Welcome to Kula Country Farms!

Kula Country Farms

Welcome to a beautiful spot on Maui known as Kula Country Farms. Located on an ahupua'a owned by Mr. Henry Rice and his family since 1916, this farm offers acres of beauty, historical significance and family aloha.

We had the pleasure of spending the morning with enthusiastic owner, Teena, and her 2 daughters. The passion that this family exudes is contagious and listening to the tales of the old paniolos (Hawaiian cowboys) that now rest peacefully under a sacred clearing marked by a solo tree swept us back in time to the days of cattle herding and close-knit families. Looking out over the beauty of strawberry fields is a mesmerizing feeling.  You can find the Kula Country Farms strawberries in the local Costco and if you can't make it up to Kula, we encourage you to pick some up at your local store. The sweetness and texture is incomparable!

The prep work has already begun for the time-honored tradition of Halloween. Troughs of pumpkin starts are being nurtured and tended to, getting ready to fill two large fields for local children's enjoyment. Come October, the uphill field will be opened for families to come and select that perfect pumpkin out of the pumpkin patch.

Many whispers of higher priced food on Maui hits our ears frequently. If you're looking for excellent quality produce at extremely reasonable prices- please take a drive up to the Kula Country Farms Market right on Kula Hwy. Fresh herbs, vegetables, fruits and flowers will entice your senses. Jars of homemade fresh jellies, syrups and sauces will give you lots of creative ideas for combining all these locally grown items.  You won't be disappointed!  http://kulacountryfarmsmaui.com/  **More can be found about the Rice Family at http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704320104575015431045157378.html

Part III – Palmer Travel Blog

After successfully purging ourselves of many of the items that once felt necessary, we were left with approx. 100 square feet of family heirlooms, warm weather clothing and basic necessities for our new home. The Allstate Shipping truck arrived and carried away our Matson container. The driver was courteous, funny and a prime example of great customer service skills. No major issues thus far. As of today, the container is cruising along across the ocean on the cargo vessel.

Leaving without our puppy was really hard… thankfully she has great puppy sitters that allow us to Skype with her as we all wait out the mandatory rabies test days. I have to admit, having more space on my bed isn’t always a blessing – I never realized how being shoved off the side of the bed while I sleep is such a comforting motion…

The next hurdle was taking Penny’s Mom through TSA… we weren’t sure how they would react with the recent news coverage of the jar of remains being opened and spilled at an airport… We brought along her cremation paperwork in case it was needed, but here is one of the rare opportunities that I get to give TSA some major KUDOS! We placed her in the bin and alerted the TSA agent of who was in the bin. They stopped all the travelers’ luggage in our line, stood in a ceremonial military type stance and sent her through with pure respect. They made sure nothing encroached on her space, were quick with their analysis and, honestly, made the whole experience feel as if they were honoring her. THANK YOU Seattle TSA for demonstrating that quality of service.

The flight felt quick although the summer storms over the Pacific Ocean made it more bumpy than usual. We arrived home on Fourth of July in time to unpack and watch the Hawaiian Hula Dancers and Fire dancers on the beach. What a treat!

Matson had our car waiting for us to pick up the next day – again, another demonstration of fantastic customer service skills! The car was exactly the way we had left it, no hidden charges, and no storage fees. Way to go, Matson! Mahalo! A few errands later, we were off to volunteer at the Maui AIDS Foundation. They’re finally getting a doctor dedicated to them on a weekly basis and needed help preparing space for him. On went our painting clothes and off went the shoes – after all, slippahs are only required when we dress up here!

We were so busy the first few days that we didn’t even get to play on the beach until yesterday. We took a breather and I swam with the sea turtles – got awesome footage with my underwater video camera! I snorkeled out with a middle-schooler from Calgary and made a video of him swimming with the turtles so he could show his Grandma back home. True Aloha!

So that’s the scoop… A few adjustments still in the mix… For example - it may be considered very muggy but with the trade winds we don’t really notice it; however, I may need to get a nerdy little chin strap to hold my cool UW Baseball Cap on my head! J We have Hurricane Daniel headed this way followed by Hurricane Emelia but if the weathermen are more apt than those on the Mainland, we may just see some needed rain later this week. If not, it’s all good - we’ll be in the secondary bathroom with flashlights, drinks and a few board games – party at our place, want to come?

