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The ground was black and clayey and riddled with hundreds of slate arrow points, as if from a prehistoric drive-by shooting.

It was a barbarous thing, a blind clayey hole with folding chairs for the family teetering on one side and raw dirt heaped on the other.

And Aster alpinus chimes in: “My ancestors hailed from above the timber line — you know, like, the Alps. I won’t appreciate some sodden, clayey spot in your garden.”

His art room’s got a clayey smell, for some reason.

“That’s why organic matter is the perfect ingredient, whether your soil is sandy or clayey,” she said.