Wednesday 5-14-08

Sleep:
woke at 3am for temp., again at 5am and decided not to go in that early, again at 5:30am when hubby decided to get up and go in to the farm to get the harvest started, I decided to go in later on the bus... up at 7:30am to get ready to go in on the 8:30 bus

Food Summary:
Coming Soon!

Exercise Summary:
Coming Soon!

Detox:
Coming Soon!

Female:
3am temp: 96.58 degrees Fahrenheit, day 13 of my cycle, red day, girl kid icon

General Things/AKA The Rest:
I think I'll put what happens in general here and the specifics in their own areas... so here 'goes! :)

~8:40am did short errand at the store then walked over to farm from the bus stop
changed clothes and started helping with harvest

~noon finished harvest in the field, then helped with washing, bagging, loading truck and such for market

~1pm left for market, doing errands first
We needed to return the shade structure we got last week 'cause it turned out to be too big for markets and was too hard to put up. We're supposed to have 10' of space, so we got a 10'x10' thing but it turned out to be more like 8.5' so we decided to just get an umbrella after all. We'd thought it'd be too flimsy in the wind, and then saw wooden ones that seemed more sturdy. So we returned the shade thing and got a wooden umbrella for shade - just before market. It was a bit rushed 'cause we wanted to get to market by 2pm and had to go pay bills as well. We also had to get some more bags to put the salad mixes in 'cause our tomato harvest was much larger than expected and we used them up.

We did some time saving tricks where I'd drop my hubby off and he'd look for the umbrella while I went to pay the electric bill and then I called him to find out if they had it when pulling into the parking lot. He told me what colors they had and we decided over the phone and he put it in the cart and we met at the cash register. While I waited in line to pay he went and got the car and had it right outside that door to load it up and go. On our last stop before market, we were about a half hour later than we wanted to be (but still early enough for market). It was funny to me to see my hubby running through the store to get the bags and back to the register to buy them. I had dropped him at the entrance and then found a parking spot where I could see inside enough to start up the truck again and pick him up as he came out. It worked though, we got everything done and got to market with enough time to set up.

We hadn't bagged the salad mixes yet 'cause we didn't have enough bags or time so we'd wanted to be there at 2 so that we could do it before market (which starts at 3). We didn't have enough time to bag it all before market, but we had enough so that we had some on the table in time. Market started up slowly today for some reason, which was perfect for us to catch up. Yay! We could both bag and then when people were buying, etc. one of us would bag while the other helped them and all. It picked up later and ended up being an average market overall. The umbrella worked great too! It has a 6' span and shaded our whole table well. There wasn't much wind today, which was also good for us 'cause we hadn't quite figured out how we were going to secure it for wind yet. We did a little bit of securing and that was enough for today. We'll have to figure out something better for the next market though 'cause it's more windy over there usually...

~4:30 or 5pm we left market and went home, picked up a hitchhiker on the way that we knew, he's actually an old friend of someone I know from the VegSource raw & sports nutrition board and the FoodnSport Health and Fitness Camp. Kinda' cool huh? Small world.

~5:30pm we got home and unloaded the truck from market. I had picked up my regular order of "cooking" bananas and "lady finger" bananas and some cocos. I used to have a regular $10 order of young coconuts but the guy I get them from is getting older and the trees are getting taller so he can't get them regularly anymore. I check in with him at market in case one of his sons has come over to help him and get what he has, if any.

Talk about small worlds... the guy I've been getting the bananas from for years now told me at the last market we did that his farm is actually quite near ours. What a coincidence! It turned out to be serendipitous too. We had some discussions about what we're growing, what he's growing there, etc. and where we are. Today he said that we could get baby apple banana shoots and sugar cane from him to plant over at our place if we wanted. I had mentioned that we wanted to plant them as a wind break but were having a hard time finding any that were on that side of the island. There's a virus that affects bananas here called "bunchy top" - it's spread by aphids I believe.

In attempts to stop the spread of it, people aren't allowed to bring banana plants or plant parts (except the fruits) between the North Shore and South Shore, basically. There's a spot on the highway that defines the line they cannot cross. All of the places we know of to get banana keiki (keiki means baby or child in Hawaiian and is the common name used for banana shoots) are on the North Shore or East Side, both of which are on the other side of the do not cross line from our farm. So it's exciting that we might be able to get banana keiki from him for our farm. He's had trouble with the bunchy top too but said that the tall apple banana type hasn't had trouble with it like the other types he's growing there. Cool! That's the kind my hubby likes, practically the only kind he'll eat, actually. Nice. Hope he doesn't charge too much for them...

Let's see what else did I get at market...
I got some onion chives from a farmer a couple of spots down from us. It's hard to find that kind of chive here for some reason. Garlic chives grow here abundantly and easily so I guess a lot of people don't bother trying to grow the onion ones. I don't like the garlic ones though. Too bad 'cause they're pretty and would make a nice border to an edible flower patch or something. I try not to eat chives and herbs much 'cause they make me have B.O. and bad breath - well at least I notice it, I don't think anyone else notices much. I like the way I smell the most when I skip all herbs and spices, but I do like the taste of chives every once in a while, so... I got some. (I've planted some at the farm in flats to put in the personal area too).

