Ranches and farms

Ranches and farms was Originally Posted on June 16, 2004 by lavarock

Saturday was King Kamehameha Day, celebrating the late King’s rule. As you may know, Hawaii is the only state which had royal lineage and palaces.

There was great parade down Alii Drive along the ocean with the usual decorated cars and dignataries. One invited guest was Jordan Segundo, a recent star on American Idol.

Also popular in the parade are horseback riders, varied and many. An interesting sight was the Hawaiian Women, in full flowing gowns and flowered hats, riding side-saddled and controlling their horses.

After the parade there were outrigger races at the newly refurbished pier, and the pomp and ceremony to remind people of the King and his rule.

As for the horses, the Parker Ranch is the largest private ranch under single ownership in the United States, spreading approximately 175,000 acres across the Big Island of Hawaii. It is also one of the country’s oldest ranches, with more than 150 years of history. Although I have not been to the ranch yet, it sounds like lots of fun; especially the rodeo and horse races!

My younger sister called me from the the other day to say that she decided to sell her house. She opted for FSBO (For Sale By Owner). While waiting for the listing to appear online, she posted a “For Sale” sign in the window and went out for a few hours. Upon returing to the house, she bound a buyer willing to pay full price with no haggling, no “what ifs”, no worries about how anything. She lucked out on this sale, as was evidenced by my recent sale So, it looks like my sister is heading out here to Hawaii to try a quieter life. I will have a bit of help now getting the farm ready.

Speaking of the farm, Tuesday I reviewed the coffee labels and found a slight problem that should be easy to correct. I told the printer to adjust the color a bit and go to press. I should have my labels by Friday! This has been a long process, but it looks like it will happen soon now!

I am still working on my website, tweaking and adding. I can’t get the Postal Service shipping rates to work correctly, but I’ll worry about that later. Since I can ship up to about a pound or pound and a half of coffee beans at a fixed price, having multiple shipping options only complicates things a bit by sending me all around town to drop off shipments.

I have been looking for storage units for the property here with little luck. Back on the mainland you can stop by a Home Depot and find large wooden barn-like buildings which can house almost a car. Here the best I have found is 6′ by 12′ plastic or metal buildings. The metal ones will not last long on this environment and I’m not thrilled with the idea of a plastic one. Perhaps the wooden sheds are too hard to ship or no one here makes them. It might be easier and/or cheaper to just build one. Soon I’ll have to be building drying decks and pulping areas, so perhaps building a shed would be a good start.

That’s it for now.