Maui Christmas 2013

Mele Kalikimaka! Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays from our home to yours! We hope that you are all enjoying the holiday season with your loved ones and those dear to you. May your Christmas be filled with love, hope, peace, happiness and many, many, many wondrous things. And to our families, we miss and love you all very much and can't wait until we can celebrate the holidays with you all once more.   

It's never too early or too late to say 'Hello' to your dreams, so please say "Hello" to Benny the cow, who represents the beginnings of our dream and the reason we are in Maui. We hope you enjoy the first edition of our "Cool Cow Creamery" holiday cards.

The process that led us to where we are now.

Why would anyone sell everything they own, including their home, vehicles, and all of their possessions intentionally?  When asked why I did it, I had to think about the answer.   The answer is simple.  Because I found something better that was worth sacrificing those things for.  Before this journey began I had a simple vision about what I wanted out of life.  It was like seeing to the other side of a canyon and then realizing that I had to figure out how to build a bridge across the gap.  Prior to this realization I felt like my life was very linear, I had only a few limited paths that I was expected to go down.  There was path A, path B, and path C.  Rather than accepting these limited options I decided to choose another path, a path of my own creation.   

I went through a creation process for my ideal situation.  I started in my imagination, and using the unlimited resources that reside there, created the perfect scenario, environment, infrastructure, vehicles, and even culture.  I understood from the beginning that these concepts may never materialize into reality exactly as I envisioned them.  One of the reasons why the concepts wouldn't be exactly as I envisioned them is because I began to share them with others.  Every person I shared with had their own interpretation of what I would describe.  Sometimes the other person's interpretation was much better and more detailed then my own, or the other person just had a better alternative for that particular concept.  The more I shared the ideas, the more they took form, in my own mind and in others minds.  After sharing the concepts with others, I began to look at what was already in existence that matched my ideas.  I found out about the Marianas islands because I wanted minimal weather variation.  I found out about CNG vehicles and producing your own methane from your livestock because I wanted a  renewable fuel source.  These solutions may not have been what I originally envisioned, but they are interchangeable alternatives.  The next stage of the process is to take inventory of what tangible resources are available to develop the concept into a reality.  This stage led me to the realization that I would have to sacrifice everything I owned in order to make the dream tangible.  Then came a detailed planning of the execution, with all the practical questions like where are we going to live while this dream is being constructed, how are we going to get there, what type of budget will we have to live off of?  After suitable answers were found to these questions I was ready for the final stage, execution, or as I like to call it, pulling the trigger.  I became well aware of the dangers of planning in a vacuum.  You can't see every detail of the future and some failures and unforeseeable things will come up.  If this happens, first thing I do is take a moment to breathe.  I purge myself of disappointment and emotion, recognize where the failure originated from, and go right back to the Dream Big stage, then I cycle, rinse, and repeat. : )

To summarize, the steps are...

-DREAM BIG (like resources and budgets don't exist).

-SHARE (with others who offer positive reinforcement/criticism/shaping of the idea).

-RECONCILE (with reality, do research).

-INVENTORY (resources and budget).

-ORGANIZE (details and logistics).

-PULL THE TRIGGER.

            In the event of failure

            -PURGE emotion/reaction.

            -IDENTIFY the problem.

-Return to DREAMING BIG!

I hope that this is helpful, it is how my mind works to make things become tangible. 

At Work and Play

We've definitely been working hard since we got to Maui but it's not to say that we don't play just as hard when we do get time off. Here are some photos from both the Surfing Goat Dairy (James' work place) and Hawaii Sustainable Farms (My's former work place). We hope y'all enjoy the pictures as much as we've enjoyed our time here so far.

The Surfing Goat Dairy with some of it's tenants, the first group of Kids born this season, James' with the first born, Uno and his living quarters (the little gray shop).

Hawaii Sustainable Farms with some of it's tenants (Alpacas, Dakota the Horse, and ALL former Woofers), Signs that My made for the Farmer's Market, Our booth at the Farmer's Market, and the Upper Field of the farm.

 Us with Mo & Natalie at "Cinnamon, Sugar Beach" (that's what we decided to call it since it's a secluded, no name beach) where we camped for the night, a fish James speared for us, the view along the way to the beach & us enjoying it.

**For those of you who are curious, here's the quick of why I'm no longer at the farm: Let's just say that the farm manager & I had a "clash of personalities," I was unhappy, and uncomfortable so I decided to leave the farm and am now working on a personal project for an awesome couple's home. The new job & living situation is so much better than I could have asked for and I'm much happier now. I will post pictures of my new place & projects later. Peace, Love & Happiness! ~My

Thanksgiving 2013 - Maui, Hawaii

Happy Thanksgiving!

