A question I get asked a lot by friends and family who haven't been to the farm (and even some who have) is "what is an average day like?" Well, even though all of the days can run together and feel the same, there isn't really an "average day." But here goes anyway!

This first "day in the life" post is Tuesday, August 12th.

6:55 AM: Woke up

7:10: Laid in bed writing the daily schedule on the farm google doc. At the farm, we use google docs for the daily to-do list. Everyone has access to the google doc and can read and edit it. On this particular day, I assigned seeding and soaking of microgreens, weeding, planting, errands (to buy seed and some more ingredients for our potting mix), finishing a garden bed in the front yard and fencing it, cleaning the chick house, turning the compost, planting rose bushes and replanting some squash that got a virus.

7:30: Read my book for a little while while waking up. I am reading The Interestings by Meg Wolitzer. I really like it so far. It reminds me a little bit of The Marriage Plot, but slightly more mature. I definitely recommend it.

7:50: Got up, brushed my teeth and put on my workout clothes.

7:57 Checked on the chicks and changed their water and refilled their food. We are raising meat chickens for Holuakoa Cafe - a farm to table restaurant about 2 miles from our farm. Right now they live in a baby pool in the guest bedroom. Next week they will be old enough to move outside to the chick house.

8:01: Started jogging on the treadmill.

8:04: Got interrupted by a call from the refrigerator repairman who says he wants to come over right now, even though he has no appointment. We have been having an issue with our refrigerator where it is constantly chiming because it thinks the door is open even when it is closed.

8:05: Resumed run

8:22: The repairman arrives and cuts my workout short. I tell Doug he is here and Doug talks to him about the fridge while I jump in the shower.

8:24: Showered

8:28 Got dressed, brushed my hair etc.

8:33: Chatted with the repairman about the problems with the fridge. He tells me that he took out almost all of the food and put it on the counter. I was nervous that it would take a long time and that the food would be out too long, but it ended up being only about an hour.

8:35 Made breakfast and ate it on the porch. I had cranberry walnut toast with peanut butter and a strawberry and banana protein shake. The cranberry walnut bread is from Oven and Butter - an awesome vendor at the Keauhou Farmers' Market on Saturdays. We traded wheatgrass shots for this particular loaf.

9:03 Started crossing off some to-dos for the day. I had to make an appointment with my allergist and call Farm and Garden and place an order for perlite, vermiculite and some trays. Unfortunately, Farm and Garden was all out of perlite so I called Ace, Lowes, Home Depot, Walmart and another Farm and Garden that is farther away. None of them had perlite (I guess there was a run on perlite in Kona...?) so we will just make do without it until Thursday when the shipment comes in.

9:34 I finally finish my phone calls and send one of our WWOOFers, Josh, to Farm and Garden to pick up our order. We needed this done first thing because the perlite and vermiculite are ingredients in our potting mix and Tuesday is a microgreen seeding day.

9:43 Meeting with WWOOFers about morning projects - I assigned the chick bed cleaning and turning the compost to Jared and explained how I wanted it done. I decided to do most of the planting myself later in the day.

9:50 we got some packages! A bunch of seeds (very typical) and a box full of gifts for my bridesmaids.

9:52: Responded to a bunch of emails that couldn't wait or that I had already been putting off for a couple days. The main email was to Melissa, our wedding planner, confirming a bunch of details. These emails take a long time, but I can just imagine how crazy it would be planning the wedding if we didn't have her.

10:00 Interrupted by the repairman. He was finished, but left all the food out and the kitchen covered in wet towels from the fridge condensation. Doug and I put away all the food, but then when we shut the door to the fridge, saw that it still said that door was open! If you look close in the picture on the left, you can see a little red icon saying the door is open, even though it is closed. So frustrating!

10:11 Back to emails. They felt never ending but I plugged away.

10:43 Finally done with emails! Doug pours me some kombucha from the farmers' market as a treat. We still have a little left from Sunday.

10:48 head down to the garden for some planting. There were some sections ready to be planted and I weeded them and put in beans, peas, carrots, lettuces and a new kind of wasabi arugula.

Swarley came out to sit by me while I worked.

You can see a section I cleared below and where I planted some new things. In this particular spot I put carrots - tons of different varieties. They should be ready to harvest in about 3 months.

