Clearing Brush

Before it got too hot I suited up, jeans, long-sleeve canvas shirt, gloves, work boots, and clipped away at the brush behind the woodshed. I'll work on this, in the cool of the morning, for a week or two, bleeding from a thousand cuts. 50% is blackberry canes, and you can't not be pricked. I wipe off with alcohol, then take a solar shower, sit around in just my socks until I'm dry enough to get dressed; a pair of thread-bare Dockers and a tee-shirt with the sleeves and neck cut out. Not a fashion plate, but I never claimed to be; and I'm clean, and the old clothes are clean, and I smell like laundry detergent with a hint of musk. I have to muck out the out-house, and dump the composting toilet; I have some work to do on the driveway. Lord knows there are things to be done. But I got started, and that was all I intended. I've been reading and writing for months, and I've got to bring my body back up to speed. Thunder and more rain, it washes away the heat haze and the dust of late summer. The colors are vibrant, a few sumac leaves are bright orange, a few sassafras leaves are red, a few poplar leaves are yellow. John Lee Hooker in the background. "This is it, pretty baby...". He has the sexiest male voice in history. When he and Bonnie Raitt sang together, you couldn't cut it with a knife. Ran across an interesting book, Fuck Places, (I wouldn't make this up) which talks about the various spots where people might go for a tryst. It's a very funny book and quite serious at the same time. Where might two gay guys, both married, with a throng of earlets (it's a British book) go for a tumble in the back seat? Sociology looks to me like an interesting area of study. Not that I know that many Earls. It's good to get my lazy ass moving, it's good to be a little sore. A fine dinner, left-over steak and the other half of a baked potato. Whenever I bake a potato (wrapped in foil, right in the coals) I cook the largest one I can find, so I can get two meals, same with the steak; and I hoard left-over gravy like a crazy person. If there's anything left after that it becomes hash. I'm known for my hash. People fly in.