Herndon's Hollow

Herndon's Hollow Small batch herbs/seasonings, gluten free baking mixes and freeze dried candy.

09/17/2026

🐩 Thursday Tidbit

Crows don’t just recognize individual human faces—they can remember them for years and apparently tell other crows about them.

Researchers have tested this in a rather memorable way: by wearing masks.

In one long-running experiment, researchers captured and briefly handled wild crows while wearing a particular mask. The birds were released unharmed, but unsurprisingly, they weren’t especially fond of the face they associated with being captured.

Later, people wearing that same mask walked through the area without bothering the birds at all.

The crows noticed.

They scolded the masked person, followed them, swooped nearby, and recruited other crows to join in. Meanwhile, people wearing a different, neutral mask generally received much less attention.

But here’s where it gets especially interesting.

As the years passed, more crows reacted to the threatening face—not fewer.

Some of those birds had never personally been captured by the researchers.

They had apparently learned from other crows that this particular human face meant trouble.

Young crows can learn by watching their parents and other members of the group, while adult crows pay attention when other crows sound the alarm. In other words, information about a potentially dangerous person can spread through the local crow population.

And they don’t forget quickly.

Research has shown that crows can retain those associations for years, recognizing a face connected with a bad experience long after the original encounter.

That ability makes a lot of sense when you consider how crows live.

They’re highly social animals, and knowing which humans, predators, locations, or situations are dangerous could make the difference between surviving and making the same mistake twice. Learning from another crow is even better—you get the warning without having to experience the danger yourself.

So when several crows suddenly start yelling from the trees as someone walks past, it may not be meaningless bird noise.

There could actually be a neighborhood crow story behind it.

And apparently, once you’ve earned a starring role in that story, recasting the villain may take quite a while. 😂🐩‍⬛

💬 Check the website for up-to-date ordering details.
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✍ Blog: herndonshollow.blogspot.com

🛍 Culinary blends & popcorn toppers available at The Boise Refillery
(10530 W Fairview Ave, Boise)

09/10/2026

📚 Thursday Tidbit

For a surprisingly long time, books didn’t have page numbers.

Today, page numbers are so ordinary that it’s hard to imagine a book without them. We use them to find our place, make an index useful, cite a source, or tell someone exactly where to look.

But for most of the history of the written word, they simply weren’t necessary.

Ancient texts were often written on scrolls, where the idea of a numbered “page” didn’t really apply. As bound books gradually replaced scrolls, scribes still copied books entirely by hand—and there might be only a handful of copies of any particular work.

Even when books did contain markings, they weren’t necessarily the page numbers we recognize today. Scribes and early printers sometimes numbered the individual sheets, sections, or gatherings used to assemble a book. These markings were primarily there to help the person making the book put everything in the correct order.

Then printing changed everything.

After movable-type printing spread through Europe in the 1400s, books could suddenly be produced in much larger numbers. Instead of every copy being individually handwritten—and potentially a little different from the next—printers could produce many essentially identical copies of the same text.

That made something new possible:

You could tell another person where, exactly, to find something.

Page numbering began appearing more regularly in printed works during the late 15th and early 16th centuries, although printers experimented with different systems before the familiar numbered-page format became standard.

And once page numbers existed, other things became much more useful.

Tables of contents could point to specific pages.
Indexes could direct readers to individual subjects.
Scholars could refer other people to a particular passage.
Readers could stop at page 127 and know exactly where to begin again.

It was a tiny addition to the book itself, but it changed the way information could be organized, shared, discussed, and found.

And it’s a good example of how technology often develops.

The printing press gets remembered as the revolutionary invention—and deservedly so—but inventions also create dozens of smaller problems that people then have to solve.

Once you can make hundreds of identical books, someone eventually has to figure out a better way to say:

“It’s in there somewhere.” 😄📖

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✍ Blog: herndonshollow.blogspot.com

🛍 Culinary blends & popcorn toppers available at The Boise Refillery
(10530 W Fairview Ave, Boise)

For most of us, Labor Day means a three-day weekend, the unofficial end of summer, one last cookout, and maybe taking ad...
09/07/2026

For most of us, Labor Day means a three-day weekend, the unofficial end of summer, one last cookout, and maybe taking advantage of a few sales.

But the holiday itself is much older than you might expect.

Labor Day has been a federal holiday since 1894.

Its story begins even earlier, during a period when American industry was growing at an extraordinary pace—but the people doing much of that work often paid a steep price for it.

