bikesbeetsbread

Mushroom Mushroom!

2010-11-03T20:14:00.000-07:00

Hello all! Our last day at Winter Green is on Guy Fawkes day this week. So once again we will be unemployed. woo hoo! We might push the Oregon unemployment rate up over 11% We are sad and excited to be done. It gets to be a long season and a break is definitely needed during the winter. We have super exciting news....We are moving up to PORTLAND in December! Stumptown! Beertown! Beervana! City of Roses! Bridgetown! Little Beirut! PDX! P-Town! Rip City!(we have know idea what this one means) Hooray!

Okay. we have shitloads of pictures to share with you!

Leroy and I brewed up a batch of cascadian dark ale last weekend! It is going to be soooo good! we hope so at least. tucking it in for the night to ferment away. go yeast go!

Our pumpkins! we almost had a pumpkin overload on halloween! carving pumpkins, making pumpkin curry, drinking pumpkin beer, roasting pumpkin seeds, and pumpkin pie for dessert. we once heard a story about people who ate so many squash they turned yellow... ???

Okay now were going to bore the hell out of you with some super dorky awesome mushroomy mushroom pictures. We went to the Mt. Pisgah mushroom festival on halloween. It was really quite a spectacular event. So many mushrooms!

pink coral monster

fried chicken

smoothy red tree mushroom

playful mushrooms

purple shrivelosis

old yeller

the happiest of mushrooms couldn't make it

giant mossman mushroom

little orange duders

green machine

best in show poisonous redman

more, more, more

Toad

I made a pumpkin pie from a pumpkin on the farm, yum!

Natasha and I had a serious bread making day!

Love joe and Chels

on the farm

2010-10-24T15:34:00.000-07:00

so we finally snapped a few photos from around the farm...

Washing spinach. chelsea is a professional!

Will counting the choi into the macro bins

These are what the mornings are like on the farm...foggy!

So many squash!

Homewrecker!!!

South Dakota baby!

2010-09-23T17:28:00.000-07:00

I forgot to post this one!

South Dakota is the land of more billboards than people...and every road leads to either wall drug or the corn palace!!!

Ha! the segway rules!

Family, King Estate, Birthday!!!!!

2010-09-05T15:26:00.000-07:00

Hello again! Two posts in a row.... we must be bored? NO WAY! we just want to share our lives with all of you!

Here are some MORE recent pictures from life in Oregon.....

Grapes at King Estate

Chelsea with mom and dad at King Estate winery

Leroy and his hops

Chelsea with the hops

I think they got a hop high!

Proxy Falls hike

Birthday doughnut at Voodoo Doughnut

Birthday Chai with espresso!

Cindy and Betty at Full City coffee

Birthday beer at Ninkasi Maybe I can get a job here in the winter?

This one is for you mom! dinner at Ratatouilli . SOOOOOO good!

climbing mountains!

2010-09-05T15:01:00.000-07:00

Hello everyone! Instead of rambling too much we thought we would just post a bunch of new pics from the last couple of months!

Three Sisters mountains taken from Scott Lake

We hiked to Benson Lake in the Sisters Wilderness area

Camping at Scott Lake on 242

Tasting flight at Three Creeks Brewery, Sisters

We hiked to the top of this mountain, Cone Peak. The view was amazing

On top of Cone Peak

Chelsea with the Sisters Mountains behind her

Mt. Jefferson in the background. Mt Jeff!

HIking throught the wild flowers on our way to the top of Cone Peak. Iron Mountain in the background.

So many different wildflowers!

Setting up camp in a beautiful Oregon forest

Surly in Oregon? Heck Yes! In July we went to the Oregon Brewers Festival with Betty, Leroy, Waylon, and Kaycie! OBF!!! so much beer, so much fun!

bikesbeetsbread + beer

2010-07-26T17:36:00.000-07:00

Hello Hello Hello! Sorry it has taken us so long to post a blog. Maybe you have the idea in your head that Oregon is a boring place, or that we are having a lousy time out in the NorthWest. Well, this blog will prove you all wrong! ha ha.. We got just as much wacky exciting adventurous waterfall-filled bloggin action now more than ever!!!! Hawaii has got nothing on this!

Okay, where to start? The Farm? This is where we spend the majority of our time. It has been a treat working at our new farm out near eugene. The setting is spectacular, the people are great, and the vegetables are the best we have ever had. We take home soooo much food, and then some more, and if we feel we have room for more we take it and eat it. How can anyone resist pints of blueberries and strawberries for free? Our typical day usually involves harvesting and then processing vegetables for the csa shares (500+ members!) or one of the many farmers markets that we sell at. The farm seems enormous, there is so much food everywhere! We will try to take some pictures soon. It is hard to though because we cant really carry a camera in our pocket throughout the day or it would surely get destroyed. and then we would have no pictures

Summer in Eugene is great. You never need to check the weather because it is the same every day. Sunny, blue sky and in the eighties. It has not rained in about a month in a half, but still everything is so green.

I have taken up a new hobby, home-brewing! It is only fitting, since I think Oregon is the only place in the world to have more micro-brew pubs than churches. The eucharist is much more appealing though, beer and french fries (remember freedom fries?). Brew master Leroy has been showing me the ropes, and I have already brewed two batches with him.
Here is a brewing 101 lesson straight from the brew master: Remember, if you are ever feeling stressed out on brew day, Have another homebrew!

Here is the last beer we made together. The Surly Furious clone boiling in the brew kettle!

This is the first tasting of our Two Hearted Ale! Delicious

Leroy has got the credentials to prove his brew master status.

A few weekends ago Chels and I went out on a hike to Kentucky Falls. It was so green and gorgeous there. Here are some pictures from our hike.

The first waterfall at Kentucky Falls

Chelsea creeper creeping on the waterfall

The first waterfall at Kentucky Falls!

This is basically where we live...

Peas out at veneta. The cousins sure know how to garden. Their veggies look awesome!

The Oregon Country Fair was in July, we had a lot of fun attending. So much music and food everywhere!

My favorite band, The Crow Quill Night Owls playing the Shady Grove stage at the OCF

Kit at it again.

