About the gym

So, as y'all know by now, I've been doing a job at a gym to meet other people interested in fitness as well as for the benefit of a membership and a little (I stress little here, heh) extra cash. It's a fun and easy job and is close to the farm so it's been working out fairly well. I can take a break from the farm and go there to work out if I want and have the time. You get an hour with a personal trainer when you get a new membership there in order to help you have a workout focus and know how to use some of the cardio equipment and the Cybex weight machines. I finally arranged one for myself, which is good 'cause I had forgotten how to use the Cybex machines from when I was a member years ago and I didn't know how to use the treadmills ever. I've never used a treadmill actually. Since I work there I felt a little strange about trying to figure out how to use stuff when going there to work out, so I've been sticking to the free weights and the rowing machine 'cause I know them well already.

The trainer that I met with was fairly new to the gym too, and I had a few challenging and usual questions, so we ended up figuring out some of the equipment together. We spent two and a half hours, and it was fun! :) I wanted to know if I could program at least one of the treadmills (they have 2 or 3 different kinds) to do a series of custom specific speeds and durations so that I could go back on the running plan I used to get running a while back. I haven't been running for a while and had only gotten it down for a couple of months so figure I need to start over from the beginning again. We figured out that the older less fancy looking machines were actually better about that than the new ones. Funny. Figures though. So, cool. I can do up to 5 different increase/decrease changes, which should be enough combined with the manual settings too. Yay! :)

I rediscovered the nifty advanced moves the Cybex machines can do. Fun! I asked her if she knew what the ideal ratios between opposing muscle groups in order to balance them properly and avoid injuries and other problems from imbalanced muscle development. She didn't know 'cause she usually does more specific training with Pilates and looks at posture instead, but said she'd find out from the other trainers and get back to me. She was very prompt about getting back to me, but unfortunately they didn't know either. So strange how that information is so hard to find. I know that I ran across it in the past, but didn't keep track of it. Later on I tried to find the info. and was unable to. Luckily this time I was able to find things online and shared the info with her. I'm planning on putting it and other goodies up on this site somewhere at some point too. I find it helpful to have that info in order to guide my work with weights so I can work on increasing strength in weak areas for more balance and such - while increasing strength overall.

I also wanted to learn how to use a common body building piece of equipment for use with the olympic style of weights, but none of the trainers knew how to use that either. Bummer. I guess I'll just have to ask someone who I see using it at some point. That could be good though, perhaps I'll make a new friend. There's a woman who comes in regularly that I think uses the olympic weights, so perhaps she knows. I'll have to ask her. Alternately I thought I could look up the equipment's owner's manual online at some point... It's something that helps you do squats more safely without a spotter and has a specific name that I've forgotten. I've seen weight routines that use it for some of the exercises, but haven't seen how to use it anywhere... yet. When I find that out I'll want to add it to here somewhere too. Hopefully I'll have time. :)

Part of the session was to find out what my fitness goals are, so I'll share them with you too. :) I want to alternate rowing and running each day for my cardio for 30 minutes to an hour. The elliptical and step machines are sort of fun too, so perhaps I'll put 'em in every once in a while instead of the rowing or running. I figure I'll do upper body weights after the rowing, using the rowing for a warm up and lower body after the running in the same manner. For running, I want to eventually get up to running over 20 miles a week, perhaps 7 miles three times a week. I also would like to get to a pace of an 8 minute mile or better.

In terms of weights I want to achieve and maintain balanced muscle development, increased strength and ability. Visually I'd like to increase the size and strength of my deltoids (shoulders/top of the arm cappy area) so that I get a nice cappy look on there; increase the size of my pecs (chest muscles), especially the upper ones; tone and tighten my upper thighs and butt. It'd be nice to look like a fitness competitor without competing. :)

I have other fitness goals that don't apply to the gym so much so I didn't mention them. Things like getting my pull ups/chin ups back; being able to pull my legs up over my head while hanging from my hands or supporting myself on something with my hands; walking on my hands; doing handstand push ups; and being able to do a V press into a handstand and back again. I'd also like to fit Ashtanga in somewhere again too somehow... So, I'll just continue to do things as I can and figure it'll work out in terms of my overall fitness. It'd be so cool to be able to do Ashtanga in the mornings before harvests and all, do the cardio in the afternoon in-between things, and then the weights and/or dancing, etc. in the evenings... Eventually I'll have a lifestyle that settles down for me to attempt it all. Oh yeah, and learn to play the guitar and/or ukulele and juggling as well. I'm loving the changes we've made so far, so it's all good. Enjoying the journey. :)

K, gotta' go and do other stuff while I've got time online now. Blog to y'all again sometime soon - I hope! :)

Aloha!

farmer's market yesterday & farm stuff...

