My collection of gardening tools is growing by the day. But today I acquired something quite special, at least in terms of everything I have heard about it so far. It is a tool that can be best described as a cross between a spade and a pitchfork. And it looks exactly like a spade with four thick tines in place of a single blade. It is used for turning stony soil. Everyone I talked to in Motovun insisted this was a tool unique to Istria, where soil is full of stones large and small. And so I expected little on the World Wide Web, but I still tried my luck with zillions of websites dedicated to all manner of gardening tools. To my surprise, I found my new acquisition rather quickly, together with its many pictures. It is called “spading fork” in English, and it is commonly used for turning, well, stony soil. Ah, Istria! As though it is on another planet. Nay, galaxy.