u/Alert_Monitor_9145

Let’s say you’re made an offer to pick a US state in which to live but never leave without penalties, and you can name your price. Could be a million bucks, could be $10 million, could be “$1, Bob!”.

You get that amount up-front, tax-free. You can spend it however you wish, but if you ever leave that state, you have to repay 3% of that figure each day you are gone, plus your expenditures (which are capped; see below).

What’s your state, and what’s your bottom #?

It would be easy to say 1,000,000,000,000,000.00, but that’s not really the point.

Some small caveats to prevent cheating:

- If you leave the state, you can take things like clothes, toiletries, meds, reasonable electronics. Ya know, what a reasonable person may take on a vacation. You can’t take your yacht or luxury motorhome — gotta rent those.

- When you leave the state, you have a $1,000 per day spending cap (still comes out of your own wallet, though), excluding airfare, for the trip as a whole. So you wanna go to Europe for 2 weeks? You cannot spend more than $14k during the trip, excluding airfare.

What’s your state of choice, and what’s your bottom #, realistically? Would love to hear the “why” behind your decision…

I’m in an area (North Central Florida) where my DFs grow great for 9 out of 12 months of the year.

I thought I had it figured out this past winter, but I lost many plants in a late February freeze.

I know I need to figure out a long-term solution for the cold months, but until then I am focused on getting back up and running.

I “only” lost about a third of my plants, and for the last couple months I’ve just let them grow without attention to proper pruning, leaving me with some good cuttings for the varieties I want to replant.

My question is: how do I replant?

Two pots (25 gallon, so 4 plants) are completely dead, so I could till the soil and replant, I suppose. But what about the pots where only one or two of the four plants died? Should I do anything to amend the soil, remove old roots? Will new cuttings ever thrive if there are old roots (plus the competition of the roots from the other established DFs) in play?

Most of my lost DFs are American Beauty. My new plantings will be mostly Physical Graffiti and Haley’s Comet. AB seems to have both poor cold and sun tolerance, and I know this won’t be my last winter, so trying to use this as a learning opportunity and cultivate what I think will be most hardy.

I am growing the following:

American Beauty (seems to burn easily in the summer and susceptible to cold in the winter). It’s a shame it’s so sensitive because it made up more than half my DF orchard and it’s a great fruit producer when it’s thriving.

Sugar Dragon (held up fairly well to the cold, loves the sun). I am mostly keeping it around for pollination at this point, since I am leaning towards a Phys Graff/Haley Comet build.

Condor (held up well to the cold, slightly susceptible to burning)

Physical graffiti (held up well to the cold and bounced back quickly, heat tolerance tbd, as I just planted it last summer).

Haley’s Comet (held up really well to cold, and I am going to propagate quite a bit, heat tolerance tbd).

Any suggestions on an additional variety to complement what I have?

Thanks in advance for any and all feedback!

With all the talk being about tonight’s game, I figured something a little more light-hearted would be fun.

I’m really not superstitious in the sense I really think anything I am doing at home is having any impact on my beloved Magic, but I sure did as a kid (during the 90’s I was between age 6 and 16).

My first superstition had to do with my glass of water as I watched a game. If we’re falling behind it’s because my cup was less than half-full. 7/8/9 year old me would race to the kitchen for a refill if we needed to go on a run, or we had a final possession down by 1 and (GASP!) my water cup was almost empty! Somehow it “seemed to work”. lol.

11/12/13/14 year old me was convinced that we’d lose on west coast trips if I didn’t watch the end of games. These games wouldn’t start until 10:30, after my bedtime, so I’d take my little Timex digital watch off my wrist, set an alarm for midnight, and stuff it in my pillowcase so it was next to my ear. I’d get up and quietly survey the house.

Can I hear my dad snoring?

Has the ice in the bottom of my mom’s water glass on the kitchen counter melted (she usually went to bed around 11, but not always)?

If it seemed safe, I’d make my way out to the den (furthest room from my parents’ room), where I’d already turned the volume all the way down before bed. I’d turn on the tv and dial up the volume just enough and sit there 2 feet away from the screen.

Sure, sometimes the game was already out of hand and we had no prayer, but I don’t remember those nights now. I remember the amazing back and forth 4th quarters, the comebacks, the game winning shots (and the race to get back to my bed before my mom gets up because she heard me scream out “yesssss!” in the middle of the night).

I miss having those superstitions. They made me feel connected to my Magic — perhaps a little magical in-and-of itself.

While bedtime won’t be a challenge tonight, my water (okay, whiskey and soda) cup will stay over half full throughout game 6 (tomorrow morning might be a challenge, though 😜).

Anyone else have, or had, their Magic superstitions?

I’d love to hear about them, and GO MAGIC!!!