Thursday June 12, 2008

First I have a message for someone... Yesterday there was a woman who came up to me and said, "Hi, Jungle Janie." She said she had just been on this website the night before and had thought to herself that I looked familiar. She had large sunglasses on and I was wondering if I knew her, didn't recognize her and trying to place the rest of her face. If you're reading this, sorry if I seemed strange. I was a bit puzzled. I didn't know if I've known you for a while and just didn't recognize you with the glasses and you found my website the night before discovering my Jungle Janie nickname; or if you knew me from markets and saw & recognized me online the night before; or if you knew me from online the night before and recognized me at market. That combined with the multitasking at market left me a bit speechless. Doi. LOL. You seemed to be in a hurry too, so I guess it was no biggie. I'd be happy to talk with you next time if you like. I'd also be interested to find out the answer to the mystery.

K, so on to the other stuff...

Now that we're selling things at the farmer's markets I haven't been able to shop as much at them, but have been going to them more often and end up with things in trade with other farmers, so it works out. Sometimes we just exchange our left overs from market with each other too. Right now there aren't many bananas, but I've got lots of fruit anyway. Yay! :)

They don't limit the vendors to fresh grown produce at the Hanalei markets, so my hubby sometimes gets baked goods and we've gotten "raw" pate there too. Sometimes we get flowers as well. My favorites are the fruit though, as y'all probably already know. :):):) I'll start taking pics again of everything soon. Yesterday was a great day for fruit and things. We got left overs from other farmers of sprouts, flowers, lychee, Jamaican lilikoi, mountain apples, pomegranate and tangerine. We also bought oranges and our regular bananas and coconuts.

On top of that, the mango season's here! On the way in to market on Tuesday we passed a tree that I usually pick up mango underneath and there were loads of them there, so we just had to stop, of course! ;) :D Luckily we had an extra box that wasn't too full that we could put 'em in. Yummy! I just ate about 14 of them while my hubby had a large salad with our produce and dressing of tahini and oranges we got from market yesterday.

We've got loads of our own produce now too, which is terrific too! :) Last night there was so many yummy options it was hard to decide what to eat for dinner. Nice. I've been getting whatever I can and eating whatever's ripe for a while, so it's a nice change. Abundance...

Yeah, we're working waaay lots, but we like the work. We need to figure out how to get enough sleep at the same time though. We're still adjusting to the transitions. Now we'll have a longer transition time 'cause yesterday we also finalized the lease paperwork on the land closer to home. Yay! That means our veggies will have a home to move to, for a while at least. We'll still need to find something longer term so we can do fruit trees, but we'll have time to settle in and all before that's pressing. We're gonna' try to grow all the short term fruits we can think of and pull off here in the meantime... and loads of veggies too, of course. :)

My hubby and I were so excited about the new land that we did errands for the farm and all 'till late yesterday so that I ended up with only about 2-3 hours of sleep before I needed to get up for my job at the gym this morning. It was rainy today so we took the opportunity to take the day off from the farm and catch up on our sleep. I skipped my gym workout 'cause I know that injuries happen when people don't have enough sleep and just went home after my shift was done. I've been getting behind on my sleep for a few days so I figured it'd be better to skip the workout today rather than risk injury 'cause if I got injured I'd have to skip more than just one day's workout. It's late afternoon/early evening and we're up again - for a while. We've got lots of harvesting to do tomorrow and will probably have to use the head lamps to complete it all. So we're planning on going to sleep early in order to go in early and start harvesting.

My hubby's happily planning things for our new spot and reading up on some farming stuff he came across again. I'm catching up with y'all now and then will join him in planning the new site. We have to figure out how to fund things we need to do in order to farm that place, another reason we're working so much at the farm lately. We'll need to get our irrigation water from an irrigation ditch and our veggies need to watered from above, so we'll need to pump and filter it. There's no power there so we want to use solar power to power the pump, but may not be able to afford it at first. The place is also completely overgrown with weeds about 12' tall, so we'll need to clear all that before planting. There are some trees at the edges that we'll keep, of course, some of them are fruit trees too. We to find out about whether we can harvest from them too or not. I hope so! :) Yum!

K, so I'm gonna' make another post about the gym in a tad.

