Farm life

Work on the farm has ranged from weeding bitter melon from under the coffee trees (our least favourite job!), to spreading chicken manure under all the fruit trees (actually, that’s our least favourite job!) to sorting the coffee cherries and spreading them out to dry, to picking, washing and drying mangoes (and eating them!), to putting the labels on coffee packets and helping the farm with their marketing plans. We’ve also picked limes, pruned and hacked at the coffee trees, and made compost.

We work from 8am until 10:30 am then all collapse in the shade and pop open ripe mangoes or eat the flesh of cacao seeds, then work until midday again. We know we’ve done a good days work when Steve, the farm owner, sits us all down with a beer afterwards. At the end of the day we are either covered in mud, chicken poo, mosquito bites or scratches from all the trees, but it is satisfying to see all the work we have done.

This year there has been a bumper crop of mangoes (lucky for us!) so everyday there are plenty to put in smoothies, eat as they are, or dry to keep for later. We can’t eat them quick enough!

There are about 6 cats on the farm, which jump into our screenhouse all the time and miaow for food. There is also a dog, Alani, that hangs out in our screenhouse stinking the place out! Oh to have doors!

Still enjoying picking everything from the farm. Latest discoveries have been coconuts (took Gareth half an hour to hack one open with a machete, but well worth it!), mint, limes, lemons, thyme and some seriously hot chillies.

Hibiscus flowers on the farm smell lovely, and Rach keeps picking them up when they fall and sticking them in her hair, Hawai’i stylee!