12:10 Finished working in the garden for the day and put away my tools and seeds. Also washed off my legs and arms - I literally have a scrub brush that I use.

12:15 Went to the kitchen to scrounge up some lunch. Thankfully today we had plenty of leftovers from dinner on Monday. I had a pork chop with a blue cheese/white wine sauce, roasted cauliflower, kabocha squash puree and a microgreen salad. The squash and the salad were from the farm.

12:36: Done with lunch and Bells gets to lick the plate. I sat on the porch for a bit after lunch talking to Doug about where we should plant two moringa trees that we have in pots right now.

12:54: Did a little more computer work - I had to email Doug receipts for some seeds we bought last week. I also called Katie (one of our WWOOFers) to pick up some ingredients at the store for her going away dinner that night.

1:01: I got my seeds together to plant some kabocha squash around some fence lines and it started raining really hard. So instead of planting, I decided to make some headway on our wedding invitations. For those of you who don't know, Doug and I are getting married in October, so we have had a lot of wedding planning to these last few weeks. Tuesdays and Sundays are typically my days off - or at least half days, so I try to get some of the wedding stuff done on those days.

1:09: Just as I gathered all of my materials for invitations together, Danisha, one of my bridesmaids, called to chat and I took a break to talk to her. It is so nice getting to talk to her - she is always incredibly busy, so when she has time to talk, I always try to make the most of it.

1:24: I got off the phone with Danisha and went back to working on the invitations.

2:00: Made a french press to power me through the invitations.

2:10: Checked on the chicks and refilled their food and water.

2:20: Convinced Doug to help me work on the invitations by turning on the Cubs game while we worked. At this point I had finished all of the calligraphy and the watercolor on the back of the RSVP envelopes. All Doug and I were doing was matching the correct inner envelopes to the outer envelopes and, stamping the envelopes and stuffing them with the invitations. Even though that sounds easy, it took forever!

3:45 Still working on invitations. Even the dogs were tired of working on them.

4:00: While Doug continued to work on invitations, I gave some instruction to two of our WWOOFers, Jared and Josh, on a garden bed we were building in the front yard.

4:20: Back to working on invitations - with a beer for Doug and another coffee for me.

5:30 Finished with invitations (for the time being). Taught Josh and Jared how to plant our baby salad mix.

5:45 Worked on beds a little more with the WWOOFers and planted two purple rose bushes at the end of each garden bed. Our neighbor George brought over the bushes for us to plant and I thought that on either side of the front path would be the perfect spot.

6:15 Started cooking dinner. This specific night was Katie's last night, so she got to request any dinner she wanted. Her favorite food are corn dogs, so that was her request. Because I don't know how to make corn dogs and I pretty much refuse to deep fry things, I decided to make a spin on corn dogs and make chili dogs with a cornbread waffle for a bun. My first step was harvesting the ingredients I needed from the garden. On a normal night, there would be a lot more I needed from the garden, but because tonight was such an unhealthy dinner, all I needed were peppers.

First I chopped some garlic and onion for the chili. Then I minced up the peppers. The hawaiian hots went into the chili and the habanero went into the corn bread waffles. Cutting up peppers, I always wear gloves because I am a total wuss.

Another request of Katie's was a nice slaw. I made it with purple and green cabbage, thinly sliced bell peppers and onions. For the sauce, I made up a recipe of yogurt, red wine vinegar, mustard and spices.

While the chili simmered, my dinner helper, Doug worked on the corn bread. He made a regular corn bread recipe, and then added in chopped up munster cheese and minced habanero.

While he was doing that, Bruce and I made a quick side dish of sauteed peas and onions.

7:30: Dinner is served!

8:30 Finished dinner and started on the dishes. At the farm, we have a chore chart for dishes, compost, taking care of the animals etc. On this particular day, I was on dishes, so I had to do all of the dinner dishes, tidy the kitchen, wipe the counters and sweep the floor.

8:50: Done with dishes, Doug and I went back to working on invitations. We were so close and just dying to finish (or at least I was).

9:10 FINISHED WITH INVITATIONS! We were so excited to be done with them and able to mail them the next day. Doug and I settled in for a episode of Farm Kings (a reality tv show about a family farm in Pennsylvania).