Hitchen A Ride

Ahhhhhh Friday, aka harvest day, 8am, a farmer’s work is never done. On Fridays we harvest veggies for the market and a restaurant. On Thursdays we are all assigned what we need to harvest for Friday, and we can generally choose what we want to harvest. Bettina and I chose to harvest herbs. We harvested Italian and American parsley, cilantro, chives, okra and dill. When you harvest herbs you have to wear gloves because the oil on our hands discolors the herbs…or something like that. After we gathered the amount of herbs needed we had to sort through them and throw away all the ugly ones, then packages and label them for delivery. Harvesting is fun, but you are on a time limit so you need to rush it, which keeps it exciting. After we finished harvesting Bettina, Steve and I went into the Aloha garden to do some much needed weeding. Around 2:00 Steve and I went into Grace to harvest more okra and eggplant, and then we were done for the day! That sounds like a simple day, but it is a lot of gratifying, muscle working work!
Later that night Wes and I went into Paia. Bettina gave us a ride in her truck (which I am in love with) a little of the way, then we had to hitch the rest of the way. It didn’t take us too long to get picked up, and the guy who gave us a ride took us all the way into town. When we got to town we went to the store to get some food before walking down to the beach. I love the grocery store here, it has the most amazing, healthful foods, and it is also the store we sell some of out produce to. After we ate we walk to the beach! I am not sure what the beach is called but oh my god, I love it. When you first get there it is like any other beach (that’s a lie all the beaches here are both beautiful and amazing in their own way because they are all different), but if you keep walking you will reach the most amazing beach. Ok, maybe not the most amazing, I feel like you can not compare the beaches here to each other. All the beaches have different sand, water color, smells, and background. Over all they are all a different, amazing elements to witness. Anyways, the unique thing about this beach is that there are broken trees and branches jetting out of the water and washed up on shore. The trees and covered in green moss, which looks amazing with the blue backdrop of sky and ocean. Wes and I hung out there for a while talking and watching the sunset. We even went out to one of the huge branches and sat on top while the waves crashed beneath us. I got soaked getting to the branch, but you have to get used to being wet here due to frequent random rain. We decided to go home when it got dark, and by the way it’s super hard to hitch at night. We ended up getting two rides which took us 1/3 of the way each time. The people we met were around our age and they were all super nice. By the way, did you know you can ride in the truck bed and not get a ticket….not that we did that or anything ……. We had to walk a long way home from the second drop off, but its fun when you’re with someone, plus it’s all a new adventure. As soon as we got to the road that leads to Hale Akua (which is still a long way to home) it started pouring. We were both soaking, I didn’t have a jacket but it’s almost pointless to wear one when the rain is warm and you are almost home. Its way more fun to say fuck it and enjoy the bliss that is rain! When we got home we hung out with Bettina and Steve, all I need to say about that is: nutmeg, didgeridoos and fun 