Chelsea walking to the Country fair

Simon came down and spent a day with us at the oregon country fair! Drinking Ninkasi Maiden in the Shade!

This is what the setting of the fair looks like x 1000

Did we mention this is about a quarter mile from where we are living...

Stay tuned for a new blog...we have pictures from the oregon brew fest, our hike up cone peak, and much much more!!!!!!!

to the west we go...

2010-05-27T13:13:00.000-07:00

so, we are on the move again. sorry to whomever we did not get to see or did not get to see enough of. okay, that is enough midwestern apologizing for basically doing nothing because we are in the transition to becoming westcoasters. we do not really know what that means yet, but we do know it means not midwestern. not that we do not like the midwest. it will always be our home.

so we made it to eugene! and it is fricken freezing here and raining everyday, all day. what the hell. we thought we came late enough to skip this shit but apparently not. the new farm we are at is awesome. they say it is the slowest spring they have experienced in over thirty years. crazy. at least we can ease into the farm life. we already got a day off! wahoooo! (i am excited about it, joe is so-so). we have basically covered in mud head to toe so far every day. but we got cute rain outfits to wear so we stay semi-unmuddy once we de-raingear. the farm is massive. rows and rows, and LONG rows. the setting is absolutely gorgeous. everything is so green here from all the damn rain. there are hills surrounding us at the farm. and giant fir trees. and mud. we will get some farm pictures soon. if anyone cares. yesterday we planted shit loads of squash. we have also been doing a lot with the strawberries...weeding them, harvesting them, eating them. yum!! they are so good.

the pictures are from our trip out here. we stopped in the badlands, buffalo bill state park, devils tower, yellowstone, and the grand tetons. it was amazing. i did not have too many cows going through all the mountains although i am sure joe would say otherwise. the old subaru did pretty well too!

we moved in with my cousins and it working out great so far (for us anyway!). the house is beautiful and we have a huge space upstairs!

that is all for now...possibly/hopefully update soon.

chels and joe

buffalo chillin on the side of the street in mammoth hot springs in yellowstone.

HuGE waterfall near canyon village in yellowstone.

joe scoping out wildlife in yellowstone.

bikeys (joe said it) and buffalo bill state park.

devils tower. huge.

the essentials for road trip camping. an IPA, nutritional yeast and a jaw harp.

badlands!

joe and the badlands.

the packed-ass car.

the grand tetons.

more grand tetons. amazing.

joe told me to get fire wood, so i did. or tried anyway.

joe cookin dinner for me. attracting GRIZZLY BEARS.

once we got to oregon, this is what we saw. SNOW????!!!!!!!!!!

visitors

2010-03-20T17:32:00.001-07:00

guess who is coming to visit us in five days? here is a clue...

jobless, homeless and poor.

2010-03-20T16:53:00.000-07:00

yup, that is what we are now. we are done at the farm. over. although, we have already been over there three times in the last 2 days because we are lost. pretty soon they will probably get sick of us and put up some kapu signs (no trespassing). maybe not, we are pretty cool to hang out with.

so, right now, our lovely friends sarah and jared were so kind to let us stay at their jungalow down the street! we are so lucky!! we are out of the rain too, in a mini jungalow thing. it has been pouring ALL MORNING and afternoon. it never stops. winter has official arrived even though it is the first day of spring. it is even cold. like 64 degrees.

the dietels just left the island (minus joe of course). we had a GREAT time. stayed at mamas fish house and in napili on the west side. mamas fish house was the party place. we had jens birthday party and kevons retirement bash with lots of splash (pineapple and passionfruit wine, Yum)! the beach was beautiful. the waves on the north shore are huge. there were a few rainy days here and there. then we went to the other side of the island--hot, sunny and touristy. we got to lounge around on the beach for three whole days. drinking martinis the neighbors gave us (the wife gave us all of her husbands booze because he gets too crazy she said). relaxing and reading. it was great. it all went by so fast! and then they were gone.

we had so much fun, joe and i are in family vacation withdrawl. we feel lost. and we realized we have no job. no home and very little money. damn. the end is near. tomorrow we get the car though...freedom!!! we get to roll around the island in an old car with $4/gal gas prices. scarrrrrrrry.

anyway, just thought we would do a little update thingy. we leave in less than three weeks. But, we have friends coming this thursday which we are VERY EXCITED about!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! krista and e franklin!!

monk seal on hamoa beach! what a coincidence.

whale! we went on a whale watch with the family and saw billion and trillions of whales.

water cave at waianapanapa state park

joe and his brother pondering life together at black sands beach at waianapanapa state park in hana

joe and his mother playing yahtzee. do not really know what susan is doing with her lei, but whatever.

joe with his last banana harvest at the farm

waterfall time. we did a group farm trip to kipahulu and saw wailua falls.

green onions from the last harvest. yum.

2010-03-10T12:45:00.001-08:00

light hawaiian rains followed by pure sunshine until the next fall. the birds are out. the waves are big. the tide pools are clear. the air is fresh. maui. 29 days left.

Tsunami!!!

2010-02-28T17:19:00.000-08:00

Saturday morning started out with phone calls from nervous mothers beginning at 5:30. After hearing of the earthquake in Chile, and the threat of a tsunami coming our way we couldn't really go back to sleep. It's not everyday that you hear a tsunami is coming! We spent the morning reading up on when the tsunami was coming, and how big it might be.

All was calm and beautiful when we went outside in the early morning.

Starting at around 8am little dinky planes flew around the coasts with sirens warning people to get away from the coasts and get to higher ground. Many of the lower lying roads were shut down, and people on the west side had to move to higher ground if they were below the fourth floor. It seemed like this was going to be a hell of a tsunami with all of the precautions that were made. Knowing this everyone was really excited for the chance to see the waves come in. At the farm we are at about 500 ft elevation, and over a half mile away from the ocean. So really safe, and a perfect viewing spot!

You can see how stressed out we all are at our "tsunami party" on the deck.

Waiting for the big one!

