Friday, August 28, 2020

In these days of COVID-19

Due to the pandemic I am working from home (I'm lucky to still have a job) and one of the few reasons I leave home is to go to agriculture inspection, which I tend to do once a week unless people need things sooner and pay for (USPS) priority shipping. I usually go to have things inspected on Fridays because mail moves on weekends unless things get much worse (Oahu, where all mail goes through is bad right now). I have had orders mailed out and not getting scanned between when they left Hilo and when they arrived at the destinatong post office, like August 28, 2020, 8:03 am Arrived at Post Office LINCOLN, NE 68506 August 24, 2020 In Transit to Next Facility August 20, 2020, 5:29 pm Departed Post Office HILO, HI 96720 One of the things I receive a lot of messages about are seeds, I usually get those from a public facilities' parking lot. As the facility is closed, so is the parking lot. I check my secondary locations every so often but didn't find any ripe ones since May. It looks like I will have some clove seeds unless we get a "really stay at home" order and won't be able to go to ag inspection (HDOA for domestic orders, USDA for foreign ones (I don't do phytosanitary certificates other than for orders to Pjerto Rico and if needed to the USVI, so if you are in a country that doesn't allow shipping in, please don't even ask). FYI: I make about 1/3 of minimum wage on those. They are a lot of work and most end up not being shippablebecause they are really plantlets rather than seeds - or already dead. (Google, we need a spell checker here???)