Recently I was invited to take part in a new USAID agricultural development mission to Armenia.  The position would provide opportunity for another five years of Short Term Technical Assistance (STTA) consultant work in a country I had yet to experience.  I  considered the offer for three days before responding. 
     "Will you take it?" Janet asked. 
     "What has changed since I resigned my last contract in order to retire?" I responded.
I'm still 72 and not getting younger,   The travel would still require adjusting to crossing 9 time zones in a 24+ hour period.  The work would demand long hours of effort in a challenging environment.  I  still have three young grandsons that I'd like to spend more time with.  There is lots I'm interested to do at home, and Janet and I still desire to do some recreational travel on our own.  Tempted though I was, I turned the job down and reaffirmed my retirement.

This summer I re-engaged with the bees.  Chris had become the beekeeper at our farm over the past decade as I was so frequently gone on assignment,  Chris is also our Production Manager at the  farm, which has become an increasingly demanding responsibility.  When I offerred to take honey production "off from his plate" for the season, he was grateful.  I have always enjoyed the bees.  Beekeeping was my hobby before it became a part of my profession.  Able to focus on the bees, without the pressure of the other demands of our family farm enterprise, beekeeping became a "hobby" again.  Often on warm sunny days I found myself in the bee yard able to work at an unhurried pace--and some days I just relaxed in a lawn chair to observe the hive activity.  I was rewarded with with the best honey crop we have experienced in several years. 

Saturday, The boys and I returned from Canada and a week-long fishing trip with the three grandsons.  I was shocked to realize, and am embarrassed to admit, that none of my grandsons (ages 4, 9, and 11) had ever visited our Canadian wilderness cabin on the fringes of the Quetico Park before now.  Even my son Chris, who loves to fish, had not been to the Nym Lake cabin for eleven years!  Granted, it's a seven hour drive and a 3 1/2 mile paddle to get there--considrable advance planning and comittment is required--but when my children were young it was an annual family experience.  How had I become so distracted? 

Although the weather was changeable and cool--lots of rain (even snow)-- bursts of sunshine for two-three hour periods most days allowed us to get on the lake.  All the boys caught fish, many of which were released, as there were enough for a fish-fry every evening.  Oscar, the four-year old, caught his "first fish"--and his grandpa was there to share the excitement of that important event in his life.

At the end of last month, I turned 72 years old.  I had a long two-day trip home from the Republic of Georgia following my recent assignment to consider this reality--and I decided that it is time to retire from my career as an international agricultural enterprise development consultant for projects funded by USAID.  As I expressed in my letter of resignation: "​It is now time for me to focus my remaining energy on needs closer to home.  A patient and supportive wife is as much in need of my retirement as I am.  The transitioning of our family farm business to our adult children needs my hand to secure the legacy.  Three young grandsons need more of their grandfather."

It has been 17 years, 40 completed assignments, in 8 countries that included Ethiopia, Azerbaijan, Ukraine, Serbia, Kosovo, Moldova, Belarus, and The Republic of Georgia.  Although I provided some programs supporting cooperative business development, horticultural crop marketing, and honey production, my speciality became berry enterprise development-- especially blueberry crop development.   Labor intensive, high value, with strong market demand, berries are economically sustainable on small holdings of land.   Berry production has proven to be an excellent "fit" for agricultural/economic development in states of the former Yugoslavia and many of the newly indepemdent republics of the former Soviet Union.  Production is now firmly established in many of the countries where I had the opportunity to work.  Hope as been restored for many farm families and local economies are being transformed.

Apart from the good fortune of having established a successful berry farm business of my own, and a brief experience teaching technical horticulture at our local technical college, there were no exceptional qualifications to recommend me for such work--no advanced degrees in agriculture, no long career teaching at a Land Grant University, no experience in government foreign service, no MBA.  It was truely a case of being in the "right place at the right time" with a willingness to say yes to an invitation to embark on the adventure of a lifetime. 
​
I have been so fortunate to have had the opportunity for this experience:  to travel to distant lands not commonly visited, for exposure to cultures and histories I had little prior knowledge of, to be able to share the passion and experience of my life's work with people for whom it could make a difference.  My life has been enriched.  For anything I might have given, I have received so much more in return.  It has been a good run.