After gazing out to sea for over two hours we all gave up, and realized the tsunami was a no show. We all were a little dissapointed that there wasn't even any big waves, but overall thankful that nothing serious happened.

Pictures from around the farm

2010-02-21T22:10:00.000-08:00

Were bringing blogs back! Yeah! Okay, we don't want to overload you with blogs all of a sudden, but we are so excited that we figured out how to work this thing again.

This post is going to excite all of you foodies and gardening nuts. Here are some photos from a day in the life of a wwoofer at Hale Akua Garden Farm.

Beets! Mississippi Market represent

Big beautiful beets!

We sell Turmeric locally, and also to Rainbow Grocery coop in San Francisco

Chard grown in joe's garden, lehua

Beets and fennel

Lovely Grace garden

Ginger drying in the seedling room

Joe has harvested hundreds of pounds of Ginger!

Biochar demonstration at the Ma'a Conference. http://www.mauialohaaina.org/schedule.htm

This is the view we wake up to every morning from our room!

This is our swimming hole which sits on top of a 200 foot waterfall!

Vegan chocolates from friends back in MN!

The parents!

the rejects :(

Nearing the end

2010-02-21T16:47:00.000-08:00

With only two weeks left on the farm I put myself up pretty bad. Now we know are sickles are sharp after one sliced clear to the bone on my ankle.

Chels has been taking good care of me!

Last weekend we spent a few days with the newlyweds on their honeymoon. We started with a tour of the farm, followed by a hike through a bamboo forest, and then we went to a barefoot bar on the westside for happyhour. The next day we went snorkeling at a few great spots south of Makena. Mahalo Tamma and Fitz for the great weekend.

Fitz admiring the view from the condo.

Below are a few pictures of our most recent trip to Kipahulu.

Chelsea and Lala on our hike to Waimoku Falls in Kipahulu

One of the places we camped in Kipahulu, "coconut grove"

Waking up and watching the sunrise in paradise

Playing around in the amazing banyan trees

Now that I finally found out how to upload pictures from my damn iPod hopefully we can catch you all up on some of our past journeys.
Love,
joe and chelsea

Crazy new fruits!

2010-01-11T22:24:00.000-08:00

Hello family and friends! Since chels has been doing the posts as of lately, I decided maybe I should do one too. What could I talk about? Oh, I know, all of the amazing fruits we have been eating here!

Okay, here is a list of fruits we have been devouring.

Coconuts: around these parts people call me "coconut Joe", and even "coco-dill-nuts". Fresh coconuts are probably the most delicious things on planet earth! I usually try to eat one a day. I have recently started making coconut hashbrowns. I have gotten pretty good at handling a machete!

Lilikoi: otherwise known as passionfruit. Please see our good friend cheezle's blog post about the three kinds we have.
http://dembedirtytoes.blogspot.com/2009/11/ll-lilikool-ladies-love-lilikoi.html

Ice cream banana: large slight vanilla tasting banana. Mana foods in paia have these

Apple bananas: These are what we have on the farm, hundreds of them. They are oh so delicious and have been the base of so many delicious banana breads and muffins

Cuban bananas: naturally, these babies are red. we only have one tree on the farm. Good flavor, same size as apple bananas.

Rombutans: spikey little ufo lychees! Pretty tasty! Wikipedia these guys

Atemoya: cross between a sweetsop and a cherimoya.

Longan: another type of lychee. Really good taste and grape/ eyeball texture.

Cherimoya: our new favorite! Cut it in half and spoon it right out, or blend it up and put in the freezer for a half hour! Yum! The outside of the fruit has a strange resemblance to reptile leather. Rumor has it these are good after taking mushrooms

Cactus fruit: or prickly pear. Interesting taste

Malabar chestnut: We have a couple trees on the property.

Persimmons: Oh my! These buggers are awesome! I like them when they are still a little hard

Ice cream bean: What a treat these are! Long pods containing 4 to 10 black seeds inside. The vanilla tasting fruit surrounds the seeds and it is so delectable!

Durian: lala bought two at Mana Foods that she shared with us. They were about ten dollars each. Really rich, and full of flavor. Extremely ripe smell.

Guava: These are seriously everywhere. Nobody eats them because there are so many and they are not that great compared to all of the other fruits.

Strawberry guava: These guavas are awesome! They are small in size and red. Like guavas though, there are a lot of trees

Avocados: !!!! Everywhere! We have arouns three varieties on the farm. The normal small ones we get at the co-op in Mn, and bigger more buttery ones that turn purple when they are ripe. There is also a variety that is as big as your head.

Tangelo: we have a couple trees on the property, they are best used for fresh squeezed orange juice in my opinion.

Tangerines: we have a tree that is going off right now. They are so good, they make great snacks. I take these with on weekend adventures.

Starfruit: when green tastes like green apple. Also good with trader vics rum!

Breadfruit: lala has prepared this a few different ways now. They are really tasty when they get overripe, and you can make a custard out of them.

Papaya: two kinds on our property.

Mangoes: local and delicious. The trees are all just starting to flower again!

Eggfruit: another wierdo fruit. Orange skin and flesh with a sweet taste and yolk texture.

Also been eating fresh ginger, tumeric, and sugarcane from the garden!

I wish I could have posted some pics of all these great fruits, but please look them up yourself and see how beautiful they all are.

well hello again.