Maui Turtle.mp4 Watch on Posterous

Sharing the Aloha on Maui

As we prepare to leave for Maui we’re spending quite a bit of time researching local Maui volunteer organizations to coordinate stewardship opportunities for our home schooled daughter and family. We believe that Maui is no ka oi and giving back to the island for all it gives us is important.

In the past we’ve volunteered for the Habitat for Humanity, Maui Chapter.  This organization does a lot of amazing projects on Maui. They even offer short term volunteer projects that make it possible for mainlanders to volunteer while visiting Maui!

Another favorite of ours is the Surfrider Foundation because it involves cleaning up the beaches & parks where we enjoy spending so much of our time. The next cleanup event is on July 21^st at Charlie Young Beach if you’re available! The Surfrider Foundation has chapters all around the world – make time, get involved!

Some other fantastic opportunities to show your aloha on Maui include:

BooBoo Zoo

Hawaiian Islands Humpback Whale National Marine Sanctuary

Kealia Pond National Wildlife Refuge

Hawaiian Islands Land Trust

The Maui Farm

Hana Build

There’s so many it’s hard to list them all… but these are a few of our favorites. Maybe you can make a contribution to wherever you feel your aloha. J

http://pennypalmerphotography.com

Part II... Palmer Travel Blog

Well, the word is out… new friends, old friends and clients alike are scheduling their dates to come visit. How exciting!  Part I – complete.  

Next came the downsizing. Going from a 2300 sq. foot, 3 bedroom, 2 car garage home to most likely a 2 bedroom condo required a lot of thought, consideration and careful planning. We debated between shipping boxes (USPS is the cheapest carrier at about $1/pound), checking boxes on the plane ($125 each), or coordinating a container (minimum size = 20 feet and Matson has the best prices for the reputable companies – although there are cheaper companies that have questionable ratings and feedback).

After selling 90% of what we owned, we changed our initial shipping decision and ordered a Matson container… all 20 feet of it. We had the option of including our car in the container since we’d have extra space, but we couldn’t decide who was small enough to fit the 9” gap that would exist for the driver to climb out of the driver seat… Taylor, our 10 year old, offered; however, we voted against that choice for obvious reasons (although apparently not so obvious to her).

Living in the back corner of a new neighborhood made the garage sale portion of this move very difficult. Finding renters that wanted the peace and quiet was much easier! The first garage sale went smooth with a lot of traffic.  We spent the following week bringing more stuff out of the house and into the garage. The second sale was a bust – both rainy weather and unbeknownst to us, someone had stolen our garage sale signs that mapped out the intricate maze to the back corner of our neighborhood known as home. Without those signs, it was impossible for casual garage-salers to ever find us. The third sale proved successful in that most everything was gone and we met a couple amazing ladies that were willing to do the yard work in exchange for our leather couches – win-win! Maybe it had something to do with the kid out front “scaring up” business…

During the course of all this we must have placed and answered over 200 Craigslist Ads, taken over 100 pictures of odds and ends at potential buyers’ requests, met over 50 folks in the Starbucks parking lot to make the sale, drove to other cities at least 10 times for the high ticket item sales and spent at least 5 hours coordinating on FreeCycle to empty the garage. 

Final result – Downsizing Done. 

Next came the packing up and cleaning of the house for the new renters. Do you know hard it is to get your Flat Screen TV back into the original box with all the original packaging??? Or what about that one power cable that turns up and no one knows what it went to? The day of the move, an Angel of Cleaning and a Wizard of Packing appeared, and we must express our sincerest thanks to our very good friends, Henae and Chris for that… While Chris and I loaded, delivered and unloaded the truck with the worldly belongings that made the final cut, Penny and Henae spent the day doing the deep cleaning on the house. For a family of “O.C.” folks, it’s amazing how dust bunnies can accumulate in very odd corners!

Final Result – House Project Complete.

