I am applying for farm funding for forest thinning with the help of various government people who want my place to be a pilot project - I couldn't do this on my own because there is so much to getting set up.

To get started, I had to have a Duns and Bradstreet number. I was surprised to discover that I already had the DUNS number from 2012 - no idea how I got that.

Then, I applied for the SAM account, and they had to match the information I gave them with IRS records. It came back no match so I had to try a different number - my social security number instead of my business EIN, and that worked, fortunately.

And then I got the notice that I need the CAGE number, which is through the Defense Logistics Agency or something like that. When I logged into that with my DUNS number, they had already assigned a CAGE number to me, and when I got back to the SAM thing, they had filled it in so I wonder why they told me to go apply for it. I'm not sure how all that happened, but now they are happy and the government can give me money to pay for their program. All together I think it took about 6 hours, not all at one time.

It was all done online over about a week. I'd enter some information, the program would tell me there would be a delay while they checked my information, and an email would come telling me if I was successful or not, and what to do next. I was surprised that it worked without me having to call some help desk.

I also had to sign up my 'farm.' That was probably the best part because I got to talk to nice people. One of the tricky things about all this is to figure out when to use my name, and when to use my business name, and when to use my living trust name, and what tax ID do they want, and my taxes are paid from the Las Vegas Address, so if they are looking to match the address and the entity name and the tax ID number, there's a lot of possible combinations. And then how I sign my name - when to use my maiden name in it, and when not, based on things I've signed in the past.

Now I have three new login IDs, a PIN, and 3 new passwords to keep track of. And yes, Big Brother thoroughly has me on his radar now.

Back in maybe 1999 I had my palm read in New Orleans, and the guy told me I'd leave a legacy. The older I get, the more I wonder about each project that comes along: Is this forest project my legacy? Is all the work I've done on flood recovery my legacy? I don't know. Maybe it all is. Maybe it's the recipe cards in my kitchen that have food splashed on them. A legacy usually means money left in a will, but it can also be something less tangible, such as 'her artistic legacy lives in her children.' I think of it as meaning people might remember some of the things I accomplished for about a week after I die rather than forgetting about me an hour after the funeral.