2009-12-28T20:45:00.000-08:00

so, still no picture function available but yall are lucky i have the copy/paste shit down so i can at least copy a *u* because a ton of the keys still dont work. including the apostrophes and parentheses so thats why i dont have any, i really do know where they go, i like grammar and aint stupid (most of the time anyway).

so christmas is over! new years is next! my parents get here wednesday afternoon and we are going to take a few days off of the farm to hang out! we are VERY excited. gary and cindy! i am assuming there will be lots of wine and booze and beaches and lounging and i am looking forward to it.

today was just another monday on the farm. SLOW. mondays are typically compost days and today was no exception. first joe, jared and i flipped one of the compost piles in lehua. the pile is totally ready, it IS compost. usually when we flip them they are still kind of smelly and wet and there are tons of big sticks, chunks of crap and bugs. this one was basically dirt (GOOD dirt!). easy to flip (flipping consists of moving the pile from one spot to the spot directly next to it...putting the top on the bottom...etc. self-explanatory). THEN we got to build a new pile. it was a good one, almost six feet tall!! hopefully it will be a good one. we were a little disappointed today because the first pile we were going to flip was not good, it was just a pile of shit still (and woodchips). it was the pile jared, sarah, joe and i made our first week here. beginners. we concluded we did not have enough nitrogen (green leafy stuff) in the pile. too much carbon. oh well...next time.

well...thats about all that happened today. OH maybe not. joe and i also went around and harvested a shitload of avocados and clementines, a few passionfruits (they are almost done for the season and i want to put a sad smiley face here but the colon key doesnt work either, great) and other unknown oranges, and ONE starfruit (because a neighbor keeps taking them all, bastard we are gonna get him, maybe steal them back while he is at yoga).

it was fun. we have a new guy here, his name is david. and a girl that came almost three weeks ago, lala, and they are both doing the FARM challenge. only eat stuff from the farm. it is so easy here, we just get lazy of course. anyway, their enthusiasm for the challenge has made me realize how fricken lucky we are to have all of these vegetables and fruits all around us. there are seriously a hundred avocados in the tree right outside one of the gardens. how much are those back at the coop now? hmmmmmm? exactly, not free. this place is amazing. we are in a tropical paradise overlooking the green hills of maui, the ocean and a 300 ft waterfall. SPOILED!

since i havent figured out how to get pictures back on here, i fired up my old webshots account that surprisingly still exists! NO WAY. havent used it in like four plus years. here it is...ill start posting pics here! love everyone and MERRY christmas (late!)

http://community.webshots.com/user/chels82666

chels

works? doesnt work? who knows.

2009-12-21T23:30:00.000-08:00

so, i have been having technical difficlties lately. one being my keys are starting to not work (the u being one of them, seven key, apostrophe key, eqals key, mins key...etc) it is very frstrating. maybe its ants? i saw ants crawling out of my computer a couple times, assholes. if it was, they have no idea the damage they have caused. AHHHHH. anyway, besides that severe issue. my internet doesnt work correctly. most of the pages i open crash. i got this one open by putting some /html after the link and sometimes it works. it took about 2 hours to figure that one out. still cant post pictues though. BuMMER.

so, that is why we havent posted in so long! computers suck! we are going to call joes trusty brother michael and he will solve everything because he is a genius (right mike?).

all in all, the farms still good, having fun, nice weather (way nicer than mn, ha!) and its almost christmas!!!!!!!! yay!!!!

tons of pictures to come!

love, chels and joe

the rains have arrived...

2009-11-16T18:47:00.000-08:00

this is what today was like in a nut shell
sun hemp sprout forest!
joey planing MORE sun hemp
lettuce, yum
hoein in some rye seeds
joe and his sprouts
our cover crop seeds! mustard, rye, alfalfa, clover and sun hemp
chard!

me spreading some cover crop seeds in the never-ending rain

forgive us followers, it has been two weeks since our last blog post. OOPS. so, we got to the island and it was sunny and there were a few rains here and there, but basically no rain. sometimes a few sprinkles at night. and we were warned of the rains. and finally, they have arrived. today we spent the ENTIRE day working in the rain. it never stopped! it went from a sprinkle, to pouring, to misting, to pouring, sprinkling, regular rain, sprinkling, cats and dogs...etc. it was ridiculous. we were FREEEEEZIIIINg good thing we have a hot tub we can sit in for an hour and get our body temperature back to normal.

one of the most exciting things that has happened in the last two weeks is that we MOVED INTO A ROOM!!!! finally. just before the rains started. it's not just rain, it is the wind as well. SO WINDY here. i guess we are on an island in the middle of the ocean, not much for windbreaks out there. we even have a bathroom in our room! no midnight bathroom searching excursions alone in the dark, scared, almost falling into the pool. terrifying.

last week we had a "spa night" where a lady that works on the farm, Mohini, brought a bunch of crazy shit (clay salts, fennel, basil, ginger, hawaiian clay, cocoa, tons of other spices, flours and vegetables...) and we mixed up some body and face scrubs! it was awesome (the picture with all the bowls on the table...)

farm work has been going well. a few weeks ago we learned that all of the soil on the farm is shit (or lackthereof...ha!) and we pretty much have to start over. the managers ordered 40 tons of compost to try to enrich the soil and kill some of the billions of pests we have that have gone crazy over the last two years. we have also been mulching and planting a lot of cover crops (sun hemp, clover, rye, alfalfa and mustard). they grow so fast! it is exciting to see them all sprout. we have pictures! harvests have dwindled significantly but this makes it much more manageable and less chaotic every friday. we still feel like killing each other after friday harvest. it wears off in a few hours. we still have carrots, beets, okra, eggplant, basil, parlsey, cilantro, taro, chard and some kale. we should be starting to harvest the turmeric and ginger soon!

last weekend we traveled to the western part of the island. we drove around the north shoreline first and made our way around the entire side of the island. it was the craziest road we have ever been on, makes the hana highway look like cake. we stopped at a few lookouts, the nakalele blowhole, a cute valley town, saw a mushroom rock, a sweet beach (DT Fleming beach) with good waves for surfing if we surfed, and ended with a six pack of maui brewing co. beer on the beach for frisbee and a sunset. we pretended we were real tourists instead of having to go back to the rainy, superass windy other side of the island with lots of bugs and mud and farmwork. we were with a new guy at the farm, thackary (who also had the rental car!!), sarah and jared. the day was incredible. as if it wasn't good enough, we also got half way home, decided we didn't want to cook and turned around to eat at flatbread (a pizza place in town, doesn't beat pizza luce though, no way)! it was great. the only negative was that when we got back we watched apocalypto which is a horrible movie. mel gibson blows worse than the blowhole we saw on the northwest shore today. quote of the day by thackary: the nakalele blowhole is nature's bidet.

