This was our last full day at Greenlee Farm. We were the only guests on the property, so why leave?
Macadamia Nut Tour
We woke to a beautiful morning, had some brekki in our cottage and we were ready to go for our 8:30am tour with farmer Paul of the nut farm. We wandered around a bit, Paul was 15 minutes late, suggesting the old watch his father left him must not work anymore. He showed up in his farm-cart, not to be confused with a golf cart. The girls promptly jumped on, while Sarah and I followed behind.
The Nut Field
We started in the field, learning primarily about pest prevention. To avoid the use of pesticides farmer Paul employs the services of "good bugs to take out the bad bugs". Larva of the mercenary bugs are delivered by mail to Greenlee and put out in the grove.
Aussie Native, Not Hawaiian
Macadamia nuts are one of only two native Australian fruits that have have been exported and grown outside of Aussie. The other is the interesting looking finger lime, apparently the current foodie rage around. Next time we see it on a menu, we'll give it a try. We'll be in Hawaii in May, letting them know they don't have a righteous claim on the nut!
Post Pick
Next up, we went inside to see the sorting, drying, cracking, salting and packaging process. There is some serious labor involved; there's a reason why they're so expensive!
I made up this fun video that gets into some details of the tour...
Paige & Sadie Take a Crack
We're a few week away from harvest season, so the picking of nuts was slim. We were able to get some dried out nuts from the last harvest, which we brought back to our room and the girls went at cracking them.
School Time
Sarah and I decided that their morning session of school was going to be a project retelling what they'd learned during the tour. The first part of the assignment was for them to work together, documenting all the steps of the process with sticky notes in their room. They eagerly took it on.
Next, they had to answer two writing questions on their own:
1. What are the challenges of being a macademia nut farmer?
2. What are some positive things you can think of about being a maca farmer?
They were totally energized by the assignment, a good reminder that we need to change it up and do a better job of incorporating what they're "learning by doing" each day into their studies. Score one today for the students...and teachers!
Read about the afternoon happenings on the farm, in this post.
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