Thursday, January 6, 2011

By Her Smudges Shall Ye Know Her

The calluses on my hands are a pretty good indicator, but the pattern of dirt marks on my attire is a dead give-away that I'm not a city dweller.  It does me no good whatsoever to put on clean clothes to go to the barn...I'm a dirt bag by the time I get back to the house.  The left side of the bib of my bibbies is always dirty because each of the girls has to thrust her head under my arm and rub her head against my chest wall before getting down from the milking stand.  The right pants leg always has a smudge or two because one or more will step on it with a dirty hoof while I'm milking.  Of course, there are the spots from the errant stream of milk, and I won't even speak to the marks on my backside.  In winter, the right arm of my jacket is always dirty from bringing in a load of firewood.  And then there is the hair issue.  I start the day looking (I hope) fairly presentable, but pulling on a stocking cap to keep from freezing one's ears or clamping on a baseball cap to keep the rain off my glasses tends to leave one with a case of bad hair when returning to the house.  I look in the mirror when I'm getting dressed in the morning, and then avoid them the rest of the day.  Sometimes when brushing my teeth at night, I'll think, "Oh God, did I look like that when so-and-so came over?!"  (And, of course, I did.)  I was asked not too long ago why I had just one long fingernail, and I had to answer, "Because it's the only one left that hasn't broken."  Manicures are not in my repertoire.  "Clean" is about the best I can do.

Ooh, I just stepped out on the deck and encountered two beautiful does down by the edge of my woods.  We stood and looked at each other for the longest moment.  They were either stunned by my appearance, or they just didn't care.  I hope they noticed my fingernails are clean.

1 comment:

Kathryn said...

Or the beautiful does did not even see you because it sounds like your smudges are plentiful enough that your bibbies are now "camo" attire!! OK, OK, I know they have a blue background...but I like trying to go for the laugh! Ya, farm livin' and clean clothes and manicured fingernails do NOT go together...unless you are Eva Gabor, I guess! But at least it is "good, hard-workin' dirt!"