joey swimming on one of the last days we remember sunshine :( haven't been in the pool since (only the hot tub, it's rough)
grasshopper-gecko showdown on the ceiling of our tent. gecko ended up backing up and disappearing, wuss.
joey gettin some more coconuts
town view on our saturday escapade to the west part of the island

the nakalele blowhole

taro growing in the water! our taro on our farm is NOT grown in water (except when it floods)

halloweeeeeeeeeeen

2009-11-02T22:46:00.001-08:00

soooooooooooo. last friday we went into town (paia) and a bunch of us ate at flatbread. it is a cool pizza place with a stone oven and good beer...etc. they also buy some of our produce from the farm...including the carrots that joe had harvested and cleaned THAT morning. it was pretty cool...eating it hours later. anyway...we got the awesome organic salad and the vegan pizzzza yum.

saturday was halloween...joe was a pirate and i was supposed to be his parrot, but i looked ridiculous. a smurf/clown maybe. the plan was to go to lahaina where there is usually a crazy halloween bash. wasted people everywhere, craziness. i wasn't that excited, kind of scared, as usual. people told us it has been lame the last two years because they are crackin down on the craziness. we hitched there and yes, there were a bunch of wasted people there. we were being corralled down the sidewalks by people and police. then we went into a bar and it was like spring break halloween maui. we weren't feeling it. so we left the group we were in (they had tons of fun) and hitched back to paia where it was hoppin! there was a drum circle, dancing, coolness everywhere. it was our style halloween. shoulda stayed in town!! all in all, we got to sleep in our tent instead of a random beach/alley which we had planned on. good halloween! warmer than yours! HA.

anyway...sunday we first stopped at twin falls (which is the last photo...) and then we went to a neighboring farm and got a little tour and then went swimming in the waterfall pools they have close to the property!! it was awesome. joe said it was a waterfall amusement park. there are the princess pools (which aren't very swim-worthy more for wading), then higher up is the queen's pool which was awesome, and then the KING'S POOL which was incredible joe says and it has a swing to jump in the water with...i guess it was amazing (sarah and i didn't go to the king's pool because it was late in the afternoon and there were 800 billion mosquitoes). it is our new favorite hangout. there were also coffee plants on the farm tour! we don't have coffee on our farm :(

miracle on maui!!!!

2009-10-29T11:33:00.000-07:00

hello everyone...so....i waited (i know that is hard to believe but i did, patiently sort of) and turned my computer on this morning and it worked! FINALLY. so...we had a post we were about to post before the damn computer broke. here it is!!

these pictures are from our haleakala crater experience...which is detailed after...

that second to last picture is a chameleon!! smashed on the road of course, we thought it was a dinosaur! a mini one. the other is a HUGE SLUG!!! whoa. scary.

soooooooo last last weekend we decided to visit the haleakala crater. spend some time with the crater man. we went with three other wwwoooofers (and two others joined us......later....). we planned on leaving at 7 but some people were late and i got mad and joe and i walked started walking to the end of the road to hitch hike. as things turn out, we waited and waited. i got more mad. then...the three we were going with came driving up in the back of a truck and picked us up. i guess i learned a lesson, maybe.

so we were on our way...we hitched a ride to the bottom of the crater. still had 22 miles to go. then we got a ride from a bride. we didn't know til we were in the bathroom at the top and the girl who picked us up was putting on a wedding dress! crazyyyy. the top of the crater is about 10,000 feet. we then hiked into the crater down to 6,930 feet to holua campground to camp for the night. the hike was absolutely beautiful. we were IN the clouds. it was steep. betty would have been scared the entire time, i don't think she would have made it! the hike was 3.7 miles.

we got the site, set up the tents and tried to warm up soup with wax heating stuff, worked OK. warm soup. as soon as the sun went down it was FREEEEEEEEEZING. joe and i froze. by freeze here we mean it was 45 degrees. which is pretty cold for hawaii, right? yeah it was cold. and the ground was HARD. the good part was there were BILLIONS and trillions and gazillions of stars (and this time, i am not exaggerating enough, HA). it was perfect.

so, there were two guys from the farm that were going to meet us at the campsite but we had pretty much given up on them by sundown. at about midnight, everyone was sleeping except joe and i because we were freezing and the ground was so hard, and we hear those two bastards walking into the campsite (which is barely a campsite...we only found like 3 spots). they hiked down the crater, in the dark, with flip flops. insane.

so..............woke up and saw the sunrise. then hiked out of the crater. i was starving and couldn't wait to eat but we had to hitch hike back down the crater. people were being assholes and not picking us up. but we finally got a ride...went to paia to cafe mambo and i had a spinach falafel nut sandwich YUM (sorry liz, no pictures). and FRIES. i was so excited. and a big swell IPA. joe got a tofu burger. after lunch, we basically couldn't move so we went to the beach down the road. life's rough.

fall has arrived here! it is SUPER windy. and kind of cold sometimes (nothing compared to MN though, ha). good thing we had the neighbor come over and cut all the coconuts out of the tall trees so they don't fall and kill me. joe is still working on his coconut tree climbing skills. he will be an expert by the time we leave.

see ya'll soon! hopefully my computer won't die again!!

Mouth numbing goodness!

2009-10-27T23:38:00.000-07:00

We have this beautiful plant growing on the property. It is called spilanthes, what a badass name!

Spilanthes is a member of the Asteraceae family, the same as echinacea. It is also known as the toothache plant. the red and yellow cone shaped flowers are what you eat, it is nuts. Once eaten they stimulate the flow of saliva which cleanses the mouth, tones the gums, and enhances immune function. Spilanthes also improves digestion, eases flatulence(woohoo), improves the appetite, and helps to overcome nausea and vomiting by its stimulating effect on the salivary glands.it is so weird because it makes your mouth go numb.

Chels is still scared to try it, hopefully she will soon! I will try to post some more flora and fauna soon.

