The Ents Helped Save Middle Earth, and We Can Cut Back on Palm Oil

September 28, 2019 by JoAnna 24 Comments

Thanks to Dan for filling in for Linda today with this interesting prompt:

“…“ent” “ten” “net.” Use one, use two or use all three (bonus points for using two, double-bonus points for using all three). As Linda would say, use ’em any way you’d like. Enjoy!”

At first, I wondered what I’d do with this or if I would even participate, because I’ll be spending most of Saturday with my lively granddaughter. But then, I remembered that Ents are the tree-like characters in The Lord of the Rings, and I’d love to write about them.

But first let’s see if I can do anything with the other two and get double bonus points! Ten minutes. You can handle just about anything for ten minutes or in ten minute increments. Even stuff you don’t like which I don’t want to think about, but maybe some kind of fancy social event with a lot of small talk, or ten minutes of watching Sponge Bob Square Pants with my granddaughter.  But surely we will find something we both like instead. Yeah, okay, Sponge Bob can be funny for about ten seconds, but it’s just too much for me. I do enjoy coloring with her and we’re going to experiment with alcohol inks on tile. Like this:

I made the fairy for my daughter.  Today we’ll go for abstract.

Net. Someone should catch Sponge Bob with a net. No nets for dolphins though. Sponge Bob is just a cartoon. Why do I keep thinking about him?! I hate to think about what happens to dolphins in tuna nets, and I don’t know if I believe any tuna is really “dolphin safe.” Maybe they try. Now my mind is going places I don’t want it to go, so directing the stream of consciousness to the ENTS!

Ents in The Lord of the Rings are tree-like beings, very tall, and slow speaking when the choose to speak. They don’t really like people or hobbits, and don’t want to get involved in the war to save Middle Earth from doom and darkness, but for some reason they change their minds and save the hobbits and play a pretty big role in the battle against the darkness. Now, I’m going to go look for a video to clarify my slightly fuzzy memory of these events.

Okay, so Tree Beard sees the clear cut destruction the evil traitor Saruman and orcs have done to his friends. And the Ents go to war. They attack Isengard. You have to know that the orcs are horribly evil and deserve everything the ents dish out. I love the part where the ent with his/her/its hair on fire runs to the water and bows in to put the fire out. If only it was that easy in the Amazon. But it wasn’t easy at Isengard.

It isn’t easy to stop the evil and destruction threatening our planet, burning the forests, but somehow, it must be possible.

I heard that while major governments like the US, China, and Brazil are not doing much to stop or slow damage to our planet, corporations are starting to take steps. Maybe the power of public opinion, public demand, can influence corporations.

We can only do out part. I wanted to buy some Jiffy Pop Popcorn for my granddaughter and I to make, but it had palm oil. Every microwave popcorn I looked at had palm oil, which mainly comes from the Amazon where habitats are being destroyed for this product and also for beef cattle. So I bought a bag of plain popping corn (sorry about the plastic bag), and I’m going to cook it in olive oil in a pot on the stove top like we did in the olden days.

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For more information on Stream of Consciousness Saturday, visit:

https://lindaghill.com/2019/09/27/the-friday-reminder-and-prompt-for-socs-sept-28-19/