Fashion Victim

It happened again yesterday. This time it was a perfectly clean cashmere sweater.  As usual, I didn't even consider, let alone think through, the consequences of farm/barn/horse/dog related activity on a decent working wardrobe.

Yesterday I picked up three bales of wheat straw from the co-op to make a puppy chew-proof bed.  The puppy's real name is Indy, but the nickname should be "El Destructo", with apologies to my Texan roots.  We had thought the king of destruction was foxhound Rutherford, but there has been a coup. The nice man at the co-op loaded the bales in my car.  I got them out at home. You can guess what the sweater looked like afterwards.

Many horse people are aware that it is not the best idea to wear your nice work clothes into a boarding barn where others keep your horse for you.  It should come as a warning label--like those pre-made horse liability law signs-- on every property sold to a person about take care of horses on their own land "DO NOT WEAR NICE CLOTHES OR SHOES  TO DO ANY BARN/FARM CHORE--EVER".  And it should be posted prominently in Hunters Orange above the clothes closet hanging rack, the back door, over the shoe rack, on the coat closet door, and on the barn door, in addition to over the stall(s) and hay for at least the first year of ownership.

Rules of engagement so far:

1. Under NO circumstances should polar fleece ever be worn to clip or shave any dog or horse. The hair penetrates the fleece at a 90 degree angle; this results in wearing a porcupine around.  The same can be said for spring shedding season grooming. Summer tank tops are worse than t-shirts because horse grooming always winds up going down the front somehow, chafing the unmentionables.  This also happens if attempting to fill a hayrack hung higher on the wall than you are tall.
2. NEVER enter a stall in nice work shoes. You WILL manage to get manure on them, whether you clean the stall or not. It will harden before you get around to cleaning them off. They will join the pile of nice shoes you can't wear. Eventually, you will give up an afternoon to clean them off.  Repeat.
3. NEVER wear pants you really like to walk a fence line, or check fence work you're having done. You will find the only remaining piece of barbed wire and snag a hole in the pants.

Curse of weather events plus chores brings excitement too. Because there is now so much more to do on the daily routine, and the place is likely bigger than the last place occupied, everyday items get lost or misplaced regularly. About two weeks ago,  I used a very short window between rain and appointments to mulch leaves in the side pasture in order to put out more grass seed. I naturally could not find my watch, resorting instead to a wind up pocketwatch on a chain around my neck.

This look was originally popularized by Ice Cube ca. 1987, but is currently being revived by Flava Flav. Neither one of them were also wearing rolled up jeans over chartreuse rubber boots and ear protectors while covered in a light film of leaf mulch and dirt, but I prefer to contribute my own fashion interpretation instead of just copying the famous.