Yesterday was a whirlwind tour of northern Armenia, mostly for the benefit of Gohar's brother, but we all had a fantastic time. The one benefit of all of this annoying rain (it is raining again now) is the incredibly green spring and I intend to enjoy that as much as possible. I love green countryside and forest, which Yerevan does not have, but the northern parts of Armenia (Lori, Tavush) plus parts of the south (Tatev, Kapan) do have year round. This however, is an incredible level of green. If you are coming to the diaspora conference, bring a lot of film... it is just beautiful. One of the highlights of the trip for me was driving from Dilijan to Vanadzor on a mostly very nice newly repaved road (they are still working on it). The scenery was again fantastic, and we passed an "Amish" village which was really cool. They are not Amish really, but actually called Molokans here. They are "old believers" of the Russian church and were expelled from Russia over a century ago. The men keep beards and the women cover their heads, while all the platinum blond kids and scenery really do remind you of Amish country.

Also on my agenda yesterday was planting some more of my seeds in the wild. I have been very particular about where to plant them because almost no spot in Armenia can escape the many sheep, cows, and even pigs you see grazing all over the country. Plus you want a moist spot with decent soil... so I was very happy to accomplish all the planting yesterday. I am very hopeful that the next time I visit I will see things in full bloom. The one other problem though is that locals love to pick wild flowers. This is a problem for some of the endangered plants, and now for the flowers I have planted as well. They pick as many as they can for their own vases as well as to sell, and any plant which is not incredibly widespread can begin to have problems in developing seeds and multiplying. I hope that the isolation will give them an edge... in case you are wondering I planted Colombines of two sorts and foxgloves. A few candy lily's here and there were also planted, so cross your fingers, today's rain should at least get them off to a good start.