Bad karma

2009-10-27T01:06:00.000-07:00

Hello all. So, things went downhill the last couple of days. My computer got the 'black screen of death' also known as kernel panic or some stupid shit like that. Joe has his own problems-phytophotodermatitis! From fricken parsley. Watch for that parsley. I blame this bad luck on myself. Bad karma. Last week I was running to the kitchen because it was raining and I accidentally squashed a toad. It was horrible. I still feel bad about it. I buried it with a hibiscus tombstone. So...don't step on frogs or u will get phytophotodermatitis and your computer will die.
Besides that we are good!! Hopefully update soon...no pics though so it's not worth looking at the blog anymore I suppose. Ha. We will try to fix it asap after apple steals all my life savings!

Mahalo, chelsea and joey
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hiking day.........

2009-10-10T23:05:00.000-07:00

hello everyone. today we hiked a shitload. well it seemed like it anyway. we hiked down to the top of the waterfall (doesn't make sense, i know, but it is down) and across the little stream to the neighbors property (where waylon and kaycie stayed on their honeymoon!) and took their trail down to the ocean. it was VERY steep. crazy. we weren't excited for the hike back up. when we got to the ocean view it was AMAZING. so we swam, saw a sea turtled and others fished. cornelius, one of the wwoofers, from germany, spear-fished with some random fisherman. kaylie, another wwoofer, from oregon, used a fishing pole the fisherman found at the bottom of the ocean. she didn't catch anything but claimed she had bites. so, after getting sunburned and really hot, we decided to hike into the valley to see the bottom of the waterfall. it took us awhile to hike up the entire stream but it was worth it! we were in a GIANT green valley the entire time. it was a jungly grand canyon (maybe not that big but it seemed like it). anyway...you will see the pictures. it was beautiful. then we hiked out and i barely made it all the way back to our farm. weak. now we are exhausted and going in the hot tub.

cornelius and joe, the TOP of the waterfall...this is on our farm's property

view on the hike down.

the hike down...

kaylie, cornelius and joe

look at how blue that is!!!

joe, pondering life

kaylie, trying to catch fish

me, wandering off

where we swam, you can see the two fisherman on the rocks! so small.

the hike down...

the waterfall

THE MONSOON!!!

2009-10-05T21:58:00.000-07:00

Hello family and friends! This is joe speaking finally!!!

We have survived our first weekend in Maui. Saturday it was raining at the farm so we decided to get a ride into the groovy town of paia. This place is soooo cool. We think we want to live hear! In Paia we stopped at Mana Foods and met up with cheezle (the other Chelsea) and headed to the beach.

In Paia we decided to meet up with some of the other wwoofers who were on the otherside of the island in Kihei. We had our first hitchhiking experience, was pretty fun. We spent the rest of the afternoon drinking beers on the beautiful beach on the southern side which isn't rainy. This is no joke. When we got home it was still raining, and continued to rain until about noon the next day. This was no ordinary rain, but a monsoon. Or as chelsea would it was raining frickin cats and dogs!

At the bitch with Cheezle

Me with our beers! Maui Brewing Company (they come in cans just like Surly!)

Beach at Kihei, not raining at all

Sunday we woke up and it was STILL raining, flooding everywhere. The exciting part was that the once trickling little waterfall became a roaring beast over night. We wanted to get away from all of the damn rain so we decided to go to little beach for the day. Before we left though, we went to check out some of the other waterfall beasts on hana highway.

Little beach on Sundays is crazy! People usually start getting there at noon and there are drum circles, fire dancers, people walking around selling outdoor herb, hippies, an naked people everywhere. I forgot to mention it was a nude beach. We spent the afternoon in the sun having a great time watching all of the weirdos in the beach!

This is the waterfall after the monsoon!

Raging waterfalls due to all the rain, 6.5"!

One of the many one-lane bridges on the hana highway

This is big beach, on the way to little beach

Walking down the path to little beach

This is where the hippies hang out!

A lady with a leopard cowgirl hat walks around the beach selling this magical cookies out of a lunchbox.

The drum circle goes on all day long

Crazy sunset

More sunset

little fire creeper. The best firedance show we have ever seen!

These are our new favorites! Strawberry guavas

in the middle of the ocean

2009-10-03T14:41:00.000-07:00

our view from outside one of the buildings

helllllllllllo everyone. finally, we post. it has taken us (or maybe me) awhile to get used to things. still haven't. i am still going crazy/psycho, joe has moved on to having fun. on the plane ride over we got FREE mai tais and the the guy next to us bought us extra rum for ours, they were extra strong (gross, i had to drink bacardi, blahhh). we got free macadamia nuts too, yum (we got some extra ones to send you kevon, ha).

we landed, got our shit, and sam from the farm showed up in a red biodiesel sprinter van, otherwise known as a tall van, creeper van. he took us to the nearest beach and we didn't really know what was going on. it was amazing. i can't even explain how beautiful it was. the fricken ocean!! and hills and sand. it was great. then we headed to the farm. wendy, who works in the office, showed us around. it is a maze of a place. we were lost every time we walked around for the first 2 days. still get lost. there are toads everywhere at night that scare the shit out of you (or just me) they are HUGE like the size of rabbits. baby rabbits. i will get a picture next time i don't have a heart attack when i see one. (they are seriously, everyhwere, you almost step on them every step). we are going to do a video of our walk from our tent to the kitchen, just to emphasize how maze-like this place is. the place is a jungle. flowers everywhere!

drinky.

view from the air...finally saw something besides WATER.

sam picked us up at the airport and brought us to this beach to our first glimpse of maui

yup.

there is fruit everywhere you look. i think we ate 10 passionfruits each the first day we found out what they were. they were all around our tent. we don't have a picture yet because we ate them all. there are shitloads of bananas, starfruit, coconuts, avocados, papayas, suriname cherries, guavas, clementines, oranges, pommelos, limes, chestnuts, noni...etc growing everywhere. feasts all over the place. there is also an ice cream bean plant somewhere, we haven't found it yet. and a night jasmine. only blooms at night and smells awesome. we are going to search for it tonight.

there are six other wwoofers here, they have been here anywhere from 1-3 months. (joe just ran outside because it randomly started monsooning again. tents probably soaked, takes awhile to get used to sleeping in a tent, a normal, three person tent, oh what do you know the sun is shining again). they are all used to this place/lifestyle already so they all going place and running around and surfing and hitch hiking. eventually...we will too.

