I am finally doing what I came to Hawai’i to do. Today, I:

-woke up in a tent in the Hawaiian rainforest

-collected chicken eggs from the roosts (all food basically free range, organic)

-harvested a bucket of oranges and tangerines

-made fresh orange juice from those oranges

-harvested a bucket of limes

-harvested a giant bowlful of greens from the garden for the dinner salad

(kale, lettuce, mizuna, escarole, arugula, mustard greens, +more)

-harvested a rack of bananas

-planted two banana trees

-harvested a big bucketful of avocados

-made stir fry (including the eggs i found in the morning)

-took a shower using roof-mounted, solar water-heater water

-helped prepare dinner for a group of cool people who choose to live off the grid and eat food that they grow themselves

Obviously, I’m having a good time here at La’akea Farm, where I have a month-long work-exchange internship. Living out of my tent is interesting, but I have access to the whole larger community house, with a well-stocked kitchen (all the herbs and organic soy milk one could ever want), a gym/playroom with exercise balls, an office (obviously there’s computers and internet here), a living area with a giant TV, and a lenai for meetings and cell phone conversations (good signal in the lenai room).

This fun can’t last forever, of course, and at some point I will be returning to civilization. C. and E. are coming to visit in a few weeks, and I’m super excited for the hotel parties, lava viewing, drinking, sunbathing, snorkling, and karaoke which will surely compose their best Hawaiian vacation ever!

In the meantime, I’m eating really good food that’s growing right outside of where I’m sitting! Ono grinds as the locals say…

Pictures to follow, once I my computer back from civilization.