Month: June 2026

You know how it is when the weather is thick and sort of steamy and you have a ton of things to do but you don’t want to do any of them because the weather is thick and sort of steamy and really alls you wants to do is take a nap?

That was me until just, like, 15 seconds ago when I put two and two together to come up with a plot, unfolding right before your very eyes, to take over the world.

Seriously.

I included Cap’n Blackthumb in the title because, frankly, I thought it was funny and because I’ve been struggling all dang day to print a 28mm pirate figure for Tales of the Black Falcon on the Bambu Labs Ai Mini my wife and daughter teamed up to give me on Father’s Day. And, yes, that is a terrible sentence. Shoot me (just don’t make me create another 3D print!).

I saw something on Google while I was waiting to click “Yes, filament is protruding from the nozzle” on the printer – if you tell it no or skip the question you don’t have a happy printing experience. Ask one who knows…

The Google article said that scientists have determined that plants very well may exhibit some degree of intelligence.

All right, Charlie, you’re so smart, why are you creeping over the bookcase? What’s in it for you, eh? Creepin’ around the bookcase, what are you up to?

Charlie, of course, remains mum on the subject.

All right, Mums, let’s have it – what’s Charlie up to?

I’ve been doing a ton of work on my newest (almost) website, called TangleWicket.com. I know, right? Coolest name ever?

That site is devoted to explaining the world of gardening to those of us who kill plants just by looking at ’em. Although the site is mostly written by Claude.AI (because I don’t know a dead plant from a hole in the ground) I supervise and edit and illustrate. I do have a job – really. In editing these articles, one thing repeats over and over.

You want the soil to be wet six inches down in order to train the roots to reach down, not up.

Wait. You’re training the plants?

You want to look at the wilted leaves in the cool of the evening. If they’re no longer wilted, it’s because the plant was saving energy during the day.

Wait. The plants save energy?

Of course they do. Of course they have an intelligence. Of course the grass sighs when you cut it. They’re living things, aren’t they? Don’t they have the right to express themselves?

And then it hit me. How come my neighbor’s shed is overgrown? How come there’s a tree sticking up out of the chimney of that old house? How come, a week after I mow the lawn, those guys are all back at it again, and the weeds that lost their heads now have cousins and brothers and sisters right there along with them?

It’s just what plants do, right? They just grow – and would be everywhere but for that handy jug of RoundUp.

What if, sit down, now, and think about this: what if that intelligence we discussed earlier was linked to the propensity for plants to grow everywhere? What if it wasn’t “just what plants do” but “that’s how plants maintain control of everything, including us?”

Oxygen, remember that stuff? Comes from plants that suck up our CO2, right? Maybe the plants feed oxygen to us to keep us breathing. Maybe they just keep us around to create the carbon dioxide – like maybe we’re their dairy cows or something.

That certainly flips my paradigm, so to speak.

I suppose we could cut down the 3 trillion trees on the planet – oh, but we’d run out of oxygen, wouldn’t we? Ahh, nice play, tree boys.

Forget your conspiracy theories, kids. This one’s a whopper, playing out for as long as humans have been around.

And don’t get me started on mushrooms…