Although it means a stone marking a mile in length, it also is a defined as a significant stage of life or a point of progress. In Hawaii a persons first milestorne is their 1st birthday. It marks a point where a child has passed enough childhood that they have an excellent chance at life. The first 8 weeks of a puppy is similar. The first few miles of a cars life is spent in slow, deliberate driving to preserve the vehicles new parts.

A couples milestone are measured in hours, then weeks, months, years and decades of being together.

My milestores are smaller and less important in the scheme of things, yet are milestones none-the-less.

The number of visitors to my blog is aproaching 50,000, my truck is about to roll over at 100,000 miles and as of 2pm today, all 1600 coffee trees I have to plant will be in the ground! Yay!

After removing the plastic bags and trash the workers should head down to road to their next job; one I will not have to pay for :-)

Although only half of what I would like to have planted at this time, it is still a major milestone! After years of planning, many thousands of dollars and countless man-hours, the farm is half planted. I see a few trees which will need to be replaced, but so far, very few have failed.

The water system is working and I have already drained the bottom tank of water. Alot of that went to water trees above ground, which dry out quicker then those in the ground. I hope to reduce the water useage now and rely on drip irrigation. I still need to connect the tanks to the house to catch rainwater, but in the meantime, I have rainwater which partially filled the tanks, just from rain hitting the top of the tanks and dripping through the shade cloth.

I still need to find a source of money to pay off the bills from construction, but soon I will have all the coffee I can keep up with. After the second half of planting, I will need to hie people to help me here. So far I already have pickers asking if I can schedule them!

As you can see, I'm certainly not done and in hindsight the whole project should have taken months instead of years, however expect the second half of the farm to be completed soon after I start. I know who to call, what to expect and how much it should cost. Many of the parts needed have already been purchased and paid for.

I plan to celebrate this current milestone and start working on part-2, but first, a short intermission :-)