Other than Farm Blog

Got up a little too early again. Still dark in winter. so I started 2 batches of bread recipe with millet grain and rolled oat. I've been trying to finalize my ongoing millet grain bread recipe. I like the crunch of millet and oat add texture like oat meal. A little more chewy. 5 cups unbleached all-purpose flour (or bread flour) 2 cups warm water 1 tbsp yeast (or sour dough starter) 1 tbsp salt 3/4 cup molasses or 3 tbsp sugar 1/2 cup millet uncooked 1 cup rolled oat add some herbs as you wish. I added fennel. Rosemary is good too. Just like regular bread recipe. Mix ingredients and knead it to good consistancy. Let it rise for 60 min. Punch it down. Shape it for baking and let it rise again. Bake: 350F for 20-25min when wedge cut, or 35-40 min for loaf. I also made a rye bread on the side, but maybe someday I will share that recipe too.

Now it's 3rd day harvesting taro and finished harvesting for the season. Taro is an amazingly beautiful plant. It shakes its heart-shaped leaves in the wind like hula dancers in a charming manner. Gentle yet precise. Its stems rise straight out of the ground to support the leaves to receive the sun's energy. Painters on a calligraphy paper these stems should be painted in a single stroke without hesitation. That's the way to depict its beauty. Dryland taro is different from wet land taro. Taro farmers in paddies squat like sumo wrestlers ready to fight and continue to break the feeder roots around the corm and pull up the main root which most people call "Taro." I personally like dryland Taro as I am a farmer of a highland. Standing water is not my preferred area. I thrust my garden fork right in by the foot of taro root and swing it sideway to snap the feeder roots and use the leverage to bring the root above the surface. Each root is unique in its size a

Morning at Mauna Kea Tea starts early as if every farmer is born under the same destiny to get up early and work. The days are getting shorter and the growing season is getting closer to the end, yet warm days and never ending loads of work await me. Am I just putting too much on my plate? Walking through the tea fields, I can't help noticing the tasks waiting to be done. so I do a few things as I walk down the hill as if it gives me any contentment of actual work being done. In the end realizing that it is not just a few plants that needs attention, but thousands. Why did I choose the hillside to farm? Why did I have to make it so much more inefficient? For the amount of extra work that goes in, is it really worth it? Only people saying, "You've done so much work. Your farm is looking beautiful," further continue my labor intensive farm landscape. Does it really matter how the farm looks in regard to how it tastes? Maybe it does. Having the image of the farm