We have planted around 5000 plants this year and the end is in sight. 

We were very nearly done a couple of weeks ago.  Sadly, the plants were unavailable to finish, so we were left with 500 empty holes and no baby coffee to fill them. 

Today, we secured the plants for the holes.  They were grown by a fine nurseryman in Boquete, seen in the dapper straw hat.  Although they were expensive they are beautiful plants.    By the end of the week or maybe sometime next, we will be all done with planting for a another year.

Phew.  That was quite a job.

Woopsy daisy my charming neighbor has accidentally planted all his coffee seedlings, including ones he promised me.......and I am scrambling to find coffee plants.  One of the workers has been despatched to scour nurseries in town.

When my neighbor kindly offered me as many coffee plants as I wanted as long as I had the holes ready and dug.....certainly it was a generous gesture, but was it to turn out to be an act of kindness or a strategic curse?  

If I put all the time effort and expense into digging and preparing holes with fertilizer and fumigating with biological fungicide and was successful in doing this; Then, I also need to trust that the plants will arrive or else I have wasted a lot of time and committed myself to still more trouble and greater expense of trying to find other plants with no lead time and when good ones are more money and scarce. 

Despite efforts to manage risks, I am the looser. Predictable possibly, but living life optimistically is so much more fun than the alternative and whilst higher risk, sometimes  higher reward.  I am still here after all and smiling most of the time.

Not blindly optimistic,  basic due diligence was done..... verified situation and plant availability immediately in advance of digging, decided on a conservative number of holes, and managed the entire process much more closely than anyone would want to......  Yes, digging these holes was 3x harder than digging the holes for plants that were already on site because, workers do not easily dig holes for invisible plants, instinctively skeptical.  

I find myself now sending a worker around town looking for other plants to fill holes.   I am sure it was exactly as explained by my embarrassed and charming neighbor, an innocent and unfortunate mistake.  Much worse things and more dangerous errors have happened around here, to me, or at sea..... no big deal.   

Delivering what you say you will deliver is not as easy as it sounds up here in the hills.  It usually requires getting other people to do what you tell them and that in and of itself is damn hard.   
Here the consequences and hence accountability is less and the challenge to deliver is greater.  In this growth economy there sure is opportunity for folks who can deliver.

In fact, basically, trying to do what I say I will do is what I fill my days with;  Despite on paper anyway, not having an awful lot to do.