​Nature’s “deep sleep” that comes to this part of the world in this season has settled around us.  For the busy year it has been, Janet I welcome the chance to “settle our heads for a long winter’s nap.”  Snow arrived for Thanksgiving creating a Currier and Ives landscape for our family’s gathering, and then left us during an unexpected, but welcome, mild late-autumn.   Now winter is back for the duration.
 
Janet’s mother, Florence, passed in August after a long struggle with dementia.  She was lucid for moments during a three day reunion of all of her children and grandchildren that we hosted in July.  Although Florence was too weak to leave the nursing home, family was able to visit with her in her room daily during the course of their visit.  My sister Judy,whose husband Ken died this year as well, flew out with her son Eric to the Midwest from Oregon to reconnect with family and old friends.  They spent several days with us at Bayfield in June, and Janet and I returned their visit by attending the memorial service for Ken in Oregon in November.  Janet’s friend Edith from Seattle spent a week with us later in June and my brother Brian made a visit during the summer berry season—as did our niece, Sanae.   Lots of company—lots of family—it was all good.
 
Our kids continue to partner in the Farm.  It is really their operation now.  They had another big blueberry crop, and Jon launched his berry wine business, Pikes Creek Winery, at the farm.  Construction is now underway for Magdalen and Jens’ new house—they hope to be “in” by spring.  Chris and Honey completed a new front porch on their Washburn home, as did Janet and I on our home at the Bayfield farm.  Our greatest joy is our grandchildren: Silas 10½, Milo 9, and Oscar 3½.  They are with us at the farm a lot—especially during the summer months.  Despite all the activity, we did find time for travel:  the desert Southwest in February visiting as many National Parks as time allowed, and the trip to Oregon in November which we extended to include Astoria and the Oregon Pacific Coast.
 
I was called back to the Republic of Georgia in April and again in September for two follow-on USAID blueberry production development projects.  I don’t know how much longer this can go on for me—the travel gets harder every year—but as my work week will be shortened to five days, I agreed to return again in February of the new year.
 
Life is good—we hope for you as well!

An article in a recent edition of our local newspaper suggests that until researchers devise an effective affordable organic control for the recent exotic pest, Spotted Wing Drosophila (SWD), that there may no longer be raspberries available for picking at local farms--at least not raspberries that consumers would want to pick or eat.  NOT TRUE!  There will be beautiful raspberries, free of SWD larva AND toxic pesticide residues, to pick this summer--at HIGHLAND VALLEY FARM.

SWD has been a concern to the fruit industry since its arrival in California from Asia in 2008.  By 2010 the pest was being detected in soft skinned berry crops from coast to coast throughout North America.  In 2012, berry crops in Michigan were severely damaged--especially the highly vulnerable raspberry crop.  But much has been learned about SWD since 2012, as horticultural crop researchers and cooperating fruit farmers shifted into high gear to understand the new pest and to devise effective strategies for control.

Spotted Wing Drosophila is fruit fly--a close relative to our common "vinegar fly", that tiny pest that hovers around your kitchen during the summer months as you process your dill pickles. Vinegar flies normally only "attack" soft over-ripe or rotting fruits.  What makes SWD different is its unique serrated ovipositor, which enables it to saw its way into the stronger skin of healthy fruit to lay its eggs.

One of the challenges for controlling SWD is the fact that it is a multi-generational insect, able to mature from an egg laid, to an adult fly capable of laying eggs, in a ten day cycle.  Population increase is logarithmic, and can become explosive during the later summer season.  As the produce industry maintains a "zero tolerance" for the presence of insect larva in fresh fruit, only the most diligent farmers will likely be able to meet the standard for marketable fresh berries--especially raspberries--given the current presence of SWD in the surrounding environment.  It is true that some farmers across the country are choosing to get out of the raspberry business, unwilling or unable to rise to the SWD challenge.  Others, however, choose to tackle the problem, work with the researchers, and apply what is being learned with a willingness to modify their management practices and harvest/marketing strategies in an effort to control the pest.  Many are succeeding.