the first day we got here, we met everyone and then got back in the creepvan and headed back to town to go grocery shopping at costco in kahalui and mana foods in paia (which is SWEET they have everything there, very compact).

thursday morning we started work! joe and i got two other wwoofers, lulu and cornelius, to work with for the day. i weeded most of the day, planted some red beets, harvested some radishes...good for the first day. joe and cornelius weeded, fertilized okra with blue rock (which is hawaii's volcanic rock with natural phosphates or something like that), watered...etc.

friday is harvest day. we helped with some of that, learned some stuff and at the end of the day jumped in the pool. len, a guy that works on the property, was nice enough to drive all of us around the island for awhile and then we headed to the wailuku county fair. it was pretty much like any other fair but with all hawaiians, and us. and they had a poi mochi stand. it was good...interesting. we couldn't finish them all. of course, since all of us are a bunch of farm nerds, we only found joy in the produce/orchid tent. there was crazy vegetables and fruits grown all over the island. we wanted to eat them all. after the fair, we went to a bar and got massive beers (finally!). nothing beats oregon's beer selection though so we were a little disappointed. we have yet to explore a liquor store though, so maybe we will be surprised. probably won't have surly though.

sleeping at night in the tent is a challenge. last night it was SUPER windy the entire night. it was like fricken hurricane winds. luckily, it didn't rain like it has the rest of the nights. i thought we were going to blow away and had a heart attack everytime the tarp hit the tent, the tent hit the tent or what sounded like coconuts SMASHING into the tin roof...many weird noises. joe's gonna get his own tent one of these nights if i keep bugging him. the nights it rains, it sounds like actual dogs and cats are raining from the sky onto the tin roof. not even a fan would cover up these noises. i will get used to them eventually...hopefully!! it will be good for me.

grace garden, one of the many gardens.

view from the hot tub, sunrise. birds woke us up.

our new home.
side of our home and our "backyard"
we walked around and harvested a bunch of good shit.

the waterfall! we will get a better picture if it stop monsooning today.
interesting statue (one of many, they are all over)
salt water pool. perfect temperature.
passionfruit flower

joe, standing with his fruit picker.

suriname cherry, very weird tasting. not sure about it yet.
one of the pools we cross going to our tent.

rambutan. we gotta find some of THESE!

one of the aisles of fruits...
joey pickin' a clementine.

look at this creep!!

we also found out what our address is here...it has to say

Hale Akua Shangri-la (then our name)

P.O. Box 767

Haiku, HI 96708

hopefully talk to you guys soon!!!!!!!

chels and joey

the end of oregon...

2009-10-03T14:28:00.000-07:00

so...our last days in eugene were bittersweet. we went to the beerstein with betty and got some delicious beers (without leroy, sad). joe was overwhelmed with the walls and walls of microbrews surrounding him. then we went to tasha's for some homemade tomales that were SO good. thanks tasha!!!

thanks everyone for all the fun times, good food, and good beer and wine. we have the best family anyone could ever ask for!! we miss you all!

delicious tomales

dancing outside the beerstein with all the germans

yum

airport time!! thanks waylon and betty for taking us! sorry i was crabby.

eugene.

2009-09-26T16:15:00.000-07:00

hello everyone. where did we leave off...wednesday? that day we hiked up spencer's butte which typically has a glorious view of eugene, but due to wild fires it was all smokey and we couldn't see shit. our butts are sore from the hike. weaklings. there was a huge ass slug, nasty. kinda cute.

after the hike we went to the morning glory cafe and had the best breakfast ever.

i got the three sister's: zucchini, grilled tempeh (the best i've had, ever), herbed potatoes, tomatoes, broccoli and a dill roll. with a huge glob of herbed tofu sour cream. holy shit.

joe got the famous biscuits and gravy with homemade soysage patties. jesus h christ it was good.

betty got the tofu scramble with mexi-cali tofu, herbed potatoes and vegetables. there was a mysterious herb we could not identify but it was delicious.

for dinner, we went out to veneta where my cousins live! they have a sweet farm set-up there. we wandered around the green house and gardens. then we had an amazing peanut curry sauce. YUM. with vegetables from the garden. and coconut bliss for dessert! YUM.

finn and ezra playin' around

joe tomato creeper creepin' between the tomato vines

on the way home we rescued leroy (my uncle, betty's husband) from his job truckin' across america. went home, had some beers.

thursday we lounged around and then headed to corvallis to check out gathering together farm. technically i guess it's in philomath but that's a stupid name for a town anyway. just kidding, in case anyone cares. we had lunch there and wandered around eating blackberries.

then we drove to oregon state university in corvallis with tasha and corey. talked with a professor there about beetle banks. exactly. when we got home, betty and leroy were waiting for us with the pho soup almost ready. yum. we sauteed up the best mushrooms we have ever had in our lives. seriously. maitakes. they were SO GOOD i never want another mushroom again (they are like a million dollars so i think we will be forced to eat others, damn)

joe and leroy discuss home brewing

maitake mushroom!!!!!!

friday we went to the wandering goat coffee company, to do this blog thingy. in the afternoon, we went for a walk by the river and then once again went back to the wandering goat cafe. then ate delicious burritos at the laughing planet. they were so good. chipotle blows. we got the che guevara which had sweet potatoes, black beans, plantains, pico de gallo...etc. they were amazing. we ate them before we got a picture. oops. we also went to the sweet life and got a raspberry chocolate silk pie (just a piece, not the whole thing, this time) and ate that before we took a picture too. oops again.

then we went to check out the chimney swifts! they are these crazy birds that stop by eugene (and portland i guess) and sleep in chimneys on their way down to mexico? or somewhere south. they funnel in and somehow all fit in that little chimney. ridiculous. poop was raining everywhere. joe got some on his knee. it was worth it. after the show, stacy and josh picked up some wine and we went to tasha's coolass apartment. it's the best apartment in eugene. she has the awesomest decor it would take me 500 years to make my apartment that cool. she got me a sweet robe that you will all be jealous of once i get a picture of it. in hawaii. thanks tasha!

a swift vortex

observers. way more exciting than fireworks.

today we biked to the saturday market with betty! no pictures, but we can assure you it was fun. crazy hippies everywhere. tons of cool stuff to buy. we restrained ourselves and didn't buy anything! just bread. seeded sourdough.

