Page 15 of Big Island Horizons
“Mahalo, Dad.”
“Thankyoufor taking over the community center. That’s realaloharight there. There used to be choke people there all the time, always something going on. Then we got busy and let it fall apart. But we can fix it up again.”
“If can, can,” she murmured, looking up at the hole she’d poked in the ceiling. Her dad just laughed.
“Fixing a roof is no big job. Me and a few guys, we get it done in a day.”
“You think Mom might want to help me get the community garden going again?”
“Shoots, you know she would.”
She thanked him again and said goodbye. Then she stood there, looking at the hole in the ceiling. A part of her wanted to rip out the rotten wood herself, right then and there. But her daughters were waiting for her outside, and she had a million things to do at home.
She could do anything, sure – but not everything all at once. There was no sense in making a mess and leaving the job unfinished, not when her dad and his crew could get the job done right in a day.
There were two warring threads in her, a fierce desire for independence and a deep gratitude for the support of her family.
She was independent enough to start her own business and educate her girls herself, but so closely tied to her family that she had never moved away from the place where she had grown up. The farthest she had ever gone was college in Hilo, not even an hour from home.
The trick was to let those two sides of herself complement each other. Her parents had only ever encouraged and supported her independence; she supposed that’s why she had never gone through a rebellious phase the way some of her friends had. Most of those friends had ended up moving off island, something that ‘Olena could hardly imagine.
Living on the island had its challenges, but there was no place that she would rather be.
6
Tara
This is the best coconut soup I’ve ever had,Liam told her.
Her other customers had said the same, earning the Tom Ka Gai a regular place in her meal rotation, but only Liam’s words made her heart race. It was absurd how a simple text message could make her feel like a teenager again, giddy and blushing… but she didn’t hate it.
Tara was busy prepping her second batch of meals for the week. Cody had two full delivery days now, one up to Hilo and another to Pualena and the surrounding area. Her customers were steady, buying her meals week after week. Many of them were even purchasing extra meals for their neighbors, particularly postpartum mothers and elderly relatives.
Caring for so many animals and a huge garden could be isolating at times. There was so much to do at any given moment that it was easy to go days on end without even stepping foot off of her own property. She loved how her new business connected her with the wider community, both the farmers who grew the food and busy neighbors grateful for a home-cooked meal.
She worked hard to hang onto that gratitude when it started to fade beneath the sheer overwhelm of all that she had to do. The meals themselves weren’t overwhelming, and she was able to feed her own family from the huge batches of food that she made each week. But between her kids and the farm, life had already beenfullbefore adding in a small business.
Now she worked at least fourteen hours on any given day.
She didn’t mind the work, really she didn’t, but what would happen if she got sick? She had no backup in place, no one to look after her animals and keep the business running if she were sick or injured.
That was the true hazard of working for oneself, particularly without savings to fall back on. Her new business was making a profit and keeping them afloat, but only barely. So far, there had been no chance to set money aside for a rainy day.
For now, she was keeping up with all of it. But she didn’t know how much longer she could keep going at this pace.
It was time to think about selling some of her animals.
The thought of parting with any of them just about broke her heart, but there was only so much that she could sustain on her own. Parting with the cows, at the very least, would shave at least an hour off of her daily workload and hundreds of dollars off of her monthly feed costs.
Paige would be disappointed, but she would have to content herself with her twice-weekly visits to the ranch… and the dozens of other animals on their little hobby farm.
Tara would start putting out feelers and see if anyone she knew was interested in a pair of heifers.
She carried a batch of meals out to her second fridge in the garage (at this rate, she would need a third refrigerator pretty soon), then brought a dozen jars ofliliko’icurd out to her farm stand.
Paige had painted their old lemonade stand and a number of signs, and Cody had created social media pages. Between the two of them, they had generated more business for the little stand than Tara could keep up with.
Luckily she didn’t have to run out front for every little transaction anymore; the stand worked on an honesty system. There was a wooden box attached for cash and a laminated QR code for instant payments. All she had to do was keep it stocked and make the occasional post letting her neighbors know what was available.
