Business as Usual
14 September 2009
I haven't been writing for the website as much as I used to and recently there
have been several requests for more updates. I have several posts half
way written but I always seemed to get distracted before I finish them.
So I'll make this quick, nothing but a short synopsis of what we've been up to
recently. Hopefully I'll finish before I get distracted.
We're getting another intern soon. His name is Nicolas and he's from
France. I plan to spend a lot of time catching up on farm work while
he's here. Because of that, I've been trying to spend this last week
concentrating on office work, sales and website changes. How did it go?
Well, my desk is cluttered with paperwork, our coffee sales are
dismally slow and I didn't even start most of the website changes I had
planned. I did get time to finish the new website header though,
did you notice the change?
I've been wanting to fix the header since first making the website five
years ago. About a year ago I finally broke down and paid a
professional graphic designer friend to make me a new header. His
first idea looked fantastic but I decided it didn't match the existing
website so I asked him to try again. I liked his second idea better
but I still had a long list of nit picky changes I wanted. Rather than
paying him for all the minor changes I decided to do them myself. The
changes were relatively simple but it still took me over a year before I
got it all done. I probably should have just paid him to make the
changes. It's done now though and I'm fairly happy with the results.
Did you notice the gecko? Valerie and the girls like that part the
best. Maybe someday I'll have the gecko make more appearances but for
now he's only on some pages.
Even though I had planned to spend the entire week doing office work there's
always farm work to do. I spent all day Thursday working with a field
of young trees that needed some attention. I took me much longer than
expected and I still had five rows left on Friday. That's when my buddy
Matt showed up, eager to go surfing. Using that as leverage I convinced
him to help me finish those last five rows. Even though I promised that
"It'll only take a few minutes," it still took us until lunchtime to
finish.
When we finally made it to the ocean the waves were only mediocre and we
only stayed for an hour or so. Still, being able to take an hour off,
any time of day, any day of the week, is a great reason to be Kona coffee
farmer. I had a crew of coffee pickers working that day so I didn't
want to be gone for too long anyways. When I got home I had about an
hour of "free time" before the pickers were done. It turned out that
hour of "free time" was perfectly timed with an impromptu farm tour.
A friend's grandparents were in town and they stopped by to visit the
farm. I enjoy giving farm tours. Tours usually takes about
a half hour followed by another half hour of chatting and sipping freshly
brewed coffee. This time we also has some freshly baked cookies
and freshly picked pineapple.
Our visitors finished their tour, the pickers finished picking and it
started to rain all at once. That was great timing because all I had
left to do for the day was pulp coffee which I can do in the barn, out
of the rain. I finished just in time for a quick shower before
dinner. I suppose I could have written this post after dinner but
a new Netflix movie had just arrived so I watched that instead.
So as you can see, life on the farm is business as usual. I have a
little work to do today but being a weekend, I'm not going to work too
hard. All I have to do is stir the coffee, fix a leak in the guest
room shower before the intern arrives and finish this post. I have
to hurry though, my buddy Matt just called and the surf is decent so we're
heading to the beach again.
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