I also got some grapefruits and lemons. I was looking for oranges, but couldn't find any. I guess the season's pau (Hawaiian for over) for now. I didn't go looking until we'd gotten enough bagged though, but it didn't look like anyone who usually has them had empty containers they usually have them in, so I think they didn't have any from the start. Bummer I was really getting into the OJ, so was my hubby. Good thing we got the grapefruits though.

My hubby got some apple bananas for himself at market too. Oh, and I got 2 bags of garbanzo sprouts from some friends who grow them. I have helped them problem solve some of their sprout things 'cause I used to do organic ones commercially back when we were farmers before - about 11 years ago. I had brought them a bag of tomatoes as a present at the end of market and they gave me the garbanzos 'cause that's the kind I like the most. I eat them occasionally as they gift them to me. They're another thing I try not to eat much of 'cause they can give me gas. Sometimes I don't get the gas when I eat them apart from other things, so that's how I eat them. I often eat them right away 'cause I haven't had a cooler in the past, but since we're selling our salad at market now we have a cooler so I took them home and put them in the fridge for tomorrow or the next day. I was eating a small bag of rambutan that I got. It was quite expensive, but they were excellent rambutans and it's the very beginning of the season - they're the first of the season to actually be ripe actually, so I splurged... they were yummy and worth it to me! :)

~6pm I gave my guinea pig some of the extra lettuce from market and the carrot tops I get from some organic farmers I know at market and noticed that most of the mountain apple tree's flower buds were blossoming. So pretty! It's soooo loaded with flowers too - hope they end up being fruit. I love that fruit!!! And that tree makes the best ones I've ever had too! It's sort of rare for us to be home when it's still light these days so I took the opportunity to look at the rest of the fruit growing in our yard. The two apple banana stalks are still ripening and not ready for harvest. There were some papayas that could be harvested and my hubby came out and got them while I went to see if any of the yellow lilikoi (passion fruit) that was growing on our avocado tree had ripened and dropped yet. Nope. Not yet. The avocados are getting larger, but are still tiny.

I was able to forage a nice snack of Surinam cherries from our bush of them on the way to check on the lemon tree, which is having a slight gap in ripe fruits. It's such an amazing tree. It's a Meyer lemon, which makes some really large, juicy and sweet-for-a-lemon fruits.. and has been doing so almost non-stop since it started fruiting. It deserves a bit of a break. There are lots of green ones on there and one close to ripening, and that's a break for it. I want to put some of our primo compost from our compost pile under both the mountain apple tree and the lemon tree for sure when I get a chance. If there's enough and enough time I'll do the avocado tree too. We've been using the compost to help plant things at the farm, and trying to move our composting to over there so I'm not sure if there's enough right now for all those trees. The Jamacian lilikoi has a few flowers, but isn't fruiting yet either.

So after that yummy cherry snack I went in and prepared my dinner. My hubby had made his dinner too and started watching the movie "Remember the Titans" which we watched together when eating. It was a good movie, we hadn't seen it yet. It was live TV so when I was done eating I took out my laptop and started to do computer stuff during the commercials.
One of the things I'd discovered in the computer stuff I was doing is that guinea pigs eat tomatoes. I thought they didn't so had never tried them out with my pigs. I excitedly got one of our sweet tomatoes and decided to do an experiment with my guinea pig. LOL I like to refer to finding out if my guinea pig likes something or not an experiment.. little joke, yeah a bit 'off', but then my humor can be that way sometimes, heh. It was dark by then so I took my flashlight to see what she thought of it. My hubby came too and the dog was interested to see what was going on as well so came along.

LOL I don't think it was a very scientific experiment 'cause this guinea pig hasn't had a flashlight pointed down into her hutch before and seemed distracted by it. So funny. Also, the three of us (hubby, dog and I) standing outside her hutch to see what would happen probably threw her off too. I do have to admit that I bet our dog was probably wanting to find out if we were finally gonna' eat the guinea pig rather than if she'd eat the tomato. LOL She didn't eat it, but did seem interested in smelling it at first. She sort of acted like when I put orange or other citrus in there. She stiffs them and walks away from them, won't eat them at first, but eats them all up when I'm not looking. It's an acid fruit too, so perhaps there's something about it in that way. I guess I'll have to wait 'till tomorrow to find out if she liked it or not.

I started blogging after a while too. After the movie ended my hubby went to do some computer stuff himself and I'm finishing the blog and going to sleep. I've gotta' get up at 3 again tomorrow... That takes us to now, and it's 10pm so I'm gonna' skip the rest of this 'till tomorrow. I will come back and fill in the summaries tomorrow or the next day when I have a chance.

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