Haunted Farms, Jobs, Tsunami Warnings, oh my!

This past week has been a whirlwind of events and emotions. Starting new jobs, while still living in the tent and semi working on the farm has been kinda crazy to say the least. For me personally I've felt really stressed out, I don't feel balanced or settled. Zach and I had a night where we talked about everything...did we make a mistake trying to move to Hawaii? Have we bitten off more than we can chew? Did we really think things through? And we came to the conclusion that it's not a mistake it's just a lot harder than we both anticipated. Of course moving somewhere new is hard and of course trying to make a life for ourselves on the island is even harder. Although, right now we feel frustrated and stressed out we know thing will get better. I pray that this beginning is the toughest part for us.

We both work at Wholefoods but at two separate stores. Mine is in east Honolulu and Zach's is in Kailua, about 15 minutes north of the farm. I'm working in the bakery/coffee bar and Zach is working in the prepared foods department. I have been working the evening shift, 2:30-11pm and I've worked 7 days straight (not my favorite) but we are both glad for the hours and money that will come. So how it's been working out is we wake up around 7:30am and try to do a little work on the farm so we are still contributing, then I get ready for work and head the bus stop by 12:30. The bus is about an hour ride and drops me off right in front of work. John is kind enough to let Zach drive his car to pick me up at 11:00 but I usually get out about 11:15, then we drive the 25 minute drive back to the farm and are in our tent and asleep around midnight.

Zach started working yesterday and it went well, he thinks he'll enjoy working in prepared foods. He has never worked with food before so he'll be learning a lot. He got to chop vegetables, cracked 500 eggs, stocked the salad bar, and helped out in the kitchen. As of right now his schedule is 11:00am-7:30pm so he is still able to pick me up. Although this current set up is not ideal we are doing our best to make it work.

Working in the bakery has been interesting, I don't feel like I received a proper training so I've been learning as I go. I basically prepare breads and pastries that need to go out on the shelves. I cut up cake slices, bake cookies, and help customers with cakes and pies. I trained a few days in the coffee/juice bar, which I enjoyed and hope to work more in that area. Luckily the store is very busy so the 8 hours go by pretty fast. We are grateful that we found jobs now we just need to find an apartment.

With our delima of working in different areas, living on the farm, and having to rely on the bus, which stops running at 10:00pm we thought it best to buy a moped with the intention of me driving it to and from work. Let's just say it's going to take me longer than we both thought to feel comfortable driving it the 16 miles. But Zach loves it and drives it all over and it does give us more independence. 

At the beginning of the month the farm decided they would host a haunted house to raise founds for the farm. It was a haunted farm theme featuring several things that we do on a daily basis, but much spookier. We had a real live chicken slaughtering section, a Black Soldier Fly maggot dinner buffet, a Mongoose petting zoo with real real Mongoose, a Bobcat Tractor gone wild, and of course a deranged chainsaw murderer. We asked for $5 donations for entrance, and the first night the farm raised over $400! The second night was more of the same, only things got really scary when the National Weather Service Tsunami warnings started going off and we were forced to close down the Haunted Farm and head for high ground. I was at work, and thankfully we got to close early that night. Zach picked me up and he said that the roads were packed with people forced to evacuate the lower coastline areas and that all the gas stations and grocery stores were packed with people trying to get last minute provisions in case the wave actually did hit and cause any damage. While he was driving the Deep Purple song "Burn" came on and it was the perfect song for that moment, driving along the coast of Hawaii, racing an approaching tsunami and the pending road closures to pick me up. We got back to the farm and talked with the other WWOOOF'ers for a bit before deciding that we felt we were safe enough and were going to bed. When we got up in the morning, turns out we were the only ones left on the island! Just kidding! Nothing really happened. The tide maybe rose an extra foot and nothing came from it thankfully. It was kinda cool to be here to experience a real tsunami warning though.

This weeks mission is to find an apartment!

 

Zach doing some farm work. Here he is burning an Ali Koa tree stump that is trying to grow despite our best efforts to kill it.

A picture of the two live Mongoose that we caught for the Haunted Farm. Despite not looking like much, these things are nasty and quite fierce. We didn't let anyone really pet them.

 

Here is Sara, doing her best Vana White with our new scooter and helmet!