Most of you have experienced that first week into moving where you are forced to dig through packed boxes to find your toothbrush, jeans or other items that inadvertently made it into a box prepared to continue on to the final destination, right? Doesn’t it make you feel crazy? LOL  Not to mention all the last minute appointments that have to be taken care of before moving 2,500 miles away – like dentist appointments, doctor appointments, haircuts, vision exams, and last minute shopping (Why, didn’t you know? Sports Authority is having a TERRIFIC sale on all Body Glove items like snorkels and fins - 50% off and of course that’s not something we can buy in Hawaii so we must get 3 sets now – and pack them!)

Final Result - Packing Done.

And last for this segment … the car. The beloved Cadillac CTS…  We had our favorite mechanic, Gary, go through it with a fine-tooth comb- replacing, tuning, and balancing everything before Taylor, Penny and I completely detailed it (conditioning everything to help ward off saltwater mist and sun damage).  By 1:00 today it was ready to be delivered to the Port of Seattle.  I drove it across the I-90 Bridge for the last time with tears welling up in my eyes. Needless to say, it was a moving experience (pun intended).

Final Result – Car En Route to Kahului.

Stay tuned as we move through the final 2 pieces before the Adventure really begins – the shipping container and the actual Bon Voyage.

http://pennypalmerphotography.com

See the full gallery on Posterous

Part II, Palmer Travel Blog

Well, the word is out… new friends, old friends and clients alike are scheduling their dates to come visit. How exciting!  Part I – complete.  

Next came the downsizing. Going from a 2300 sq. foot, 3 bedroom, 2 car garage home to most likely a 2 bedroom condo required a lot of thought, consideration and careful planning. We debated between shipping boxes (USPS is the cheapest carrier at about $1/pound), checking boxes on the plane ($125 each), or coordinating a container (minimum size = 20 feet and Matson has the best prices for the reputable companies – although there are cheaper companies that have questionable ratings and feedback).

After selling 90% of what we owned, we changed our initial shipping decision and ordered a Matson container… all 20 feet of it. We had the option of including our car in the container since we’d have extra space, but we couldn’t decide who was small enough to fit the 9” gap that would exist for the driver to climb out of the driver seat… Taylor, our 10 year old, offered; however, we voted against that choice for obvious reasons (although apparently not so obvious to her).

Living in the back corner of a new neighborhood made the garage sale portion of this move very difficult. Finding renters that wanted the peace and quiet was much easier! The first garage sale went smooth with a lot of traffic.  We spent the following week bringing more stuff out of the house and into the garage. The second sale was a bust – both rainy weather and unbeknownst to us, someone had stolen our garage sale signs that mapped out the intricate maze to the back corner of our neighborhood known as home. Without those signs, it was impossible for casual garage-salers to ever find us. The third sale proved successful in that most everything was gone and we met a couple amazing ladies that were willing to do the yard work in exchange for our leather couches – win-win! Maybe it had something to do with the kid out front “scaring up” business…

During the course of all this we must have placed and answered over 200 Craigslist Ads, taken over 100 pictures of odds and ends at potential buyers’ requests, met over 50 folks in the Starbucks parking lot to make the sale, drove to other cities at least 10 times for the high ticket item sales and spent at least 5 hours coordinating on FreeCycle to empty the garage. 

Final result – Downsizing Done. 

Next came the packing up and cleaning of the house for the new renters. Do you know hard it is to get your Flat Screen TV back into the original box with all the original packaging??? Or what about that one power cable that turns up and no one knows what it went to? The day of the move, an Angel of Cleaning and a Wizard of Packing appeared, and we must express our sincerest thanks to our very good friends, Henae and Chris for that… While Chris and I loaded, delivered and unloaded the truck with the worldly belongings that made the final cut, Penny and Henae spent the day doing the deep cleaning on the house. For a family of “O.C.” folks, it’s amazing how dust bunnies can accumulate in very odd corners!

Final Result – House Project Complete.

