Monday, October 30, 2006
Well to start the day we have breakfast with Cora, I make the coffee and help in the kitchen. Cora has things to do so we are going to be on our own for the most part. While Jan organizes the list and permit data I am told to sit and read from Jan's library. If there was something you wanted to know about crypts that was published someplace, Jan has it. I stop reading and work a bit on this Journal.
When Jan has the list to his satisfaction, we move the plants out to the lab section of the green house. I spend from 11 AM to 8 PM cleaning plants of soil, dead leaves, debris, snail eggs, etc. Jan looks at me at 7 PM or so and asks if I have had lunch, funny. As I clean off the plants Jan puts them in to plastic bags with a sheet of white paper and a name tag and a bit of moisture. Occasionally he uses the compressed air gun to ensure we get everything off the plants. So we finish the plants collected from the meeting and Gula and Jan asks, "what must you take from the greenhouse?" I'm tired, overwhelmed, still trying to fathom what I'm going to do with half of the plants I already have in the box, I'm having a hard time asking for anything. Honestly I just spent nine hours at the sink praying that my box is not inspected by someone at the US Customs entry who likes to "find any reason" to reject a box. Well I'm not one to argue so Jan and I pick out a couple more plants, C. alba, two or three Lagenandra, a strange hybrid that Jan says will grow quite well underwater in my aquariums, and a couple other interesting plants.
Time for dinner, Cora has a cheese fondue and salad ready for us. We enjoy a sweet white whine from France with the meal. After dinner Jan and I finish the paperwork, plant lists, phytosanitary certificate application, shipping documents, packing the plants, and loading the boxes. We are ready to get the phyto's tomorrow. After the work is done Jan opens a bottle of South African red, we get to relax a bit.
Repetitive, yes, I know but true, THUD!
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