Barn Jeans

Current barn jeans
Current barn jeans

A while back, I came close to flashing the postmaster.

Our land is surrounded by field and forest. The neighbors are close enough that I call for help in a crisis but screened enough that I can do the occasional Lady Godiva to the clothesline. Therefore, not all of my barn clothes are fit for public consumption. I had one pair of jeans that had gone through the seat in a comprehensive manner. The rest of the pants, particularly the pockets, still worked so I kept wearing them.

Barn shoes while I'm at it.
Current barn shoes

One day I realized I needed to get to the post office that morning. Pick up a package? Mail the water bill? Don’t remember. History does not record. What I do remember is jumping out of the truck, taking one step, and thinking, ‘Huh? Oops!’.

It was bad. The wardrobe malfunction – is it a malfunction if you knew it when you put on the clothes? Wardrobe mismatch maybe? – was severe enough that I would need to go home and try again if I didn’t have a solution. I untucked my shirt. Not long enough. I unearthed a ratty jacket. Despite being well into warm weather, I wrapped the jacket around my waist and sauntered forth.

I think I threw those jeans away shortly after. I’ve already scared my UPS driver enough, but that’s a story for another day.

Process notes
This post started out as a comment. Cur Tales wrote a post about wearing “clothing that’s seen better days.” I gave a short comment. (BTW, her response is worth reading.) Then I realized this would make a cute post. I didn’t have any other ideas and it was at least barn-related. I was pretty sure that I had mentioned the story on Facebook at the time. To save myself the trouble of retelling, I went back through my personal Facebook timeline. Not too hard, I don’t post all that often. Plus the post would have been in the time period after joining Facebook but before the daily blog, a period of about year and a half. I searched. I crashed my iPad several times. I searched more. I finally gave up. As a result, I spent far longer searching than it took to type the above. There’s a life lesson lurking in there somewhere.
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Gratuitous Cat Picture

SSF Barn Cat
SSF Barn Cat

Where’d It Go?

Since Rodney appears to get anxious when I lead him toward the ring, we have been breaking the process into (microscopically) small steps. In the current exercise, we walk over to the mounting block, wearing our bridle like a big horse. He stands next to it. I sit on it. We wait until he takes a deep breath and decides the sky is not falling – today. Then we go home. If Husband is around to pick up the pieces, I will stand up on the mounting block, lean over Rodney’s back, put weight in him, wave my hands, all the things you do to (re)acclimate a horse to the idea of a predator landing on his back. While doing this, I wear my helmet. Mind you, I am still light years from actually getting ON the horse. However, when the time comes, I want the sensory stimuli to be the same for all involved.

helmetFor the last year, my helmet has lived in my lesson bag. Several times recently, I have looked in the bag and wondered, ‘Where on earth is my helmet? Oh, it’s at the barn. How weird.’

Ladies Who Lunch

Mathilda’s day

7 am: Good morning. Waiting in her pen for morning carrots. Rodney let out into the field. Pen cleaned & closed for the day.

A year ago, the few minutes it took to get her feet trimmed left me, mare, and blacksmith exhausted. She is doing marvelously better. Still, holding her feet up long enough to get shoes is no longer in her repertoire. To combat sore feet in the summer, she wears booties while in during the day. To cushion her feet under the booties, we had used a combination of vet wrap and duct tape. Rita at Carousel Tack Shoppe recommended inexpensive tube socks. Great! I deeply wish I could get you a picture of the black mare wearing black booties with white bobby sox. Alas, I have not yet been able to sneak a shot past her camera phobia.

8-ish am, or when I finish my breakfast: Breakfast served. Check water. Hay snack.

2 pm: Lunch. Hay snack. Check water buckets. Pour half-filled buckets together. Put empty buckets aside to drain. Restock with buckets from Rodney’s stall.

After much discussion, we lowered her lunch ration to see if we could eventually shift back to 2 meals a day. Nope. I thought she had lost a tiny bit of weight. Not the direction one wants to be going when heading into winter. Mathilda’s owner wasn’t as sure about the weight loss. However, since it was mainly my convenience at issue, I unilaterally ended the lunch experiment and put her back up to 3 squares.

7 pm: Pen cleaned. Water buckets emptied, rinsed out & refilled. Leftover hay swept into the stall. Rodney brought in. New hay served.

8 pm: Booties off. Dinner. Barriers taken down. Be good. Don’t party too hard tonight.

Don’t Look At Your Blades

These are not your grandfather's oars.*
These are not your grandfather’s oars.*

The sport changes, the advice doesn’t. In crew, rowers are told not to look at their blades. Your fingers should tell you what your oars are doing. Similarly, don’t look at the boat. It’s right there under your ass. No reason to check for it.

Look straight ahead. Hands instead of eyes. Don’t look down. Sounds like every riding lesson I’ve ever had.

(*For those of you who are neither rowers nor rowing groupies, these are Dreissigacker racing oars from Concept2. Funny-looking but fast.)