In the late 1800s, factory and industrial workers commonly worked extremely long hours. Twelve-hour days weren't unusual, six-day workweeks were common, and workplace safety protections were nowhere near what we expect today.

There was no federal minimum wage.

There was no standard 40-hour workweek.

There were few of the workplace protections that Americans now tend to take for granted.

And as industrialization expanded, so did the American labor movement.

Workers organized for better wages, shorter hours, safer working conditions, and greater influence over the conditions under which they worked. One of the movement's most famous demands was simple:

Eight hours for work.
Eight hours for rest.
Eight hours for what we will.

Against that backdrop came the event generally recognized as the first Labor Day celebration.

On September 5, 1882, thousands of workers marched through the streets of New York City in a parade organized by the Central Labor Union.

It wasn't a paid holiday.

Many of the people participating actually gave up a day's wages to be there.

The march was followed by speeches, music, food, and festivities—a combination of public demonstration and community celebration that helped establish the character Labor Day would eventually take on.

The idea spread.

Cities began holding their own celebrations, and states started officially recognizing the holiday. Oregon became the first state to establish Labor Day as a legal holiday in 1887, and several others soon followed.

Then came 1894.

That year saw the Pullman Strike, one of the most significant labor conflicts of the era.

Workers at the Pullman Palace Car Company near Chicago went on strike after wages were reduced while rents in the company-owned town remained high. The dispute expanded when the American Railway Union supported the workers by refusing to handle trains carrying Pullman cars.

Rail traffic across much of the country was disrupted.

The federal government intervened, federal troops were deployed, violence followed, and people were killed.

It was in the midst of this extraordinarily tense period between labor and government that Congress passed legislation establishing Labor Day as a federal holiday.

President Grover Cleveland signed it into law on June 28, 1894.

By that September, Labor Day was officially a federal holiday.

More than 130 years later, we're still observing it.

Of course, the American workplace has changed enormously since those first Labor Day marches.

Many of the things workers were fighting for in the 19th and early 20th centuries eventually became ordinary parts of American working life: limits on working hours, child-labor restrictions, workplace safety standards, minimum wages, overtime rules, and the widespread expectation of a weekend.

Those changes didn't all happen at once, and they certainly didn't happen simply because Labor Day appeared on the calendar.

They came through decades of legislation, negotiation, organizing, strikes, court battles, political fights, technological change, and shifting expectations about what work in America should look like.

And Labor Day itself was created to recognize something much broader than any single profession or industry.

It's a day honoring the contributions of American workers.

The factory worker and the farmer.

The teacher and the construction worker.

The nurse and the mechanic.

The restaurant worker, truck driver, grocery clerk, tradesperson, small-business owner—and, yes, the postal worker who may very well be enjoying the rare Monday when the mail isn't going anywhere. 😂📬

The jobs have changed considerably since workers first marched through New York in 1882.

But the basic idea behind the holiday hasn't.

America was built, and continues to run, because millions of people get up every day and go to work.

So enjoy the cookout.

Enjoy the last unofficial weekend of summer.

And if you're lucky enough to have the day off, enjoy that too.

After all, having some time away from work is rather fitting for a holiday born partly from the fight for workers to have more of it. đŸ‡șđŸ‡žđŸ› ïž

Happy Labor Day from Herndon’s Hollow!

09/03/2026

🧊 Thursday Tidbit

Water does something rather unusual when it freezes.

Most substances contract as they get colder. Their molecules slow down, move closer together, and the material becomes denser.

Water follows that pattern too—up to a point.

Then, at about 39°F (4°C), it starts behaving differently.

As water continues cooling toward its freezing point, its molecules begin arranging themselves into a more open structure. Once it freezes into ice, that structure takes up more room than the liquid water did.

In fact, water expands by roughly 9% when it freezes.

It doesn’t sound like much, but that little bit of expansion is powerful enough to burst pipes, crack containers, break apart pavement, and slowly split rocks.

It’s also the reason you really shouldn’t put a completely full, sealed bottle of water in the freezer. The water may only need a little more room—but it’s going to try to make that room whether the container cooperates or not. 😬

But the really interesting part is what that expansion does in nature.

Because ice takes up more space than liquid water, it’s less dense.

So it floats.

That seems perfectly ordinary because we’ve seen floating ice our entire lives, but it’s actually a remarkably important property.

