Page 71 of Big Island Neighbors
“Yeah?”
“What if we joined forces?”
“What do you mean?”
“Well, there are lots of elders who appreciate the weekly meal but aren’t always able to make it. Plus people who work that day, or young moms with no transport… what if we included them in your meal deliveries? What if we could feed people more than once a week?”
The dream of it took shape in Tara’s mind, full of hope and possibility, but she sighed and shook her head. “I would love to be able to do that, Emma, but I’m barely eking out a profit as it is.”
“Oh, I didn’t mean that you should pay for it! But if I could figure out the funding, could you make more meals each week? I could help with the cooking too, but your food is phenomenal, and you know more about sourcing and cooking with local ingredients. Maybe eventually we could hand off the cooking to somebody else, using your recipes - but I’m getting ahead of myself.”
Tara smiled and wrapped her hands around her coffee mug. “Who’s going to fund it?”
“I thought I could set up a little fundraiser online. If it goes well, I could see about obtaining nonprofit status and applying for grants. I’m just in the early research stages right now, but I wanted to see if it were something you were interested in.”
“That sounds amazing.” Tara sipped at her coffee and mulled it over. “We could offer a sponsorship program for customers. The option to buy a meal forkupunawhen they buy one for themselves.”
“I love that idea.”
“I could make a new flier,” Cody offered. “It could show the normal price and then give people the option of paying double to sponsor meals forkupuna.”
“And postpartum mothers,” Emma added.
“It wouldn’t have to be double,” Tara said thoughtfully. “Just enough to cover our costs.”
“You deserve to be paid for your work.”
“You do the math,” Cody said, “I’ll make the flier.”
“Okay,” Tara laughed. “Deal.”
21
Emma
Emma stretched and breathed deeply, taking in the morning birdsong from thelanai.
It was a clear morning. The pale blue sky was tinged with pink over the??ohi?aforest that stood between the Kealoha place and the ocean.
For the first time in weeks, they had gone two days and two nights in a row without rain. The garden was overdue for a weeding, so once the kids were fed and the goats were milked, Emma settled down between garden beds and got to work.
The weeds, like the snails and insects, were relentless in Hawai’i. Sometimes they found welcome volunteers: tomatoes, pumpkins, even papaya. But mostly, she had to work every day to keep wild plants from overtaking the Kealoha place.
She had overcome her fear of power tools in order to use a weed eater on the cactus grass that was constantly encroaching upon the orchard. She just couldn’t keep up with a hand scythe,and she hadn’t gotten around to borrowing sheep like Tara had suggested.
She still hated the noise and vibration of the weed eater, but she’d mastered her fear and was managing to keep the fast-growing grass in check.
Weeding the garden by hand was a chore that she actually enjoyed.
The steady work of tending the plants that gave them so much food was so rewarding, and there was no place that she would rather be. It gave her the chance to observe every detail as her plants grew from seedlings to adulthood, and it was satisfying to rip out the weeds that threatened her carrots and tomatoes.
There had been so much rain lately that mushrooms had sprouted in and around the garden beds, but she let those be. She didn’t suppose that they did any harm, and she liked to see them. There were bright orange shelf mushrooms sprouting from the sides of logs, rubbery yellow fungus that seemed to glow in the sunshine, and funny little brown cups the size of her fingertips.
Bees buzzed around her head, the pollen sacs on their legs heavy with golden food. She let some of her radishes go to seed simply because the bees loved their flowers so much, and she loved the bees. They loved the tulsi she’d planted too, and the bees visiting those holy basil plants had pollen sacks that were bright red instead of yellow.
Her muscles ached pleasantly as the pile of weeds grew higher. There were calluses on her hands from pulling interlopers out of her garden multiple times per week, and her arms were stronger than they’d been in years – since her surfing days with Adam when they were young.
It had been a hollow-hearted sort of morning. She’d woken up missing him, feeling the loss acutely instead of as the usual dull ache that never left her.
