Greetings, fellow hoe-swingers!
It was a long day today. It was too short, of course, as well. Not all the ground that needed to be cleared was cleared. Less than half of the remaining problematic territory, perhaps. But still. I made some progress.
At some point, I knew I had to stop, since after a short break, returning to handling the hoe again hurt the skin of my palms. I had already gone beyond my body's training.
Good thing there were other activities to shift my focus to.
First goes the image of a nice and extremely timely surprise, of course! My Parsley come forth from oblivion to show me it could grow fresh again for a second season. And that...just a day or so after I mentioned my memories of it in the current Weekend Engagement Post by 
When all is gray and Fall is wet,
It's Parsley that should spring ahead.
As the elderly would know. But I was not that old...before today.
Please, do not congratulate me on my improvised poetry. I borrowed that rhythm and most of the adjectives from a favorite verse of mine by J.R.R. Tolkien. The original lines read:
When Winter first begins to bite,
And stones crack in the frosty night,
When pools are black and trees a bare,
'Tis evil in the Wild to fare.
I actually recited it to the wild grass I was bashing with my hoe this afternoon.
That, according to a recent post by 
That was part of my true task. The rightmost quadrant is still quite...unruly.
Like this!
(Spoken in the tone of Mike Patton in Faith No More's single called Epic. It's epic. And it's in your face but you can't grab it.)
Excuse me or the interruption. I just had to run the song. Couldn't help it.
Fresh Red Beet is still out there and getting...fresher! But really, those plants won't grow as big as the ones I already gathered. We had a summer of wonderful salads. And they still continue.
The Walnuts are still falling from the trees. I gathered only a couple dozen or so today, not enough time for that, besides...lots of them are waiting for my attention in the kitchen already.
Aa-a-and, Surprise Number Two!
I found a couple of carrots still hiding underground. Still good enough. Still making me happy. Carrots are the way to true happiness, I tell ya!
Well...that was it for today. I came back to town and I was going to look for something to eat, when another wonderful and quite unrelated to any plans of mine thing happened. I saw a couple of teenagers with a nice Air Jordan basketball heading to the court in the school yard nearby.
I sneakily turned around the corner of the school and came over the fence from another angle, then I bumped into them by accident, and then we played some wonderful basketball, me still with the dirty clothes and shoes from my village garden. Every game of basketball is wonderful after a two-year-or-so pause.
Everything hurts. But I'm supercharged by getting superdrained...if that makes any sense to you.
Peace and Parsley!
Yours,
Manol