Most of you have experienced that first week into moving where you are forced to dig through packed boxes to find your toothbrush, jeans or other items that inadvertently made it into a box prepared to continue on to the final destination, right? Doesn’t it make you feel crazy? LOL  Not to mention all the last minute appointments that have to be taken care of before moving 2,500 miles away – like dentist appointments, doctor appointments, haircuts, vision exams, and last minute shopping (Why, didn’t you know? Sports Authority is having a TERRIFIC sale on all Body Glove items like snorkels and fins - 50% off and of course that’s not something we can buy in Hawaii so we must get 3 sets now – and pack them!)

X

Final Result - Packing Done.

And last for this segment … the car. The beloved Cadillac CTS…  We had our favorite mechanic, Gary, go through it with a fine-tooth comb- replacing, tuning, and balancing everything before Taylor, Penny and I completely detailed it (conditioning everything to help ward off saltwater mist and sun damage).  By 1:00 today it was ready to be delivered to the Port of Seattle.  I drove it across the I-90 Bridge for the last time with tears welling up in my eyes. Needless to say, it was a moving experience (pun intended).

X

Final Result – Car En Route to Kahului.

Stay tuned as we move through the final 2 pieces before the Adventure really begins – the shipping container and the actual Bon Voyage.

http://pennypalmerphotography.com

Part 1 of the Palmer Travel Blog... The Decision Process...

Welcome to Part I of the Palmer Travel Blog… The Decision Process…

Well, as some of you may know, we’ve decided to follow our destiny and move to the Islands. As some of you may not know, we are firm believers in Karma and releasing decisions to our spiritual underwriters, or higher selves.  Recently, staying focused on finding the positives in life has been a bit of a challenge. We’ve decided to step it up a notch and get out of living in this reactive mode!

So, when life dealt us a losing hand, we were forced to rethink everything. Paths suddenly became visible that we’d only dreamt about for years. Through the haze of chaos and confusion, we saw glimmering lights from those new paths that lead to our dream. At that point the hardest decision came about – do we risk it all and chase our dream? Honestly, I’m not a huge risk taker so the decision didn’t come as easily as most of you would think.  It was hard for me to release the decision process to my higher self and follow my heart. If you haven’t read a book called The Saint, The Surfer and The CEO, you should take time to read it. I’d been studying out of it for some time before the rock pile of my life fell over, and in hindsight, I see that I’d unknowingly been preparing myself emotionally for this avalanche.  I was able to get through my grieving process fairly quickly and step into the next set of decisions.

What goes with us, how does it get there, and most stressful – How do we tell everyone?

The more I put things down on paper, the clearer the path became. I didn’t allow myself to focus on any one problem, but rather made a note of it and kept moving ahead. The decision to go was made…  I had to believe that any foreseeable problems were really just opportunities for creative thinking. I refuse to allow myself to think, feel or believe anything negative. The more I lied to myself, the more the positives became truths, the truths became realities and those realities were my dreams unfolding.  Paths were formed through the obstacles and light shone where there once was only darkness. Life once again has purpose and hope.  I can feel myself coming alive again.

Not that feeling alive makes it any easier to explain to those we love that we’re moving more than 2500 miles away. In fact, I haven’t said anything on Facebook yet about the avalanche I experienced OR about our family’s move – but I suppose this blog will start the rumors! I just haven’t been able to bring myself to do it… to say goodbye. Wow, it’s harder than I thought. But again, I’m looking past that to the much clearer paths ahead of me and I’m really excited.

Moving across the ocean is much more complicated than one might imagine if you have a well-rooted physical life with a large house and way too many “treasures”… Deciding what to keep and what to sell became a family project – the 3 of us went from room to room and talked about what was important to us.  Then came the thousands of Craigslist ads and the ULTIMATE garage sale. We’ve met a few really special people and even booked a few more photo shoots before we leave (thanks!!!) We reaped in plenty of rewards from Day One of our Garage Sale; however, Day Two was very typical for Seattle activities – Called on account of RAIN… Again, no negativity – we packed it up and we’ll do it again next Monday, Memorial Day (Come one, come all!). It only took 2 days to get our house rented out again and we really like the family moving in – the kind of folks that you know you can be friends with for life… All good, no worries!

