Remaining grateful

It is difficult to have a bad attitude and be unhappy when you say "Thank-you" often enough.

One reason entitlement is so corrosive is that it destroys gratitude.  No gratitude means no serenity, and a constant state of fear and anger.

This post is a shout-out to people who have been extraordinarily helpful to me in the last week.

Susan Rombough

Susan jumped through hoops to get the Vidal Blanc cuttings to me.  I ordered them late on Friday and they hit my mailbox at noon on Tuesday.  Susan has been running Bunchgrapes since Lon passed on.

I ordered twenty cuttings and she shipped significantly more than twenty.  Yes, she can count...she used to teach school.  I cannot guarantee that she will be that generous with every variety that they sell.  Some are in very high demand and they probably meter those out with precision.  But she is like Lon, she hates throwing out viable cuttings at the end of the season.  She would rather ship a few extra and have super-happy customers (like me) than to have to compost them.

Chateau Stripmine
I don't have permission to divulge his name, but he shipped me some experimental cuttings before he knew I was writing about him.  He is a great guy.  He also told me that his wife does not mind if I reveal that she deserves much of the credit for Chateau Stripmine's position as one of the premier vineyards in Rosebud County.

How can you not like a guy who shares the glory with his wife?

My brother

My brother is an expert on all things "beverage".  I told him that I needed flexible, biodegradable containers to use for rooting grape cuttings.  A half-hour later I was the proud owner of 100, paper, wax coated RS22N-00055 cups.  The man knows his cups.

Filled with potting mix and with a grape cutting stuffed in it.

The taller ones with the parafilm (white) tops are the grafted vines.  One of the useful thing about these cups is that they are flexible and I can squeeze ten or eleven of them into a seven gallon, poly tree tub.  So far I have about 60 in cups and 50 stuck in-bulk.

David and Elizabeth Mestelle
They helped me find "package" bees even though the clock struck midnight.

Apiaries sell out of package bees by the end of March.  I was resigned to trapping swarms this year.  David and Elizabeth not only found somebody selling package bees but picked them up for me.

Turtlebee Farms
Turtlebee Farms supplied the package bees.  They are easy people to deal with. 

Now all I have to do is figure out how to get the queen out of her cage.  David texted me that the cage is not sealed with a marshmallow but a cork.  The bees will release the queen when it is closed with a marshmallow but even the Italian bees don't carry a cork screw.

Guess I will be suiting up and start working bees sometime today.