Worms, Clods, and Tech Team Man

The effort of digging has been thus rewarded by a crop of these little flowers, the name of which escapes me. And to one side of the flowers you can see my newly dug efforts of last night. Intent on my digging, I almost dug up this little flower in particular, so to make good the fright I must have given it as the prongs of my fork hovered millimetres away from it, I took this photo promising that it would be blogged today. That seemed to do the trick. It managed to sustain the shock of near death, and was still blossoming handsomely this morning.

But clods. All I seem to be doing is digging up clods. How are we supposed to grow anything in these glued-together lumps of soil? Lester tells me to break the lumps up, but goodness me, first of all I have to try to get the prongs of the fork into soil which is like iron because it is so compacted, then I have to bounce up and down on the handle of the fork to get it to go down low enough so I can lift the earth upwards. Managing to do this eventually, I then have to lean over (which is good for my waistline) and pick out all the little bits of root left behind by the bramble cull last autumn, throwing them carefully into the wheelbarrow so they can be incinerated on the bonfire at a later date. So that leaves the clod, hopefully without the reluctant-to-leave bramble roots. By this time I am knackered. To have to thump the clod into nothingness is not on. In my opinion it isn't. But Lester thinks differently. He says I am doing a 'half-job' but I say not. This does lead to minor altercations sometimes, but it is all done in fun. He knows that if he dictates to me too heavily then I will go on strike, which means I abandon the environments of the kitchen. He's pretty well trained with this now!

But worms. I have no worms in the ground I am digging. Only one fat one did I lift up recently, and with joy I welcomed the sighting of it. Never thought I would say that. But no. We have no worms. But we do have moles. Perhaps they are leading the way for the worms. 'Follow me, chaps' the moles might be saying, 'new territory ahead, but be careful of the fork descending from above. It is not the sign of an avenging angel, but someone who is trying to make life easier for us!'

With that thought, I go off to do some more digging. Oopps. Just remembered. Lester has gone off with Bruno to the donkey farm in Ju Beloc to get some more manure, and he has taken the fork and spade. Mmmm. Well..... since some of this manure might be destined for clod-land out front, and I will go cook his dinner instead! Methinks this is not a 'go on-strike moment' especially because he donned the hat of Tech-Team-Guy and sorted out my printer this morning.

Ooops, sorry, wrong photo!