At HIGHLAND VALLEY FARM, a first step was to abandon plans to grow late fruiting or fall fruiting raspberry varieties.  Early fruiting raspberries are less pressured by SWD.  A second step was to learn how to best scout for the pest, a management tool that has been refined and improved almost annually by researchers as they continue to develop better traps, more effective lures, and modify threshholds for injury.  We also control the pest habitat by keeping thoroughfares closely mowed, hedges well pruned and open to sunlight using a "vee" trellis to spread the canes. When scouting indicates an increasing pest presence, we spray.  Both organic and benign conventional chemical controls are available with zero or one day re-entry or harvest restrictions.  

ALL raspberry fruit is harvested on an every other day basis at our farm.  If pick-your-own customer turnout is light, we will pick any ripe fruit left in the field.  Raspberries we pick are immediately cooled and refrigerated, and we advise our PYO customers do the same.  Refrigeration will immediately arrest any SWD eggs that might be present, preventing those eggs from hatching. During the harvest period, raspberry fruit is sampled in the field several times a day.  As soon as a single live lava is detected, the raspberry pick-your-own harvest is curtailed for the season. Our late season raspberries are then machine harvested on an every-other-day basis and immediately frozen for later processing use.

If you want to pick raspberries this season, they will be available--as delicate, sweet, and attractive as you remember them.  My advice to would-be raspberry pickers is know what your farmer is doing to manage Spotted Wing Drosophila, come early in the season, come early in the day, and refrigerate or, better yet, consume or process your harvest as soon as possible.  There is no fruit more special than fresh red raspberries!

​After an absence of more than a year, I recently had an opportunity to return to the former Soviet Republic of Georgia.  USAID's Farmer to Farmer program asked me to provide a berry production training program for farm service center extension consultants who will work with Georgian berry farmers in their various districts of the country. 
 
Since 2003, I have been a part of efforts to introduce commercial berry production as a high-value hand-harvested cash crop for Georgian farmers in desperate need of economic opportunity. Some of the first North American Highbush Blueberry plants to be introduced into Georgia arrived in my suitcase on one of those early assignments.  “Berry Production” was identified as a priority sector in 2004 as part of USAID’s five year AgVantage development mission in Georgia.   During that period, I made as many as five trips per year to Georgia: presenting seminars, establishing replicated cultivar trials, shepherding demonstration farms and a plant nursery development, creating curriculum for an agricultural technical college, and encouraging efforts to form a Georgian Berry Growers Association.  In 2006 we succeeded in bringing nine Georgian farmers, including a Deputy Minister of Agriculture, to the United States for a two week “study tour” of Upper-Midwestern berry production farms, university berry research stations, and examples of berry marketing, distribution, and processing efforts.
 
Following this most recent experience, it is difficult to express the full measure of my joy for what I see happening as a result of efforts begun nearly 15 years ago to assist this brave determined little country.
 
During the past year, the Georgian government increased support of their high-value fruit crops by implementing a new program to stimulate national fruit production--including berry production.  70% of the costs for perennial plant purchases, and 50% of the costs for the purchase of irrigation systems, are now provided by the government to qualifying land holders and entrepreneurs.  In the past year more than 800 new or expanded family fruit farms of all kinds--nuts, pome fruits, stone fruits, and berries--representing 8,000 acres of new production were initiated.  50 acres of raspberry, 100 acres of blackberry, and 450 acres of blueberry production is now well established.   Israel has become a major recipient of Georgian fresh blueberry exports.
 
In addition, a new USAID agricultural development mission, ZRDA, has been launched to provide technical assistance and grants to farmers for the next five years.  Independently owned farm service centers, established with Millennium Fund assistance nearly ten years ago, and now supported by ZRDA, are now well established in all parts of the country and expanding their services to these family farmers.  I had opportunity on this assignment to both reconnect with stakeholders from earlier programs, some not seen for more than ten years, and to meet numerous new "back-to-the-landers"--an eclectic mix of urban professionals, recent university graduates, and existing rural residents.  Their excitement for the opportunity to establish or expand their farms is palpable.   ZRDA has asked me to assist their efforts to support and expand the Georgian berry industry through the remainder of the USAID-ZRDA mission.  I will return to Georgia in September.

