Breakthrough X 2

Another breakthrough! This one of a different sort (also known as the next embarrassing thing Dave did):

So I'm eating dinner last night, and watching TV...nothing special. Beans and rice. And then I look down at my lap, and about half of my dinner is on my lap! Now I'm thinking, ok, I'm a messy eater (as some can attest), but I'm not that messy! So I'm thinking as I continue eating, trying to deduce the culprit....(I'm not the sharped crayon in the box), and then i get to the bottom of the metal bowl...and guess who's bowl has a hole in the bottom of it?!? (if you can, there's the melody of that children's song in the background here). Ahhah! the culprit! So, I carefully get up, shake myself off outside, get some more food and hold my palm under the hole in the bottom of the bowl! After more thinking, I've determined that this fairly sturdy metal bowl has a sizable whole in it because it's a DIY "do it yourself" pot lid, and the hole is meant to let air escape.....other suggestions?

The other breakthrough (and perhaps more substantial from a research perspective): In my first formal interview with a farmer yesterday, he told me (without any prompting) that "he planted (more than a hundred fruit) trees to preserve/create nature". This sentiment, and the way it was freely expressed at the beginning of the interview, is pretty important (I feel) because it indicates that there is something deeper than just planting the trees for sustenance, but is part of a conscious process of landscape transformation. All of which says to me that this IS a good dissertation site, and my recent thoughts about studying land use/land cover change vis a vis reforrestation are probably on track! But that all pales in comparison to the hole in my bucket, dear liza, dear liza...