Here is a piece of my life, not a horcrux exactly, but a fractal slice, raw (the emphasis on raw) creative material that usually ends up mostly on the cutting room floor of artistic choice. I include it here so that we can annotate it together if you wish.  To summarize: we live on a sheep farm. This day we were shearing sheep, detestable job for me because it reveals how much stronger the sheep have gotten and showing me how it is true that we lose muscle mass as we age.  Woe is I. Annotate away. I will as well. Ask questions, respond in some way,  share links and images and vids.

Forgot to set the raccoon trap.
It is under the house.
Might be a mama coon.
Damned bad news if that is the case.
Fierce and unflinching as a mama coon with babies.
No thanx.
a moved fence
“it’s fine,” I say but don’t mean.
no mail.
an imminent storm
the air close enough to bind.
ram out
looking for his flock–us.
shearing three ewes and a very old ram.
Old fellow
likes an ear scratch
Johnny by name
Named for the character in Arsenic and Old Lace
played by Peter Lorre–chonnnnnnie.
So hot, sweat beading up and blinding us
we keep on
the blades dangerously sharp
oh there be blood today
from hot steel and lanolin-heavy wool
Watermelon and lemonade and popsicles–shearing fuel
talking to shearing folks about shears
suggestions
boxing up a shear head for repair
thousands of June bugs
rising from the grass like metal green automatons,
bumbles on the glowing orange cosmos
as if they are on the whole cosmos
some falling asleep as they feed
a blithering of pollinators
only to be believed if seen
and tomatoes beyond eating
but that is ok because the turtles in the garden
need to eat too
and cukes growing so fast
off of the humidity and UV and 35 years of compost
that one day they are our food
and the next they are for the sheep
and it all starts with coffee
on the porch swing
a form of time machine
that keeps the day at bay
for just a few minutes longer
just by oscillating
to the amplitude of
our wind chimes.
And a life more full
than the wheelbarrow is
with fleeces
redolent
stinking with sheep sweat
we take our shearing clothes off
outside,
take them to the wash
and take ourselves to shower
As my wife has taught our children:
it all washes off,
perhaps the softest
and hardest Truth ever known.