In a mental fog I wake too early.  It is the wee hours of a Monday morning.  Although I arrived here Saturday evening, my body and my mind are still trying to catch up to the surrealism of jet travel.  I have crossed nine time zones in a little more than 20 hours to return to the Republic of Georgia.  

The sky has started to lighten in the east as I step out on my balcony at Betsy's Hotel on the mountainside overlooking Tbilisi, the ancient capital. Street lights twinkle across an otherwise dark city.   The air is fresh and cool, but the day promises to be clear and warm. The neighborhood is quiet as most residents have not yet begun to stir. Even the dogs are silent. The dominant sounds of this pre-dawn hour are the gentle cooing of pigeons and the crowing of an urban backyard rooster. There is only occasional traffic on an at-any-other-time bustling Rustaveli Avenue far below me in the city center.  I should be sleeping as well, but I have not yet fully adjusted to the time and place to which I have come.

There can be no coffee until the hotel restaurant opens for breakfast at 7:00, so I dress and head out the door for a long morning walk.  Beyond my hotel on the same street is the grey Russian Orthodox cathedral with its illuminated ornate domes and spires.  Passing, I turn and descend a pedestrian stairway into the narrow winding streets and alleys that lead down to the heart of the old city.  It is still quiet when I reach Rustaveli. The street sweepers are out now with their quaint brooms--mostly elderly women in long black dresses, the uniform of widows, but all wearing official blaze-orange street worker vests. Beyond the Opera House, I consider popping into the historic Tbilisi Marriot for coffee. The lighted windows of the coffee shop beckon--but I decide to continue on as I know it would be unreasonably expensive.  Perhaps the kiosk will be opening at Pushkin Park on Freedom Square.  

I pass the honey-colored limestone Parliament building where a young Mikhiel Saakashvili and his followers faced down the troops during the "Rose Revolution".  A single military policeman parades on the broad steps.  I come to the end of Rustaveli Avenue and Pushkin Park. During Soviet times, Freedom Square was dominated by a larger-than-life statue of Lenin standing on a cold granite pedestal.  Now the central island of the traffic round-about features a tall gold capped Doric column, lifting up St. George mounted on his steed, as he slays the dragon under hoof.  The kiosk at Pushkin Park is still shuttered.  I continue to descend a gently curving boulevard towards the river, past the now-excavated foundations of the ancient city walls, past the puppet theatre with its comical clock tower, to the walled terrace that backs Sioni Cathedral.  A bearded Georgian Orthodox priest is performing his walking-meditation slowly circling the church as his wife dutifully follows several steps behind.  At Metehki Bridge, I stop and gaze across the river at the drum-towered church on its vertical bluff above the water.  On the precipice of the bluff stands the equestrian statue of King Vakhtang, medieval founder of Tbilisi, one hand raised as if in greeting.  

​By now the sun has risen.  The city is waking. Traffic is picking up. My mind has cleared.  I have fully arrived.   I hail an approaching taxi: "First time to Tbilisi?" asks my driver searching for words in English.  "No-- I have been many times before."  I respond.  “It is good to be back.”  Up and up the cab climbs the winding cobbled streets taking me back to Betsy's where I will find coffee, colleagues, and the reason for my coming.

In the summer of 1976, a local contractor completed a small concrete basement for us on rural land we had purchased near Bayfield, Wisconsin.  Janet, and I with our first son, then five years old, arrived the following spring to live in a tent, while building the 16' x 24' "core" of what would become our house: a kitchen, small living room, and two loft bedrooms over that tiny basement.  The original intent was that this structure would eventually be our "honey shop" for the processing and sale of products from our future apiary enterprise.  

