-even coffee farmers need to breathe-

A few of my discoveries from this past week::

#1)  When you live in Hawaii you have to deal with gecko poop, whether you live in a greenhouse or not!  

#2)  Relocating to the apartment just happened to put us several miles closer to the best gelato on the Island!

#3)  Being a coffee farmer is not glamorous, but I can truly say I enjoy it! 

Life in the apartment is wonderful!  Derek loves having a toilet.. two toilets, actually!  I love doing laundry and washing dishes in a sink!  Our bodies are grateful for the paved road (versus the mile long, bouncy and jarring trek to the greenhouse).  The little homemaker in me is flourishing; cooking new recipes, compiling a list of DIY projects to accomplish in our spare time.  And Kai LOVES the dog door!  Driving home at night, exhausted from the day, dirty from head to toe and with a truck full of groceries, it's a massive sigh of relief to realize 'home' is a little closer and considerably more convenient.  

That said, we still love the greenhouse and our time out there: whether it's lunch break after spraying fungus or a quick stop to pick up bananas and vegetables from the garden.  Living there for six months instilled a great deal of appreciation in us both and for that reason alone I wouldn't change a thing!  Not to mention, we both have an unquenchable appetite for adventure and will probably find ourselves craving the jungle in no time.

Now, for a little peek into life during harvest..

Four walls and a (non-plastic) roof haven't changed the fact that we wake up with the sun.  Although a real drag on Saturday mornings, this does come in handy when you need to get all the way across town and have to deal with the snail paced morning traffic.  Our breakfast of choice these days includes two cups of coffee, (Kona, of course... I fear we've joined the ranks of 'coffee snobs') fried eggs and toast.  Getting dressed doesn't require much thought; jeans and a long sleeved shirt, unless you want to get sunburned, scratched and eaten by bugs, work shoes and a hat.  Lunches packed, coffee topped off and we join the endless line of cars making their way into Kailua, driving 5mph for several miles.  It's a different story when we're working at our fields... but that was not the case for most of this week.  We try to make the most of the drive.  I read my Bible, sometimes out loud (if I'm not in Exodus..), we crack jokes, I clip my toenails, whatever suits our fancy.  Once we're in the fields it's just me and the cherries and, hopefully, a good playlist or audio book.  Two and a half days of picking yielded about 400lbs of cherry.  The red ones are ideal, but you also pick the orangey & on-the-verge-of-being-red ones.  (And you can't help but ending up with some yellow/green ones in your basket..)  

Here's the conclusion I've come to:  Focusing on the heat, the rain or the feeling that I'll never be done is guaranteed to make my smile droop and the hours drag by.  I can think about my broken and bleeding toenail (the day I decided I didn't actually need to wear work shoes...).  Or I can dwell on the fact that we still have to go grocery shopping after nine hours in the field, and chances are pretty high that I'll want to sit down and cry.  OR I can crank up the volume on my headphones and sing my heart out!  I can talk with God and marvel at His creation!  I can laugh at Kai's antics.. and the day takes on a whole different feel.  'Choose your attitude' seems like a terribly cheesy thing to say, but I believe it's fairly accurate.
The 'Uncle' from church that we were picking for has his own de-pulper and we were able to try it out after we finished picking!  Inside each cherry is (usually) two coffee beans, and the de-pulper is what squeezes them out of the cherry skin.  It was very interesting; my favorite step so far!  After popping the beans out they are dumped in a tub of water so that the "bad ones" can float to the top and be scooped out.  These are the ones that the Borer Beetle ate away at, over-ripe ones, etc.  The rest of the beans are put in clean water and left to ferment over night.  The next day we rinsed them all thoroughly and spread them all out on racks to dry.  Gaining all this experience and knowledge is amazing and we're so thankful for this opportunity.  We'll have to go back every few days to turn the beans and depending on how sunny the days are, they'll be dry in a week or two.

It'll be interesting to see what will come next: taking the dried beans through the next few steps, round three of picking at that field or picking for the first time at our fields.  Or maybe it'll all need to be done at the same time and we'll be recruiting all you friends and family for the authentic Hawaiian experience!  You know you want to...

While it may be true that Derek and I are young and can 'sleep when we're dead' the fact remains, working seven days a week starts to wear on a person.  We're tremendously thankful for all the work we've had, but we've made an executive decision that today is our 'Sabbath day'.  God created the universe; sun, moon and stars, every living creature and breathed life into human beings and THEN He rested!!  Isaiah 40:28 makes it clear that God does not get tired; yet He clearly establishes this day in the very beginning and commands us, His children, to follow His example.  Exodus 31:17 says that 'on the seventh day He stopped working and was refreshed.'  I read that the word 'refreshed' in that verse literally means 'to breathe' and something deep within me resonates with that.  I need to breathe!  I need to be re-fueled and rejuvenated; my Heavenly Father knows that and actually created me that way!  He is my strength and my inspiration and He never intended for me to be invincible.  He gave me limitations SO THAT I would realize my desperate need for Him.
We started our day with cinnamon rolls, coffee and embracing the fact that we weren't in a hurry to get anywhere!  We'd been in withdrawals from our lack of ocean time and got a good fix in today- snorkeling, diving and being with friends.  And now, without further adieu, we're off to continue in our non-laboring, Labor day and possibly take advantage of that delicious gelato down the road!!