Endings..and not

Pulling up the dying garden and disposing of rotten fruit. It's not an unpleasant job unless I come across one of those giant Brandywines gone bad. Those stink and I handle them with a shovel. The spotty tomatos I put in a pile for Lissa to throw. She loves smashing them in the street and since we have that awful open storm drain on our street, I can wash them into it with the hose later. I gave her and a couple of little neighborhood hoodlums a bucket of them and they had a great time..Guntown tomato war. It was pretty hilarious. The rest go in the compost pile.
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I have to say, I was reluctant to get busy on the long grass because of those Praying Mantis's. Or is it Preying Mantis? That'd seem more appropriate. But, I haven't found any out here, it seems they like the front garden with the Cone Flowers and Pampas grass. Between the Mantis's and the Garden Spiders they have almost wiped out the grasshoppers. Which is a blessing to me, I hate those things. The balance of nature, eh? And I added to the, cough, balance, by sprinkling Sevin pellets all around the house. Those things really work well for crickets and hoppers, they don't seem to come near and I've only found one in the house. I beat it with my broom and broke the broom. Now I have to go shopping for a new broom, but, that's okay, I want a corn broom and not one of these plastic looking things. I had the greatest broom before I moved here, but, I couldn't take it with me. I believe you have to leave your broom, you have to put it across the old doorway when you leave. I don't ride a broom, contrary to popular myth. A Besom is not a cleaning broom, it's a ceremonial broom, that's a different thing. You can take those with you, but, you don't sweep your floor with them. All brooms are sort of magikal, if you ask me. Even if you don't believe in magik. Think about it, you don't just sweep dirt in a pile with them. You're sort of gathering energy every time you sweep and you're sweeping out negativity. It makes the task more interesting. And everyone has a certain way they sweep. I sweep towards the door, it makes more sense to me in a ritualistic way.
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Brooms have been thought of as a woman's tool through history, though I suppose not anymore, since men do housework now. The cave women probably had brooms made of grasses tied to a stick. The term "flying off the handle" came from the broom. When you hit someone with an old broom the grass or straw would literally fly apart and ruin your broom. So you had to be pretty mad to do it. I like the looks of the Halloween brooms they're selling now. They're made of twigs and there's no reason that can't be a Besom if you cleansed it. They're cool looking. If I can find one that's not made in China, I'm getting one. Well, this started off about rotting tomatos and turned into brooms. Magik. Heh.