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We watched the recently-released movie “Luca”.

Now my kids yell “Silencio Bruno!” at me whenever I tell them not to do something.

Thanks a lot, Pixar.

Since it’s the season when there are a lot of crickets outside (among many other creatures), I was reminded of the relationship between crickets and temperature.

I knew crickets chirped more with higher temperature, but I didn’t know until today (when I started looking up the exact equation for this blog post) that it is called Dolbear’s law.

The equation is (number of chirps in 15 seconds) + 40 = degrees F.

I am proposing a new temperature scale, because Fahrenheit, Rankine, Celsius, and Kelvin aren’t enough. And I’m ignoring Newton, Delisle, Romer, and Reaumur scales.

My new temperature scale is degrees Dolbear.

Which is really just Fahrenheit – 40. So water freezes at -8 °Do, and water boils at 172 °Do, and a human has a fever at or above 60 Dolbears.

Let’s see how quickly this catches on. Right now it’s about 45 Dolbears outside.

There’s tab, then there’s TaB. You know alt-tab, but do you know alt-TaB?

I’ll leave it to your imagination what shift-TaB and ctrl-TaB should be.

They say life is 10 percent what happens to you and 90 percent what you make of it. Or, if life hands you lemons, make lemonade.

I think the Sneetches point out what happens if you just take those lemons and eat them as-is. Or let them sit there and rot.

I’m not going to equate the Star Belly and the Plain Belly Sneetches with particular classes of humans. At least not in this post. This analysis of the two types of Sneetches should not be interpreted as blaming any group of people.

Take a look at the story, if you’re not familiar with it.

The Star Belly Sneetches decide to play ball. They play ball, and they have fun. They are not nice in that they don’t allow the Plain Belly Sneetches to play with them. What do the Plain Belly Sneetches do for fun instead?

Nothing.

Apparently the Plain Belly Sneetches are not able to think of anything to do on their own. They are fixated on the stars on the other Sneetches, and can think only of how to become a Sneetch with a star. They can’t think of anything else, including coming up with something of their own to do.

Another example:

So the Star Belly Sneetches have a bonfire. What’s to prevent the Plain Belly Sneetches from having their own bonfire? Surely the Star Bellies don’t have a monopoly on fire and sticks…

And the Plain Bellies don’t look like they’re starving, so they have access to food somehow. It’s just they are so jealous of the Star Bellies that they don’t think to do anything other than want to be at the Star Belly event.

Last example:

I pay money to go on vacation to a place with a beach. I use some vacation days so I can sit on the beach and do nothing for a short time. A few days with no responsibility at work – I can relax and enjoy the view, swim in the water, help the kids play in the sand, etc. You get the picture.

The Plain Belly Sneetches live in enough of a paradise that they have enough to eat without having to work, and they have a beach that they can enjoy.

But do they enjoy it? No! Why not? Because they’re losers!

Why are they not swimming, building sand castles, and playing on the beach? Because they’re so focused on what they don’t have (approval of the Star Belly Sneetches) that they can’t enjoy (or even use) they things they do have.

I’m being a bit harsh, but it’s a fiction book about made-up creatures so I can exaggerate my criticism. I would not have the same attitude to a real person, although I would still want to convey the same lesson.

Why would the Star Belly Sneetches want to include such a useless, dour bunch of Sneetches into their activities? From what I can tell, the Plain Bellies would dampen anyone’s mood and ruin any party – I don’t blame the Star Bellies for avoiding them. Hey Plain Belly Sneetches, how about you do something interesting on your own? And get the Star Belly Sneetches’ attention that way?

I prefer the Berenstain Bears book “No Girls Allowed”. That book is specific about the classes of people it is discussing (or classes of bears rather), but it gives a solution that made more sense to me. The boys don’t let the girls into their fort, so the girls get their own fort that makes the boys jealous.

But they both have the same root problem – people are basing their happiness on comparison with others. Do your own thing, that you like for yourself. Don’t depend on other people for your happiness.

And if you are curious, I think the most applicable facet of humanity to this book is the fashion industry. People go through so much effort and money to have the right clothes/accessories/cars/things that really don’t matter, other than to impress others.

Since things are going well in the garden, I thought I’d update everyone on what seems to be the best herbs to grow in the Midwest of the United States of America. Maybe you’re new to gardening, or maybe you’re new to the midwest; either way, if you’re not sure what to grow here, start with these for a self-sustaining garden.

