Just a play on the wornout Carpe diem. I write garden humour, hence "Carpe rutila" -- seize the spade/shovel.

Oh. Shouldn't it be carpe pala or maybe batillum? Rutila is just red or something which is red. I think I've heard of rutila being used to refer to a clay (maybe red?) that some potters use, but that use may be unconnected.

But it's a long time since I studied the language. I just missed having Cicero as a tutor in rhetoric because the old beggar up and died. So I had to drop Latin and take geography instead. Now, where was I?

A pala was carried by legionnaires following the Marian army reforms (although for all I know they may have been carried by them before that).


The idiot also known as Capfka ...