In which I hike 7 miles in 6 hours with 1 water bottle. Not one of my smarter decisions. You know how I recently updated my header tagline to read “travel, tea, misadventures”? This is a misadventure. Back in early March, I found myself with a weekend off from farm work and nothing to do. Another woman working at Hana Farms, let’s call her Alaska (because prior to arriving on Maui, she was living in Alaska), also had the weekend off and suggested we use our free time to go camping and hiking in Haleakala National Park. We had heard from the other farmies that the cool thing to do…
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Tea Tuesday: Brewsday
This Tea Tuesday, I’m mixing it up and writing about another brewed beverage — beer! E’s sister, Farley, and a few other people at the farm are home brewers who regularly make beer for the enjoyment of the rest of us. It rained this afternoon, which meant working on the land wasn’t an option, so everyone decided to tap a keg instead (great work ethic here). When I asked Far about it, she gave me the beginner’s guide to brewing beer, and told me about the type we drank this evening. Now, I’ve been on a few brewery tours, so I was aware of the basic fact that beer is…
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Apparently, I’m an optimist
I think it’s time for a little meta-blogging. By which I mean, this post is about blogging and also my feelings, but don’t let that scare you away because it also includes funny anecdotes! While this is a travel blog, not a personal blog, I can write about no one’s experiences but my own, and I hope you find the narrative of my life mildly interesting. Two weeks ago, a friend commented on my post about how Krakow was a turning point when I was backpacking Europe. She said: “Nice to hear about the real feelings… you are usually so upbeat that the tough times make you seem more approachable.…
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Tea Tuesday: All the Mint
All mint tea is not created equal. Probably because there are so many different kinds of mint to choose from. For the most part, if you purchase bagged mint tea in the grocery store, it will either be labeled “peppermint” or simply “mint,” in which case it is likely to have more of a spearmint flavor. At Hana Farms, however, we have at least seven different kinds of mint growing, each of which has a unique flavor and could be made into a distinct tea. Almost all of them grow in our official Tea Garden, but some of them also grow as weeds around the entire property. The most prevalent…
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Tea Tuesday: Mamaki Tea
Remember this plant? The one that’s growing in the tea garden, and I took a nice photo of, but didn’t know its name, but I liked the photo, so I still put it on the internet in a previous blog post? It turns out this is Mamaki, a plant that is only native to Hawai’i and is known for its medicinal qualities. Mamaki is commonly made into a cleansing herbal tea, which is good for digestion and general relaxation. (That sounds like code for “a laxative that will get you high,” but it’s not.) I was told by some of the other farmies (folks who work here) that just a…
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One Month in “Paradise”
Thursday marked one month that E and I have been living and working on Maui. He works at the farm stand selling banana bread that’s baked fresh every morning. I work in the kitchen making candy and hot sauces that we also sell at the stand. We both work in the vegetable garden and around the rest of the property, pulling weeds, clearing space for more beds, spreading mulch. We sleep and store our things in a cabin without electricity. One of the farm cats likes to hang around the cabin, and sneaks in to sleep by our feet at night; her name is Munchkin. I’m not much of a…
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Tea Tuesday: Where Your Red Zinger Comes From
If you live in the US, you’ve probably seen Celestial Seasonings’ “Red Zinger” tea in your local grocery store. But what exactly is a “red zinger”? I’d never really thought about it until I was being shown around the vegetable garden at Hana Farms, and someone pointed to a thin bush saying, “that’s hibiscus, you know, red zinger, you can make tea from it.” If you can make tea from it, my interest is peaked, so I decided to try it out. After some internet research, I discovered that this wasn’t going to be as easy as I’d expected. Most recipes for hibiscus or red zinger tea suggest that you…
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Today I’m giving the people what they want…
…photos of Maui’s beautiful beaches. Thus far, most of my posts about Hawai’i have centered on my experiences living and working on an organic farm, but, never fear, I do occasionally stop gardening and go to the beach. There are three well-known beaches near Hana — Waianapanapa State Park, Red Sands, and Hamoa — as well as a smattering of more secret beaches (including one that the people on the farm actually refer to as “Secret Beach”) that I have yet to visit. I should probably let the photos speak for themselves, but I’m terrible at that, so you’re all stuck with my usual witty commentary. Waianapanapa (or Waianaps, as…
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Guest Post: First Time Flying
(For this week’s Weekly Travel Inspiration, I decided to do something a little different and asked my boyfriend E to write a guest post about our flight to Hawai’i. I hope you enjoy it; I think he has a pretty amusing take on the experience.) When I mentioned to my folks that my trip to Hawai’i was going to be my first time on a commercial airliner, even they were shocked. The only planes I’ve ever been on were small 2- or 4-person Cessnas, and those only brought me on quick loops around the airport. This fact always seemed to shock people, and has made me particularly good at games…
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I actually just write a gardening blog now
I spent seven hours doing farm work in a white shirt today. There’s dirt under my fingernails and mosquito bites all along my arms, but I feel better than I did after working the same shift last Thursday. Last week, I was too tired to blog, and too grumpy to cook dinner. This week, the hot water in the shower isn’t working, and I’m not even dreading the cold shower that awaits me when I’m done writing this post. We planted sweet potatoes today. A few weeks ago, some of the workers cleared out all the unwanted plants from a papaya grove, and today we went through and started rebuilding…