First up: chives

Chives are a perennial here in zone 6. Not only do they grow well, but they also spread. Not crazy levels of spreading, but they are prolific. Like you’ll-be-pulling-them-out-of-sidewalk-cracks prolific. They also seem to be the herb we use the most, from what we have. That may be due to the fact that they have a long growing season – I’m able to cut them for months.

Next up: dill

Dill is not a perennial here in zone 6. But if you let a couple plants go to seed, you will have an endless supply of dill. I bought a packet of dill seeds the first year the raised garden beds were ready. They just keep going to seed, and the seeds get scattered, and we end up with dill plants growing all over the raised beds. We don’t use dill as much, but we’ll see about homemade pickles this year.

Third up: mint

Mint is a perennial here in zone 6. And mint does have crazy levels of spreading. Like you need to put it in a container otherwise it will take over wherever it is. It spreads via the roots that grow out instead of down – if I pull up one plant, if the root doesn’t break and I keep pulling, I end up with about 5 plants all sprouting at various places along a root about a foot long. I don’t know that we’ve ever used the mint for actual cooking purpose. My favorite use of it is to let it grow in neglected areas that I can’t reach with the riding mower, then when I’m weed whacking those areas it smells great.

Honorable mention: lettuce

Lettuce is not an herb, but it is like dill in that if you let it go to seed, you will get a lot of lettuce plants the next year. We get more of it than we can use, but the seeds are free so I keep letting them grow.

This post is a repeat – I’m phoning it in today because I’m enjoying the holiday. A little early, perhaps, but I’m still going for it anyway.

Happy Birthday

A M E R I C AA M E R I C AA M E R I C A!

In case you wanted to order bamboo plants online but didn’t know where to start, here are my experiences with 4 of the places. I’m listing them in chronological order, which for all practical purposes is random.

I was trying to find bamboo online, and I found a lot of bamboo online. But many of the places were either local pickup only with their stock online, or wholesale/commercial only. I did find a few places that would sell and ship to anybody on the internet, so I tried them out.

• Maya Gardens – mayagardensinc.com
  This place is everywhere it seems. You can order off their website, or off Ebay or Etsy or Amazon or other places. So this place has by far the easiest ordering ability, along with prompt service.

  But it is also the most expensive for what you get. Smaller plants, and limited selection, is the tradeoff for ease of ordering, it seems.

• Bamboo Garden Center – www.bamboogardencenter.com
  This place also calls itself Bamboo Plantation. I could order online, but it seems all orders go to the Pending status as default. My first order, I waited a couple weeks then I sent an email asking about my order status. They said one item was not in stock, so they’ll cancel that item and ship the rest. I then got an email saying my order was now in the Processed state, and it shipped and arrived soon after. The plants were decent size, so that worked out okay.

  The next season, I placed another order. I figured these items should be in stock. But the order still went into Pending. And sat for a couple weeks. I asked about a possible ship date, and I did not get a reply this time. But my order did change to Processed a few days later and then it shipped. Decent plants, again. Just not my favorite customer service.

• Bamboo Garden – www.bamboogarden.com
  This place was not exactly what I wanted, because I couldn’t place an order on their website. They have all the info – prices, sizes, shipping, etc. – but you have to email or call to order. I decided to try it, so I emailed them my order with my calculated total cost. They emailed back quickly, saying they were out of stock in that size of an item but I could get the next size up if I wanted. Friendly tone to the email, prompt responses, and willing to work with me. Once we settled on what the order should be, they then emailed me an invoice which I could pay online.

  So while I couldn’t order online all in one shot on their website, I could basically accomplish what I wanted all online. It wasn’t as painful as I thought it was going to be.

  The plants arrived and they were good sized. Plus this place has the best packaging, with rails of bamboo to protect/stabilize the contents of the box.

• Tripple Brook Farm – tripplebrookfarm.com/
  This place let me order fully online, like I expect to be able to do in the Year of our Lord 2021. I got an email right away saying my order was received, but I never got a shipping notice (nor an actual shipment), so after a couple weeks I emailed them. They replied right away, sounding apologetic, and in a short time I had shipping info and then the plants arrived.

  I don’t know what happened to my order at first, but they fixed it and were communicative, so it’s okay. The plants were a good size.

I expect that ordering bamboo plants is not a typical activity, so I have no idea how helpful this blog post will be to the general public. But I felt like writing it so this is what you get.