Thursday, January 5, 2012

Gloves

Everywhere I go in my house I see gloves.  I have gloves for every occasion, if you consider farm chores "occasions".  I don't even like gloves.  I either can't move my fingers, can't pick up anything, or I get them wet.  I start out with them on, especially on cold winter days, but they usually end up stuffed in a pocket or thrown on the ground somewhere.



With 10 goats and several dogs, gloves on the ground don't stay there long then you have to go on the great glove hunt.  One pair are my thin, supple "doing chores around the farm when its not to cold" gloves.  It is the pair I usually wear when I trim goat hooves, but only on my left hand.  If I forget, then I generally end up with bleeding, raw knuckles covered in goat poo from using the hoof rasp.  I'm learning to wear that glove.  I also have "head out the door first thing in the morning when its cold" gloves.  These are the ones most likely to be stuffed in a pocket or trodden by little goat hooves.  The pair with the rubber palms are the gloves I make a point to wear when doing anything with bucks during the fall when they are in rut. This is to prevent the smell from permeating my other gloves.  To get the idea, think of a strong musk perfume with overtones of week-old goat urine and go from there.

I also have "dress" work gloves.  These start out as gloves that I open gates with and drive to town in when it is cold, but they usually end up in short time being trampled by little goat hooves.  This is because I use my dress gloves when I can't find any of my other gloves.  I also have a pair of winter gloves for riding ATVs when it is nose-hair freezing temeratures.  I have managed to hang on to those for a while.  The last pair of gloves are cheap, leather "I don't care what happens to them" gloves.  These are destroyed fairly often while digging rocks out of plugged culverts with my bare hands or cutting up snow-covered trees blocking our driveway.  You get the idea.  I really don't like gloves but I'm oddly comforted when I see my favorite pair lying on window sill, on the counter, or peeking out of a pocket of my coveralls.

4 comments:

  1. Gloves or no gloves, I am surprised you have any hands left after all of the abuse they get, or I guess a nicer way to say that is after all of the chores they do.

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  2. I can tell you that there isn't much left of them, at least skin-wise. I least they aren't achey in my old age yet. Half the time I have fingers taped because they split so badly in winter.

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  3. I heard once that young mothers often lose their fingerprints because their hands are in water so much. How are your fingerprints doing?

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  4. My fingerprints are still there but are a bit like sandpaper.

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