When winter temperatures drop, lakes and ponds begin freezing at the surface. That floating layer of ice then acts as insulation, slowing the loss of heat from the water beneath it.

The water below can remain liquid even while the surface is frozen solid.

If ice behaved like most solid substances and became denser when it froze, it would sink.

More water at the surface would freeze.
That ice would sink too.
And the process could continue downward.

Lakes in cold climates could freeze far more extensively, making winter survival considerably harder for the plants and animals living in them.

So one of water’s strangest little quirks—the fact that it expands instead of contracts when it freezes—is also one of the reasons life beneath a frozen lake can carry on through the winter.

Sometimes the things we consider completely ordinary are only ordinary because we’ve never known the world to work any other way. 🧊

💬 Check the website for up-to-date ordering details.
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✍ Blog: herndonshollow.blogspot.com

🛍 Culinary blends & popcorn toppers available at The Boise Refillery
(10530 W Fairview Ave, Boise)

08/27/2026

đŸ§Ÿ Thursday Tidbit

The @ symbol wasn’t originally created for email.

Long before it showed up in email addresses, it was used in accounting.

It stood for “at.”

So instead of writing something like:
7 items at $2 each

It could be written more compactly as:
7 items @ $2

That usage dates back hundreds of years.

It was a simple way to shorten common phrases in trade and record-keeping—nothing special, just practical.

For a long time, it stayed that way.

Just a symbol used occasionally in bookkeeping, invoices, and notes.

Then in 1971, a computer engineer named Ray Tomlinson needed a way to separate a user’s name from the computer they were using.

He chose the @ symbol because it wasn’t commonly used in names
 and it already meant “at.”

User at computer.

That one decision turned a relatively obscure symbol into something used constantly.

Now it shows up in email, social media, usernames—everywhere.

But it started as nothing more than a shorthand in accounting.

A small, practical symbol
 that ended up everywhere.

💬 Check the website for up-to-date ordering details.
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✍ Blog: herndonshollow.blogspot.com

🛍 Culinary blends & popcorn toppers available at The Boise Refillery
(10530 W Fairview Ave, Boise)

08/20/2026

đŸŒ» Thursday Tidbit

Sunflowers don’t spend their whole lives facing the sun.

It’s one of those things that gets repeated often enough that it starts to feel like a fixed rule—

sunflowers follow the sun.

And for a while, they do.

When the plant is still growing, before the flower fully opens, it moves throughout the day.

In the morning, it faces east.
As the sun rises and crosses the sky, the plant gradually turns with it.
By evening, it’s facing west.

Then overnight, it resets—slowly turning back to the east again before sunrise.

It’s a daily cycle, and it’s not random.

That movement helps the plant grow more efficiently, capturing light throughout the day and supporting faster development.

But it doesn’t last.

Once the sunflower matures—once the bloom fully opens—that movement stops.

The stem stiffens.
The turning slows
 and then ends.

Most mature sunflowers settle facing east.

And they stay that way.

Not because they can’t move anymore, but because they no longer need to.

Facing east allows them to warm up more quickly in the morning sun, which makes them more attractive to pollinators early in the day.

Bees tend to visit warmer flowers first.

So what looks like a simple trait—“it follows the sun”—is really just one stage in a longer process.

Movement while it’s growing.
Stillness once it’s finished.

It’s one of those details that’s easy to miss, because you usually only notice the plant once it’s already in that final stage.

By then, the part everyone talks about
 has already passed.

💬 Check the website for up-to-date ordering details.
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✍ Blog: herndonshollow.blogspot.com

🛍 Culinary blends & popcorn toppers available at The Boise Refillery
(10530 W Fairview Ave, Boise)

08/13/2026

✋ Thursday Tidbit

August 13 is known as International Left-Handers Day.

Left-handed people make up only about 10% of the population, which means most tools, spaces, and systems are designed with right-handed use in mind.

It’s not always obvious
 but it shows up in small ways.

Scissors that don’t cut quite right.
Notebooks that dig into your hand as you write.
Measuring cups, desks, and even certain kitchen tools that feel just slightly off.

Nothing major on its own.

But consistent.

Historically, it went further than that.

For a long time, left-handedness wasn’t just uncommon—it was discouraged. In some places, children were trained or even forced to switch to their right hand for writing and everyday tasks.

Over time, that changed.

Left-handedness is now recognized as just another natural variation—something that doesn’t need correcting.

And because it’s less common, it’s also one of those things that quietly reshapes how someone interacts with the world around them.

