That’s Asher looking through the fence, asking for another apple.
Tomorrow Ian, our friend, shearer and poet will come to shear just three sheep. The youngest, Constance, Merricat and Robin, who’s wool is already more than three inches long.
I’ll hold on to the wool until the spring and when all seven sheep are shorn then, I’ll bring it all to the mill.
Thing have changed since the first time Ian sheared our sheep.
I remember leaving him message after message and him not getting back to me. Finally he got in touch. He’d been overwhelmed with calls, was working a new full time job at a slate quarry and didn’t know how to tell people he didn’t have time to shear all the sheep anymore.
Since then Ian has figured it out. And he’s become a friend. It began when he told Jon and me that he wrote poetry. He was looking for encouragement, wanting to learn how he could fit poetry into his life.
Now Ian shares his poetry in two local poetry groups, he visits us regularly for dinner and to play chess with Jon. And he brings his new poems when he has them.
After Ian shears the sheep, we’ll have dinner. He’ll try to tell me that I don’t have to pay him, that dinner is enough. We’ll go back and forth about it, but I won’t give up and eventually he’ll give in.