We soon came to realize, however, that we were not yet in a position to afford the larger house we planned; while at the same time, the cost of the "shop" had been paid entirely from savings.  Raising children and the capital needs of establishing a farm business would prioritize our resources for the next three decades. During those early years we would make do with a smaller space and an outhouse.  Barn-sash windows and varnished sub-floors would suffice, as needed machinery was acquired, additional farm buildings constructed, and berry fields planted.   Over time, to accommodate our growing family, additions were made: a proper bathroom, a third bedroom, a pantry, and expanded living space--but many of the improvements languished in varying stages of completion.   Still later, some original features of the house began to show wear or were in need of re-purposing.

Finally, now that our children are grown and the farm is complete, we are able to return our attention to finishing the house. Our son Jon, now an accomplished carpenter, helped to enlarge the master bedroom, remodel the bath making it handicap accessible, finish floors with tile or native oak hardwood, replace the barn-sash with energy efficient windows, and install substantial new cupboards and cabinets in the kitchen.  Outside, gutters and down spouts were added and the entire building was re-stained.  Late this fall we began the final project that will complete our home: a large open porch across the front of the original "core"--an outdoor space for Kennedy style rockers, a patio table and chairs, and a "bench railing" to provide informal seating for a gathering of the entire family or a party of friends.

Forty years in the making and very near to completion.  Recently in my reading I came across a quotation that gives expression to my sense of fulfillment.  In a meditation he recorded at Cadiz in 1587, Sir Francis Drake mused, ​“There must be a beginning of any significant endeavor, but the continuing unto the end until it is thoroughly finished yields the true attainment.”

Dear Gio

... My personal regret, looking back, is that I did not vote for Bernie Sanders in the primaries.  I was not an enthusiastic Clinton supporter from the beginning--in fact before the primaries I was telling my friends that I hoped she would decide NOT TO RUN:  She was too old--she carried too much political "baggage" for her detractors to exploit (which is exactly what they were able to do!)--and she was too much a part of the "political machine" that is disconnected from the concerns of many ordinary people.  I had hoped she would step aside for a younger Democratic Party candidate--a fresh face with new ideas and new energy.  But she was qualified--especially in the area of foreign policy, which I feel to be the most important issue we currently face as a nation--and she did decide to run.  

Bernie Sanders represents my values--my beliefs--but I failed to stand with him.  Like many other American progressives, I didn't believe that Sanders could possibly win being the "outsider" that he is.  Against Trump, I reasoned, progressives needed to be united behind the "strongest" Democratic candidate.  I compromised my ideals and voted for the one I thought was the most "electable" acceptable candidate.  I have been pursuing "impossible dreams"--jousting with windmills all of my life--but when it might have mattered the most, I played it "safe" instead of following my heart. 

It is a very scary world right now.  You and your family are on my mind a lot.  I remind you that you have strong friends on this side of the ocean.  You take care.

Love Rick 

Dear Sasa,

Good to hear from you. Thanks for news of family and blueberries.

I am certain that you must be shaken by recent destabilizing events--in Ukraine, Africa, Syria, Europe and most recently the USA.  God help us all!  Needless to say that we, like the majority of rational American citizens, are shocked and deeply concerned for the outcome of the national elections here--especially the results of the contest for president.  It is truly troubling.  I worry that our world, driven by fear, inequality, unrest, and anxiety, may be returning to the tribalism, extreme nationalism,"scapegoating", intolerance, and militarism that marked the politics of the 1930's.  

How could we elect a Trump?  We know him to be a racist, a misogynist, a liar, a narcissist, a bully, a con-man, and a megalomaniac--a man with NO real friendships--a man with NO governing experience--a man with serious personality disorders--a man unfit for ANY public office. While he obviously spoke to the deep frustrations and anger of a working class that has felt
​increasingly marginalized and excluded by the global changes taking place in the world, I don't want to believe that Donald Trump is a reflection of mainstream American values, belief, and ideals. How could so many be so foolish and so reckless as to express their protest in a way that now endangers not only their own future, but also the future of a very fragile world?

Our hope must be in the American tradition of "peaceful transition of power" and in our strong democratic institutions with constitutional "checks and balances" to hold those in power accountable.  Trump will be the new American president.  He will be given his opportunity to govern, but he will be watched very closely--and held accountable.

Our love to all of you,

Rick