strangeness with enigmail and thunuderbird

[Aryeh Friedman]

Installing the port for enigmail-thunderbird and manually installing
the plugin into my personal thunderbird profile (as per instructions
in the port's pkg-message) and manually configuring it to use
/usr/local/gpg (couldn't find it automatically) it spins forever (i.e.
the task never completes)  in retrieving my keys (which I have
none)... how do I fix this?