So there you have it - the big announcement. The decision has been made and we’re following our dream. Stay tuned for more of the exciting events as they unfold. We’ll be blogging our travels, the opportunities that present themselves and some really bizarre and out of the way places to visit when we leave the comfort zone of our living room couches. You might even see some of our adventures and photography in an upcoming Chit-Chat-Café book, as we’ve been approached by author and talk show host, Gerry Bradley, to provide content for both the next book in the series as well as his Saturday morning radio show on KLAY 1180AM. Great things to come! Thanks for following us here on our adventure and we’ll keep your chair ready for you!

http://pennypalmerphotography.com

Welcome to Part I of the Palmer Travel Blog... The Decision Process

Well, as some of you may know, we’ve decided to follow our destiny and move to the Islands. As some of you may not know, we are firm believers in Karma and releasing decisions to our spiritual underwriters, or higher selves.  Recently, staying focused on finding the positives in life has been a bit of a challenge. We’ve decided to step it up a notch and get out of living in this reactive mode!

So, when life dealt us a losing hand, we were forced to rethink everything. Paths suddenly became visible that we’d only dreamt about for years. Through the haze of chaos and confusion, we saw glimmering lights from those new paths that lead to our dream. At that point the hardest decision came about – do we risk it all and chase our dream? Honestly, I’m not a huge risk taker so the decision didn’t come as easily as most of you would think.  It was hard for me to release the decision process to my higher self and follow my heart. If you haven’t read a book called The Saint, The Surfer and The CEO, you should take time to read it. I’d been studying out of it for some time before the rock pile of my life fell over, and in hindsight, I see that I’d unknowingly been preparing myself emotionally for this avalanche.  I was able to get through my grieving process fairly quickly and step into the next set of decisions.

What goes with us, how does it get there, and most stressful – How do we tell everyone?

The more I put things down on paper, the clearer the path became. I didn’t allow myself to focus on any one problem, but rather made a note of it and kept moving ahead. The decision to go was made…  I had to believe that any foreseeable problems were really just opportunities for creative thinking. I refuse to allow myself to think, feel or believe anything negative. The more I lied to myself, the more the positives became truths, the truths became realities and those realities were my dreams unfolding.  Paths were formed through the obstacles and light shone where there once was only darkness. Life once again has purpose and hope.  I can feel myself coming alive again.

Not that feeling alive makes it any easier to explain to those we love that we’re moving more than 2500 miles away. In fact, I haven’t said anything on Facebook yet about the avalanche I experienced OR about our family’s move – but I suppose this blog will start the rumors! I just haven’t been able to bring myself to do it… to say goodbye. Wow, it’s harder than I thought. But again, I’m looking past that to the much clearer paths ahead of me and I’m really excited.

Moving across the ocean is much more complicated than one might imagine if you have a well-rooted physical life with a large house and way too many “treasures”… Deciding what to keep and what to sell became a family project – the 3 of us went from room to room and talked about what was important to us.  Then came the thousands of Craigslist ads and the ULTIMATE garage sale. We’ve met a few really special people and even booked a few more photo shoots before we leave (thanks!!!) We reaped in plenty of rewards from Day One of our Garage Sale; however, Day Two was very typical for Seattle activities – Called on account of RAIN… Again, no negativity – we packed it up and we’ll do it again next Monday, Memorial Day (Come one, come all!). It only took 2 days to get our house rented out again and we really like the family moving in – the kind of folks that you know you can be friends with for life… All good, no worries!

So there you have it - the big announcement. The decision has been made and we’re following our dream. Stay tuned for more of the exciting events as they unfold. We’ll be blogging our travels, the opportunities that present themselves and some really bizarre and out of the way places to visit when we leave the comfort zone of our living room couches. You might even see some of our adventures and photography in an upcoming Chit-Chat-Café book, as we’ve been approached by author and talk show host, Gerry Bradley, to provide content for both the next book in the series as well as his Saturday morning radio show on KLAY 1180AM. Great things to come! Thanks for following us here on our adventure and we’ll keep your chair ready for you!

http://pennypalmerphotography.com