Pacific

After a day of heavy weeding at a neighbouring organic farm, helping them prepare for market, we took a little trip to the ocean. Michelle posted some images in the last entry, but let me tell you about the magic of the place. The feel was something out of a Hollywood shlocky pirate movie. We found ourselves standing atop 50 foot cliffs with giant waves crashing in on the rocks below...it was truly a jaw dropping experience! The smell of the salt water mist is something I will never tire of…neither did I seem to tire of exclaiming ‘wow!’ or ‘awesome!’ every time a massive wave crashed on the shore.

There was a rock grouping that jutted out into the water that was climbable to take one out to a lava tower sitting on the ocean. Standing atop that rocky peak was like standing on the bow of a giant ship sailing freely over the powerful and awe-inspiring ocean, invoking feelings of respect and humility for the energies at hand, but stirring that need in the human soul to pursue the exhilaration of adventuring freely into the unknown...my crappy words can't convey the sense of liberation held in that moment on the rocks...the energy of the crashing waves exploding against the cliffs, and the gleam of the near-setting sun reflecting off the water is something that every human should experience once before leaving this fascinating realm.

I’ll never tire of sitting along a coast and watching massive rolling waves crest in...generated from untold energies somewhere on a massive globe of endless wonder and possibility….awesome!!!

And on a site note, we found a wild papaya tree in that same area...Michelle got up on my shoulders, and was just able to reach the ripe bottom fruits. It was an unpollinated tree...the papaya had no seeds! But sweet and yummy nonetheless. Further down the way, my we found several wild noni trees.

Noni is a pungent white fruit that has been used medicinally here for ages. Mainstream health stores carry the juice. I've been collecting noni and fermenting it in the traditional Hawaiian way - stuff em in a jar, and leave em in the sun...works like a charm! The juice seeps out rather quickly once a ripe noni has been plucked from the tree. They become translucent within hours of being in the sun, and begin giving off a smell much like ‘ripe’ blue cheese! Definitely not the fruit for marketing to the holiday crowd...but I love it! Morning ritual has become drinking a couple ounces before going running and watching the sun rise (although it's cloudy most mornings due to being on the rainy side of the island). I will get a picture of the sun rising over the ocean at some point...

My morning runs have also become my morning fruit collecting adventure. Each day I pass heavy fruiting lilikoi vines (yellow passion fruit) and collect whatever has fallen onto the road during the night...the juice from these babies will make you wonder why you ever spent a lifetime shovelling snow and eating food that's been picked unripe and shipped a thousand miles on a truck...lilikoi rocks!
Came home with a coconut 2 days ago, and a wild avocado yesterday...
Gotta go now, time for a morning run...
Will tell you all about the discovery of breadfruit and the joys of macheteing coconuts tomorrow...
Live big!!!
Mike

New Help Exchangers...

One week ago four Chinese girls arrived at the farm and will be staying here for 2 weeks. They came to try to learn to speak English more fluently and to experience Hawaii...

Needless to say, there is always the sound of giggling and excitment...and a lot of repeating words, you don't realize how silly squash sounds until you've said it about 30 times. I've been doing a lot of spelling out words and repeating syllables, at least I know where my vocabulary has gotten lazy. Another issue is using slang and teaching them incorrect English...gotta be careful.
Here's a picture of three of the girls sitting on the rock...

They are really nice girls and I've connected with them a bit, I enjoy hanging out with them. They think Mike is funny because he always hunts for fruit and carries his travel spoon and fruit knife for whenever he find some free tropical fruit...he is always prepared! Today I stood on his shoulders to pick a papaya in a park, it was very fun. Here's a pic of the park with the ocean cliff that we went to...didn't think to get a pic of the papaya harvesting but I'm sure this will do...

We're getting ready for Christmas here, they have a huge celebration on Christmas Day and about 200 people show up for it...should be crazy! It's also weird not to have snow...or cold weather to make it seem like winter. Feels like summer but it is getting a wee bit chilly here...got down to 72 degrees the other day and I had to wear long pants!

Tootles

Michelle

PEACOCKS!!!

The other morning we walked outside to discover 2 very beautiful peacocks roaming freely around the property...our hosts said that someone in the neibourhood owns them but let's them go where they desire. It was quite a sight to see, I have never seen one outside a zoo. It made me happy to see them out enjoying themselves.

They are beautiful creatures and we were informed that when they are in heat they make a cooing noise incessantly...hope they come back with their plumes open!

Hawaii life is not too shabby...lots of fruit and amazing animals to admire.

More later,

Michelle

Fruit Farm Work Exchange...

We have been staying at a small fruit farm in Pahoa on the Big Island for 2 weeks now. They are nice people with a lot of tasks, haven't written for awhile because we've been so busy.

We have been learning how to harvest different fruits like bananas, avocado, tangerine (gotta pick em just right or they tear), star fruit and how to do tree grafting. The banana process is quite satisfying, it requires chopping down the tree with a machete! The tree is going to die anyway because it is at the end of its lifecycle, so we aren't unnecessarily hurting it...little baby tree shoots come off the main tree to continue living and producing. The tree is very soft and the machete just slices through it. The way to tell if it's ready to harvest is if the flower at the end of the banana bunch is dead, if there's any life left it is not ready. We got a huge hauled of bananas, which will not be wasted with Mike around...

On Sunday we went to a yoga and surf day, at Honoli'i Beach Park, that was provided by one guys that lives at the farm...it was so nice to sit in the sun and relax. The waves were very big and I decided to give surfing a try. I went out into the smaller waves which were still extremely powerful, I have absolutely no training with a surf board so I was just going with it. After a few attempts I caught a wave and went zooming, it was exhilarating to go that fast...felt like I was flying. Later in the day I tried again but got carried out a little too far and got machine washed by a big wave...I'll stick to the small waves for a while and get some instruction...
Mike caught a wave too and got to feel the exhilaration, he was so excited that he forgot to try to stand up...at the last second he was like "oh yeah, gotta stand up" but it was too late the wave had started to wane and the shore was too close. Unfortunately we don't have any surfing pictures as we were both in the water.

The highlight of yesterday was going swimming at Carlsmith Beach Park and seeing a sea turtle!! I
noticed him first and called everybody over. He was so big, probably 3 and a half feet and came right up to us!! He was very friendly and stayed with us for about 15-20 minutes but a lady came over, got in the water and started touching him and pulling at him, he swatted at her and left. It's actually illegal to touch the sea turtles because their skin is so sensitive to oils and bacteria. It was so beautiful to get to see that gentle creature in his natural habitat and not in a zoo...I loved it and I think I connected with him telepathically...but I could also just be crazy...

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