Aloha! :)

Update Monday 6/9/08

I've been really busy with the farm, my job at the gym and all recently. I have some technical difficulties with posting lately too. I was using my phone as a modem for my computer to post things while at the farm 'cause I'm not home most of the time these days, but the connection just isn't working anymore. I need to get the phone replaced, but haven't had a chance yet. I had also been using a free wi-fi connection at the mall as a backup, but that has become too unreliable to use now too. I keep getting cut off every minute or two and have to go through a clicking maze in order to get back online, very frustrating when you're working with limited time.

So my new plan is to update y'all as I can with general goings on rather than specifics by day until I get my Internet access more stable.

The vog has not been around for a while now, so that's been really nice. They finally finished painting at the gym too. Yay! I'd started to settle into a routine of working out at the gym three times a week - rowing and then weights. Then we started adding in more farmer's markets and deliveries which has sort of mixed that up a bit. I've been going there when I can - sometimes only 2 times a week - until I can figure out a new schedule that'll work. It's been a challenge to adjust to the new harvesting schedule while increasing the volume of what we harvest each time as the demand for our yummy organic produce spreads.

My hubby and I are harvesting in the middle of the night/early morning with LED headlamps a couple of times a week as a result. Those headlamps are amazing! Truly! That combined with getting up at 3am two days a week for my gym job has made finding time for sleep more challenging as well. Luckily our son is helping at most of the farmer's markets now so my hubby can replant, weed, water and such instead of going to market all the time. Somebody has to do it - or we won't have anything to harvest in short order, heh. It's been more difficult for him right now 'cause the irrigation supplies we ordered a couple of months ago to water the areas we've expanded to on the farm have not arrived yet. That means he has to move one of the lines around several times each time we water, in addition to hand watering our personal beds as well. When I'm there I do the personal beds and keiki (baby) plants in the flats, but I'm often not there when they need watering. It'll be a fine day when the irrigation supplies finally arrive, indeedy.

We've also been looking for additional land closer to home to farm on. We want to move our veggies to a different spot in the next couple of months, keeping the papayas where they are. We've got a verbal agreement with someone to farm on some land fairly near to home - hard to tell whether it's gonna' happen for sure though until it's all down on paper and signed, etc. So we're still looking for other spots as well. We'd like to have something long-term enough to grow fruit trees, and this spot won't be so even if this one works out we'll probably still want additional land for fruit trees. We'll keep looking for other land while trying to make enough funds to just buy something if we can't get a long-term lease. That's a challenging thing though, 'cause the land's expensive here... We'll figure it out somehow, one way or another though.

Many of you have asked what we're growing right now. So...
We're growing several kinds of lettuce, baby greens for salad mixes, arugula, kale, chard, tatsoi, beets, tomatoes, cucumbers, cilantro, basil, spinach, celerac, chives, sorrel, watermelon, zucchini, & papayas. The last ones (from celerac through zukes) are in the personal area and are experiments. We're kind-of in-between cucumbers for selling, but still have a few for personal use. The next batch should be coming on in the next couple of weeks. We weren't sure if we'd get any zukes at all 'cause of the fruit flies, but we've gotten 4 so far that are okay, so cool! :) There are little watermelons starting and we're hoping we'll be okay with them too. We love them so...

It's a challenge to grow some things here 'cause of the fruit flies, but we've come across some organic methods we didn't know about before and have additional ideas that might help us pull them off. *Crossing our fingers* ;)

Our yard has a few things going too that we might end up selling excess at markets too. My beloved mountain apple tree is literally loaded with baby fruits, so if they all ripen without falling off first I'll not be able to eat 'em all. Yay! Abundance is nice. Then we can share them with friends and sell 'em at market. Our avocado tree doesn't have much fruit on it this year. There were winds when it was flowering and the lilikoi (passion fruit) vines decided to grow all over it all of a sudden. We've left them there for now 'cause there are so many lilikoi on them that we want - and we don't eat many avocados anyway.

It's getting to be the time of year when we can get the Jamaican lilikoi out in the wild in bulk so we'll have to take some time to go hiking for it sometime. That'll be a nice change of pace. We love hiking. :)

Mango season is starting too. I'm starting to see some on the ground below mango trees so will start gathering that too. Nice.

It's getting late, gotta' get up early for the gym, so I'll continue my update another time and post this for now. I wanna' tell you about my fitness consultation with one of the personal trainers at the gym when I come back too. It was fun! :)

Nightie night all & aloha! :)