The rototiller is my friend. My angry, sharp friend who's hard to start and harder to control.

So I think I've already told you about our newly discovered chunk of yard, and my blood feud with the blackberries that had taken it over. The wounds are mostly healed now, so I won't belabor that -- until I clear the truly nasty and entrenched bit next to our driveway.

But for now, I'll celebrate the even, if somewhat sloped ground that is now ours to do with as we see fit. It was, just a week or so ago, ankle-sprainingly lumpy and messed up. But I borrowed my neice's rototiller and tore the crap out of the chunky clumps of grass and roots. A rototiller is quite a powerful device. And maybe someday I'll learn more about them. For this job, though, I just read enough to learn how to start it and maneuver it without losing a limb (i.e. at least half of the quick start guide).

Basically, a rototiller (or cultivator) is a couple of very angry blade-wheels that dig up whatever. (In our case, they dug up some barbed wire in addition to the garden-variety dirt -- remnants of the old farm fencing that I had to unwind from the blade-wheel's axle. Good times.) I'm not sure when I'll need to pull out the rototiller again, but I look forward to it and dread it both. It's tiring, difficult, moderately scary but ultimately satisfying work. Not unlike the entire blackberry vendetta.