Same environment.

Slightly different experience.

So while today is set aside to recognize it, it’s really just highlighting something that’s always been there
 just not always designed for.

💬 Check the website for up-to-date ordering details.
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✍ Blog: herndonshollow.blogspot.com

🛍 Culinary blends & popcorn toppers available at The Boise Refillery
(10530 W Fairview Ave, Boise)

08/06/2026

đŸȘž Thursday Tidbit

Mirrors don’t actually reverse things.

It feels like they do.

Raise your right hand, and the reflection raises what looks like its left.
Turn your head, and it seems to turn the opposite way.

But a mirror isn’t flipping left and right.

It’s flipping front to back.

What you’re seeing is a reversal along a single axis—the one that runs straight through you, from front to back.

The confusion comes from how we interpret it.

When you imagine someone facing you, you mentally rotate them around to match your perspective. That’s what creates the left-right swap.

But the mirror itself isn’t doing that.

It’s showing exactly what’s in front of it
 just reversed in depth.

If you were able to step through the mirror instead of turning to face it, everything would line up the way you expect.

Same sides. Same orientation.

It’s not the mirror that changes things.

It’s the way we think about what we’re seeing.

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✍ Blog: herndonshollow.blogspot.com

🛍 Culinary blends & popcorn toppers available at The Boise Refillery
(10530 W Fairview Ave, Boise)

07/30/2026

đŸ€ Thursday Tidbit

The idea of friendship hasn’t always meant what it does now.

Today, it usually points to something personal.

Someone you trust.
Someone you choose to keep in your life.
Someone you know beyond just circumstance.

But that wasn’t always the case.

For a long time, the word “friend” was used much more broadly.

It could refer to someone on your side of a conflict.
Someone who shared your beliefs or position.
Someone connected to you through circumstance rather than closeness.

In older texts, alliances between nations were described as friendships.
Political supporters were called friends.
Even people who had never met could be grouped under the same word simply because they stood for the same thing.

It wasn’t necessarily about personal connection.

It was about alignment.

Over time, that meaning shifted.

As societies changed and daily life became less tied to survival through group loyalty, the word narrowed.

It became more specific.

Less about who you were associated with

and more about who you chose to keep close.

Now, when someone is called a friend, it usually carries weight in a different way.

Not just shared circumstance
 but shared time.
Not just proximity
 but familiarity.
Not just alignment
 but trust.

The word didn’t disappear.

It adapted.

And maybe that’s why it’s lasted as long as it has.

So even though today is known as International Day of Friendship, the idea behind it isn’t new.

It’s just something that’s been redefined
 slowly, over time, into what we recognize now.

💬 Check the website for up-to-date ordering details.
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✍ Blog: herndonshollow.blogspot.com

🛍 Culinary blends & popcorn toppers available at The Boise Refillery
(10530 W Fairview Ave, Boise)

07/23/2026

🔑 Thursday Tidbit

Keys feel like they should be unique.

You get one cut for your lock, you carry it around, and it works exactly the way it’s supposed to.

Turn it one way, the lock opens.
Turn it back, it closes.

It gives the impression that there’s something very specific—almost one-of-a-kind—about that pairing.

But most standard keys don’t work that way.

They’re built from a system of patterns.

Each notch along the edge of a key corresponds to a specific depth and position. Inside the lock, pins are set to match those exact heights. When everything lines up just right, the lock turns.

It feels precise
 but it’s not unlimited.

There are only so many depths.
Only so many positions.
Only so many combinations those can be arranged into.

Which means there’s a limit to how many “unique” keys can exist within a given system.

In larger buildings, older locks, or mass-produced systems, overlap isn’t just possible—it’s expected.

Two keys cut for completely different locks can sometimes be close enough to partially work
 or, in some cases, fully open the same door.

Modern locks have improved on this.

More pins.
Tighter tolerances.
More complex keyways.

But the basic idea hasn’t changed much.

It’s still a physical system of shapes aligning just enough to allow movement.

And when you step back and think about it, it’s a little strange.

Something that feels personal
 specific
 almost exclusive


is really just one variation in a much larger, shared set.

💬 Check the website for up-to-date ordering details.
🛒 Order: hotplate.com/herndonshollow

✍ Blog: herndonshollow.blogspot.com

🛍 Culinary blends & popcorn toppers available at The Boise Refillery
(10530 W Fairview Ave, Boise)

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