Fire!!

It's over now but that was about tooooo much excitement for me. Ron was finally taking some time to relax between drying and raking coffee. He was looking towards the ocean for whales when smoke arose from the fields below. He yelled at me that he was taking the Gator down for a look. When he phoned me back we decided a 911 call to the fire department was next. There are houses down there but you enter from another road about 1/4 mile down and I was having a hard time explaining to dispatch how to get there so I met the fire truck at the corner and directed them. Meanwhile Ron was cutting the water line to the irrigation to get buckets down there. A few pickers were around and they help tote water. Another neighbor helped the fire trucks navigate to the location as Ron said it was right behind a new house built there a few years ago and could be imminent danger to them.

Endless water is availble if you can get to it and that's when the helicopter arrived. The first fire truck was running short on water and a second had arrived so it looked pretty well under control but with many hot spots. The helicopter headed towards the ocean dipped an extremely large vessel in the ocean and headed back. With a sploosh it opened and dropped it's load over the first hot spot. After several trips our air fire force had the job done.

I'm sure I'll read about the theories in the paper tomorrow. We have some ideas but will hold our speculation until after the investigation. The fire didn't start on our property but near it. We lost 60 coffee trees or so but feel it could have been a lot worse if Ron had not taken a break to look for those whales. And NO (don't anyone ask) that is not how we usually get roasted coffee!

Mele Kalikimaka me ka Hau'oli Makahiki Hou!

.....that's Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year! From our farm to you and thanks for making our season bright!

We are still picking coffee. After the good rain the other day we have some our crop ripening again. We lost quite a bit from the drought this fall. No rain for 2 months does not do well for the coffee trees nor the beans.

Coffee is all packaged as we finally managed to get all the Christmas orders out. Since many requested ground coffee we were able to find a used commercial grinder for sale. We purchasd it last week and will now be able to provide ground coffee much faster and fresher. And best of all it will be easier for me to package. Another positive is that it has several grind levels and you will be able to request the grind you like all the way from espresso to press pot.

Honu Kai B&B, one of the local bed and breakfasts that serves our coffee orders 5# at a time. I am happy to annouce that we will be offering these 5# bags on our website after the new year. For a limited time we will offer them @ $112.00 and that includes free shipping.