The day starts with two sniffs of tea,
bodies need time to warm on cold mornings,
and besides,
we know that life is willing to wait,
that it's all an energy game,
that the sun will come up and feed someone somewhere,
and eventually me.
It's all in my cup of tea.
Who knew that all the knowledge
of our short world
fit so neatly into a ceramic mug
of boiled water,
green leaves swollen with understanding.

Remember how long thou hast been putting off these things, and how often thou hast received an opportunity from the gods, and yet dost not use it. Thou must now at last perceive of what universe thou art a part, and of what administrator of the universe thy existence is an efflux, and that a limit of time is fixed for thee, which if thou dost not use for clearing away the clouds from thy mind, it will go and thou wilt go, and it will never return.

  - Marcus Aurelius Antonius

from The Meditations of Marcus Aurelius Antonius (167 AD) translated by George Long

Last weekend I picked up 650 Austin blueberry plants from our good friend, Michael Knight, in Buckatunna, Mississippi. They all made it back in one piece and are in the process of being put in the ground.

We were finally able to obtain a new H2A visa for our long time employee, Javier (if you want the horrific details of that process email Sid). He arrived from Mexico last Friday. In the Mexican tradition, he was married two weeks before his arrival here. Hopefully his wife will be able to join him in the next month or so. Javier's first big project is planting the blueberries. Maybe that'll keep his mind off his woman.

After the planting we will work on replacing the current irrigation hose. We need something that provides more coverage. The current hose only has emitters every five feet, which in an ideal world would work perfectly since the plants are five feet apart. But hosey don't plant that. Instead it shifts and curls with the varying temperature and the emitters end up a foot or more away from some plants. This resulted in a rather high plant death rate last year.

We are looking at a completely different kind of hose from an Israeli company called Queen Gil. The emitters are every four inches. It is a much lighter weight hose and thus much less expensive than what we currently have. We would like to elevate it along the row like they do in grape vineyards. This would both allow us to visually ensure that water is being applied and prevent damage from rodents and weed eaters.

Read all about Maine-Anjou cattle courtesy of the Fort Worth Star-Telegram. Who's that handsome fella on the left?

Dad's on a newspaper rampage! He also recently prompted an article to be published on problems with forest fire fighting funding for the Texas Forest Service. Damn that's a lot of "F" words.