Bowl number 51

I got my wish. This morning, after rotating some compost, we started clearing a part of the farm that was completely over grown, with vines, shrubs, small trees, etc. The original plan was for me to haul away the chopped debris while Otoniel cleared it with a machete. He knew I really wanted to use the machete though so he finally relented. He reminded me one last time how careful I need to be and picked out one that he thought would be best for me to use. We walked to the field, he gave me a quick demonstration, watched me for a second and we chopped and chopped and chopped, all morning. It was pretty satisfying work. It was hard, but I was perfecting my technique as I worked and rejoiced in my increasing efficiency. As usual, Otoniel was super enthusiastic about my work ethic (even though I end up working like an average of two hours a day). He was very pleased with my novice machete abilities. We walked, sweaty and dirty back to the house to get something to drink before doing any more chores. He asked me if I had any blisters. I showed him my hands and there was a big piece of skin hanging off of my thumb and several other less severe blisters around my other thumb and index fingers. He looked at me, startled but kind of laughing and asked why I didn’t say anything. The truth was I didn’t really notice until they were all formed and popped anyway, so I just kept going. When we got back to the house, as we were pulling off our boots, Otoniel jokingly said how nice a cold beer would be. Lilian, however handed us two cold Imperials from the fridge. We looked at each other, raised our eyebrows and toasted our cold beers. After our break, we climed up on the roof of the storage shed and patched some little holes that we were gonna patch yesterday but couldn’t cuz it was raining. We are going to take a couple days off before finishing up the field. Tomorrow he has to use the machine weed whacker to clear the front yard, so I am going to haul away all of the debris that we chopped today while he is doing that.