2009-09-25T12:14:00.000-07:00

Sorry for the delay in posts (we are sure it will only get worse) but all is well, and no swine flu yet! Wooho! well, where do we start…hmm… Monday mornin’ we stopped by the natural college of natural medicine (NCNM) just to see what’s up. not much, it was pretty small. Actually, it was REALLY small. Like, three buildings small. So that was a little disappointing but whatever. We will see. Then we headed downtown Portland to check out Portland State University. It was awesome. Joe got a good “vibe” there. So did i. maybe I will just find something to study there. Downtown Portland has some cool bike things called green boxes. You should check’em out.

Then we went to the VITA CAFÉ!! Yum. It was in the Alberta neighborhood (our new favorite neighborhood, still in Portland). We wanted to go there because our favorite mac n’cheese recipe that we found in vegetarian times magazine was from there. And it was DELICIOUS. I, of course, got the mac and cheese, and joe got the sietan chili cheese steak sandwich. They were SO GOOD. We also got a hopworks red IPA and a roots organic red IPA. Overall, coolest place so far (I guess that’s hard to say because everywhere has been because they all have millions of crazy vegan options). This place seemed like vegan capital of the world.

yummmm sietan chili cheese steak!

mac n' cheese!

this is the premise of the green box. figure it out.

LOOK at the options in the vending machines at NCNM!

OH and we stopped at the Alberta coop to do a little comparing. See what these oregonian coops are all about (there aren’t that many, surprisingly, lame). It was pretty much the same size as Randolph…maybe a little smaller. BUT GUESS what they had in bulk? BULK tofu, BULK miso, BULK vegan cream cheese, BULK sea weed. It was crazy. Bulk matt c has some things to work on (ha!). the sucky part would have been their produce department—their prep area was out on the floor, with all the carts and customers, now I thought the window in the new produce room was bad. Think about that! Imagine ___________(insert fav coop customer here) stompin’ up behind you “where are the FIGSSS blah blah blah.” No way. they also had COCONUT MILK KEFIR, what the hell is that? Crazy, huh?

look at the prep area! alberta coop.

Now it was time to leave Portland and head to Eugene to find aunt betty! The minute we got in the door there were margaritas and tortilla soup—yum (well maybe it was more than a few minutes but, who’s timing anyway).

Tuesday was another exciting day…first off, betty picked us up some holy donuts (vegan, of course, amazing). it was nice out so we headed to the coast. Did a couple hikes (cape perpetua, devil’s churn…). It was amazing. The Oregon coast is badass. Everyone should move there (especially kevon and susan). they even have SAND DUNES!! With horse poop (it’s a horse trail, but screw horses). And of course I fell on them and got more bruises, joe laughed. Then we went to a movie at the bijou (we saw paper hearts, good) and had organic popcorn and nutritional yeast. YUM.

dune creeper/peeper peak'n around the dune

dune creeper running over the dunes to the sea

almost there!

this took way too much energy to get up, i almost died

what is better than this?

magical mushroom, we didn't eat it...yet

hike up to the giant spruce

spruce creeper--this wasn't the giant spruce, but it was cool

holy donuts! YUM.

Wednesday and Thursday updates will be coming soon…with food pictures for you liz (food porn or whatever they call it).

~ chelsea and joey

the oregon coast!.jpg

2009-09-22T12:51:00.000-07:00

We made it to the coast! Only a short swim to maui right? Easy
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IMG00068.jpg

2009-09-21T09:20:00.001-07:00

Those were the days...
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the adventure begins...

2009-09-20T22:36:00.000-07:00

after some breakfast potatoes at perkins (woohoo!), some frisking from the airport security, and a shitload of sweet tarts, we finally made it here, to portland (yesterday). waylon and kaycie found us on a bench, and we headed to a microbrewery, hopworks, for its first annual biketoberfest! crap loads of bikes, lots of hops, no jalapeno beer (which was advertised in our inflight magazine, LIARS!), and crazily dressed dancing bike girls with ribbon dancers.

don't you wish you had one of these??

All hopped up, we met my other cousin Tasha and made our way to an equinox party. the party consisted of the coolest treehouse ever made, two bonfires, outrageous plants/landscaping and fire dancers. what more could you ask for?

fire dancers at the equinox party

today was a portland exploration day. we hit up the belmont neighborhood and ate at the paradox cafe. joe got paradox benedict (vegan of course, with awesome hollandaise sauce) and i got the special--scramble with tofu, asparagus, kale, potatoes, onions, artichoke hearts..etc. it was delicious. YUM. then we headed to the top of mt tabor to see an awesome view of portland. the alberta neighborhood was next where we went to townshend's tea house. there were millions of teas to choose from, even a wall of samples to smell. (crystal, you would have passed out, there were so many damn teas) crazy. joe got the traditional kava tea with soymilk and agave and i got the matejuana. a mixture of yerba mate and kava. this was the real stuff, not the crap ground up and thrown in a bag (sorry yogi, we are so over you). this is the instant tongue-numbing shit. we felt the effects immediately. whoa. we are trying to prepare ourselves for the real thing in maui. there were a lot of cool art coops in the neighborhood and we took a gander. we stopped by the rhododendron gardens and reed college before stopping to eat at the queen of sheba. ethiopian feast!

look at all those teas, yum

matejuana

what the hell is going on here?

we need more of this in the twin cities

and this...

krista and erick

our feast of ethiopian food

sweet

sausages!

last time you'll see these babies thanks to tori, liz and patrick THANKS!

that's about it for the last couple days. we also learned our new favorite word. asinine. it means extremely stupid or foolish. what better word could there be. it can also be asininity or asininely. is that one in your GRE words karen?

chelsea (typing) and joe (observing)