Bath Ritual

Plenty of water from the recent rains so I fill the solar shower (five gallons) and put it on the bottom of the sheep-watering trough overturned in the morning. Mid-afternoon, after brush work, take the shower off, turn over the trough, dump the water and it's too hot. Add bath salts and agitate with a gallon of cool water. First outdoor bath of the season. Pull a kitchen chair close, shampoo, ashtray and a rolled smoke, an early drink, towel, a paperback Dashiell Hammett "Red Harvest" that I've only read a couple of times. Very still, with birds. The Piliated Woodpecker arrives and works the hickory tree. The Green Wall of summer is almost complete, I can't see my truck 150 feet down the driveway. Now, because of the work The Utah Kid did and shamed me into, the Wall starts 30 feet or more away; stage two of the firebreak is to keep all the brush cut so that grass will appear. This is a very cool thing, so fecund here that grass just appears, if you keep the brush cleared, like that in Missip too, but I had spent most of my life on sand or in western Colorado where grass was more problematic, if you wanted it, a lawn, for whatever reason. One of those moments with the sling-blade this morning. Caught a root (probably, not a rock) on a back-swing and knew I was going to hit my foot, managed to turn my foot out, so that I took the blow on the sole. When the neurons are firing time must be extended or something. How could I possibly have time to turn my foot? I did play baseball. As I think about it, I don't swing the blade very hard or fast, I know where it is, I had plenty of time. When I don't, and hurt myself, probably means I've slowed a notch, and shouldn't do that job that way anymore. Indicates. Strange phone conversation, I should never answer the phone, don't usually, but with my parents dying, certain days, I do, so I answered one today and knew I had a newbie in a different country, sounded Asian is all I could admit to, and I questioned him, about the weather, his family, what he ate, how it was cooked. I think he thought I was a spy. I was proud of my ability to bullshit, like an archer might be, or anybody that did anything, this makes no sense at all, but I was there, he saw the fucking woodpecker.