Cindy and I are looking forward to this year’s IFAJ Congress in Japan but we’re already looking forward to next year in Austria/Slovenia. Why? Because to pre-promote it the organizers are running a little pumpkin growing incentive. Here’s my plant growing next to our tomatoes.

What we’re supposed to do is grow our pumpkins with seed they supplied starting now. We go to the Japan Congress, return home and harvest our pumpkins. We take pictures of them and bring them to Austria/Slovenia next year and get a bottle of pumpkin seed oil. I assume this is some pretty good stuff for all this work. Actually it’s not a lot of work and may be fun if my pumpkin survives and thrives. He’s looking pretty good to me right now.

If you really want to look ahead to 2009 then you’re invited to attend a reception during the Ag Media Summit that will take place July 29 at Churchill Downs in Louisville. You need to rsvp for this event where we’ll get a presentation on the current plans for the 2009 IFAJ Congress.

To rsvp contact Den Gardner.