Kill or Be Killed or a Gardener's Dilemma
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George & Kathy
A long-time friend recently commented on our blog and we thought you'd enjoy his commentary. Don't miss Marcie's response at the end!
Eenie, meenie,miney. mo ... a pumpkin seedling's gotta go!
Your blog today got me thinking about Mr. X, our old Phys Ed teacher at LHS. One of his favorite things to do in class was a game called Kill Or Be Killed. In case you never heard of it, he would line up all the jocks in front of the the cloth curtain (or whatever it was made of) that was the divider in the gym to allow the girls to have their own side of the gym. On the opposite side of the jocks (just under the basketball hoop (in front of the block concrete wall) he would line up (shall we say) the non-jocks. In this scenario I was one of the non-jocks.
In the middle of us he would place 6 volleyballs and when the whistle blew, three or four on each side would run to the middle to swat the balls back to their team mates. Then the object of the game was your standard dodge ball game. If you got hit by the opponent throwing the ball at you, you were out of the game. If you caught the ball, the guy who threw it was out of the game. The jocks could throw at a rate of 2,000 miles per hour. The non jocks, about 3 miles per hour. Why were the jocks in front of the divider and not under the basket? If they missed, the ball would bounce against the wall and automatically come back to them. If the non jocks missed, the ball would hit the fabric divider and just drop to the floor. You can guess who never won. Mr. X got his jollies by choosing the teams.
So why was I thinking of all that by reading your blog? Your story about the two remaining pumpkin blooms was what did it. You get to choose which one will live and which one will die - Kill Or Be Killed. That makes you a much cuter version of Mr. X. It's "Gym Hell" all over again. Don't do it.....buy one more pot and spare the other bloom. Make a note and see if the one that would have been "killed" might actually outperform the other. When it's all over, salt and bake some of those seeds and send me a few. No need for any other thanks is necessary. Once in a while the non jocks get lucky. Is this one of those times????
Marcie responds ... Well, I took George's pleas of mercy to heart and dug up one of the pumpkin seedlings and replanted it in its own pot. David spent 10 minutes adding a water drip. I named the replanted (non-jock) pumpkin, George. The other one is Punk. Let the competition begin!
