69\u00a0 bar falls 29.56\u00a0 5mph WNW dew-point 53\u00a0\u00a0 Summer, pleasant with fluffy cumulus gathering<\/p>\n
Last Quarter Flower Moon<\/p>\n
When in Hawai’i I noticed the Filipino gardeners at the Hyatt had small, sickle like tools.\u00a0 One of them had a serrated edge down and a cutting edge up.\u00a0 The other had a slightly curved blade and a very sharp edge facing down.\u00a0 They used them to easily uproot weeds, edge grass and other plants.\u00a0 I asked the guy where I could buy them, “Home Depot.”\u00a0 Of course, where else?<\/p>\n
In fact, Home Depot did not have them, but Ace Hardware did.\u00a0 It was your next guess was it not?\u00a0 The ones I found were $8 and had a bamboo shaft.\u00a0 When I packed them in my checked luggage, I felt like I might get stopped at security.\u00a0 First, box cutters.\u00a0 Now, Japanese gardening tools.<\/p>\n
Yesterday I discovered the the second of these tools was a whiz at cutting back perennials whose leaves had died back.\u00a0 By putting the blade just into the soil and cutting back toward myself, the leaves came off with ease, leaving the bulbs in mother earth where they belong.\u00a0 Today I finished the daffodils.\u00a0 I have a lot of daffodils so their leaft behinds are voluminous. \u00a0 Into the red plastic tub and then out to the discard pile.\u00a0 The plastic tubs are also great gardening tools.\u00a0 Cheap and capacious, they are also light and indestructible.<\/p>\n
Read an interesting article about Singapore in the Smithsonian magazine.\u00a0 It says Singapore has become fun city.\u00a0 Well, not quite.\u00a0 But, compared to the authors first visit 37 years ago during r&r from Vietnam War coverage it was “Laissez bon temps roulez.” Bars in entertainment zones can stay open until dawn.\u00a0 Theatre has begun to pop up and traveling musicians now include Singapore on their itinerary.<\/p>\n
When I visited in 2004, one of the things that amazed me was seeing women, unescorted, walking the streets well after midnight.\u00a0 My hunch is that relaxation of the puritan, or rather, Confucian value system may endanger that.<\/p>\n
This “Asian values” idea, promoted by Singaporean political leaders, and rooted in Confucianism veers away from Master K’ung-fu-tzi in one very salient area.\u00a0 In the Confucian world there was a distinct hierarchy of professions.\u00a0 The emperor and courtiers, mandarins and nobles were at the top.\u00a0 Then came landowners, farmers, woodcutters and fisherfolk.\u00a0 After these, artisans.\u00a0 At the very bottom, consigned to almost a pariah role, were merchants.\u00a0 Merchants, Confucius believed, created nothing, adding nothing to the culture, rather they made money moving around the goods and food-stuffs created by the labor of others.<\/p>\n
Singapore, much of Southeast Asia and certainly Taiwan, Japan and China are, in that wise, far removed from the core values of Confucius.<\/p>\n
Off for a nap.\u00a0 More gardening tomorrow morning.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
69\u00a0 bar falls 29.56\u00a0 5mph WNW dew-point 53\u00a0\u00a0 Summer, pleasant with fluffy cumulus gathering Last Quarter Flower Moon When in Hawai’i I noticed the Filipino gardeners at the Hyatt had small, sickle like tools.\u00a0 One of them had a serrated edge down and a cutting edge up.\u00a0 The other had a slightly curved blade and … Continue reading Where to Buy Japanese Gardening Tools? Home Depot!<\/span>