Mangoes and Spiritual Buildings

I spent much of today looking up and cataloging information on exporting mangoes to the US from Thailand. I finally found a key document from the US Department of Agriculture.

Q. When did the U.S. Department of Agriculture
(USDA) publish the final rule to allow litchis longans,
mangoes, mangosteens, pineapples, and rambu-
tans from Thailand into the United States?
A. USDA’s Animal and Plant Health Inspection Ser-
vice (APHIS) published the final rule in the Federal
Register on June 21, 2007. Under Title 7 of the Code
of Federal Regulations, Part 319.56-47, the final rule
allows, under certain conditions, the importation of six
fruits—litchi, longan, mango, mangosteen, pineapple,
and rambutan—from Thailand into the United States.

I'm still assuming that we're going to hit some major obstacle - like the cost of irradiation for the small scale we're talking about will be prohibitive, or some other obstacle will appear. But in the meantime I'm going to follow where it leads.

On the way back from a noodle lunch I noticed this tree which I'd never noticed before at Wat Ram Phoeng. There is something right about an organization that designs its building in ways that preserve the existing trees.


This evening the AJWS volunteers in Chiang Mai got together for dinner. We'd met Marti last Saturday night at our anniversary dinner and tongiht got to meet George and Maxine as well as Rachel. All and all a good group. We finally had to go because they were closing the restaurant and we have to work in the morning.