Rowan,
I felt that this type of thing was your love when we were talking over pie and tea last November. You seemed animated when you told us about working in orchards previously. I'm glad to read you have found something you enjoy for your self, as you and Machka plan the next bicycle adventure. Be sure you include NW Florida in the rides some time, we would love to ride some and have more meals and chats with both of you.

Frank, you bring out some good points about pesticides and insecticides and our food sources/agricultural workers. It seems that Australia and the Asian countries have taken this very seriously and are ahead of the U.S. right now, China's policies worry me though. We try and shop carefully for our food stuffs. I watch the sources carefully and we now have a local grown market at one of the churches nearby our village area. With my kidney disease this is something I have to be very careful about. As I understand things right now, the U.S. is in real trouble with the decline of our bee populations from some type of fungi or disease that is wiping out the hives. Without these polinators we are in really big trouble, hope the scientist can get this one figured out, soon.

Bill