We are so thankful for our AMAZING Family & Friends as always, but even more so this year as we have started on this new and exciting journey and would not have had as much courage to take this risk if it were not for all the Love, Encouragement, and Support we have received from each and everyone of you. We're also thankful for the new opportunities and experiences here on Maui and for all the Amazing NEW FRIENDS we have made here in such a short time (Morgaine & Natalie). We love you all, both old & new friends. Thanks for blessing our lives!

With that said, we hope everyone had a WONDERFUL Thanksgiving this year because we most certainly did. We started our Thanksgiving day getting up at 3:30am to get up to Haleakala Crater to watch the sunrise with Mo & Natalie. It was freezing cold...like winter cold....but every moment was worth the wait.

 View of West Maui from Haleakala Crater

Although James had to work after we watched the sunrise, we got to enjoy feeding the goats & playing with the dogs at the Surfing Goat Dairy, and we ended the evening with a delicious Thanksgiving dinner cooked for us by Thomas (James' boss). 

 James's Surfing Goat Dairy Family

From California to Maui....

Sorry, updating the blog is long over due. However, it's been a little...a lot...chaotic (the good kind) with this journey and all the transitions we have to deal with so far, but it's also been a huge blessing for us. We made AMAZING new friends while at the workshop in Hesperia and got to see family all along the west coast as we made our way up to Seattle, WA to fly out for our year long adventure in Maui.

We were blessed to meet the newest addition to our family and got to hang out with most of the nieces and nephews while visiting family in Hanford, Antelope, and San Francisco, California. Once we were done in CA, it was another 8 hours drive north to Eugene, Oregon to visit the lovely grandparents for a day. Then off to Seattle, WA where we went to stay and visit with May & Luke before we flew out to Maui. It was great seeing family but also sad at the same time since the short amount of time we did have to visit flew by too fast.

We finally flew out to Maui, Hawaii early Wednesday morning on October 30th. Luckily enough, our car was already there waiting for us to pick up the following day as we were expected at Hawaii Sustainable Farms to begin our work exchange week prior to James starting at the Surfing Goat Dairy. We got to work quickly that first week (and have been quite busy since then) but were able to take a little time to enjoy a secluded tidal pool along the West shores of Maui (and many more beaches since then).

Cal-Earth & Midwest Permaculture Workshop

Final Week
October 13th - 18th

Our final (3rd week) at Cal-Earth was just as busy, if not even more busy, than our first and second week here. We had very long days, sometimes 12-14 hours days, filled with lots and lots of hands-on training, classroom time, and fun with new friends. We were able to finally complete the building of our dome on Tuesday and enjoy the feeling of success. We completed the course Friday morning with a final permaculture design presentation and graduated from the course. And we are now proud to say that we are certified and official.

Below are some pictures of the Dome we built. Please Enjoy!

The construction of the Dome

Setting the Door form & mixing earth to begin the build

   

Filling earth bags, tamping, setting & building window forms 

Half way through the build

 Finishing the building of the Dome

 

 

  

The finished Dome and Crew!



 Officially Certified!

 Cal-Earth & Midwest Permaculture Workshoppers & Instructors

 

Combined Cal-Earth & Midwest Permaculture Workshop

Week One
October 6th - 12th

A good portion of the workshop students started arriving Sunday evening. It felt pretty chaotic as we were adjusting to all the new students coming in, trying to find a dome for them to settle into, giving them a quick tour of the campus, and offering rides to the grocery store as most of them flew in for the workshop. Aaron was kind enough to make plenty of chili to feed everyone that evening while they all were getting situated and settled.

We got up extra early at 5:30am Monday morning and was able to enjoy a beautiful sunrise. Breakfast commenced at 7:30am and we had our first introductions with the rest of the workshop students. Once introduction were done, we went straight to work learning about the principles of arches and building arches with just brick, rocks/gravel, and sand. It was a great start to the workshop.

Tuesday was dedicated to Permaculture, where we learned all about contour lines, A frames, and swales. We finally got to the hands on portion of building the dome Wednesday. We learned to mix the earth to just the right consistency, however, we got rained out that first day of building and so we went back to learning more about permaculture and building communities. The rest of the week flew by.  It was filled with classes and building.  We were busy each day, but each day was full of fun and friends.

A Beautiful Desert Sunrise at Cal-Earth

 

 Day 1 of the two weeks workshop

Permaculture Class on Swales & Contours

Bill (one of our permaculture instructor)
 

Learning the Principles of Arches

Hooman (one of several instructors)

 Our 1st attempt at building an arch out of brick, sand, rocks/gravel

 The finished lancet arch 

 and our first attempt to stand on it 

...FAILED!

 But never FEAR...we tried a second time using a bigger Roman arch

  

The finished arch

 and our 2nd attempt at standing on the arch...

 

 ....which was a success!

 Placing bricks on the arch to find out how much it can hold

 before it started to collapse

 under the weight