The never-ending story

From your comments on my previous post I assume wandering cattle aren't a normal sight where you are. They are here. They're often over the golf course or even down on the beach. There is a lot of common land in Gower and the farmers seem happy to let their animals roam.

Daughter's front garden wall was knocked over by a cow but there was no recompense. The cows will belong to several farmers and there's no knowing which is whose. 

Now back to the never-ending story of The Gardener and the Bamboo. 

I bought me a riddle, which seems an appropriately gold-prospector way of saying it, and I've been sitting in soil sieving it. 

As well the bamboo roots and the bush roots, I uncovered another deep root that doesn't seem to belong to anything. In fact, it might not even be a root; it could be an ancient relic, the hull of a Norman ship perhaps.

I decided I was going to dig this thing up. Like the bush I couldn't pull it up from the top so I'd dig it up from the bottom. Then Husband came along and said, "You should be using the pickaxe." He never learns, does he?

So it was a matter of pride to me that I should succeed in my endeavour. 

After about half an hour I decided pride was over-rated. I went in and told Husband he could dig it up with the pick-axe. "Are you grumpy with me?" he said.
"Whatever makes you think that, dear?"

However while I was, as I like to think of it, prospecting for treasure, my mind wandered to the California Gold Rush. I wondered how many people found gold, how many of them became rich, and how many died in the attempt?

Around 300,000 people travelled to California to look for gold following its discovery there in 1848.

Although an estimated 750 tons of gold were extracted very few people made a fortune. Shops selling shovels did well! As did Levi Strauss who came up with his riveted blue jeans idea.

It's estimated that 100,000 people died during the Gold Rush, of starvation, disease, accidents, and violence.

One other interesting detail - well, I think it's interesting. I found myself talking to myself in Moira Rose's voice. (We're rewatching Schitt's Creek.) In my head I sounded great.