War crimes

We have a mutiny on our hands here at the farm. The boys in red have downed tools - well they've downed the secaturs and the hand saws for the time being. Having hacked the wild carrot, fennel and tree mallow down from their towering heights we, well I really, had directed them on to clearing round the bases of the olive trees some of which are encompassed round with vines and grasses: some grow cheek by jowl with mulberry and fig shoots: but all of them share a common pest - the bramble - and it is the bramble that has brought out the militant side of the farm boys.

Those of you who are not familiar with Eddie and Ceddie might not be aware that they are brothers of an heroic bent - no pansies these. They lap up hard work in the way a tired dog will gratefully lap from fresh fallen puddles. They are physicall not exactly prepossessing but they are hard. Whipcord tough they are and so when they began complaining about the brambles I knew it was serious. Now it isn't that they don't want to cut them back and expose the wonderful old olive trees that this hideous rambling bramble has everywhere colonized it is rather that they want revenge. After manfully uncovering 4 magnificent tree architectural or sculptural in their majesty the boys have had more than enough. Covered in scratches and tears they are now demanding their own "ultimate solution". They want one of those garden chippers - one of those machines with internal knives that reduce prunings to chips. Their reasoning is that the brambles inflict so much damage as they are torn free that they, the boys, want the final satisfaction of reducing them to mere chips that can be refed to the garden as a mulch.

I'll not cavil, and when we have the funds they will have their chipper. Meantimes Shaun has instructed them on the making of fasces from discarded and dried lavender stalks (another by product of the harvest). Are they turning into fascists?