Haute Couture

(After yesterday, that should be "hot" couture.)

I am widely known as a fashionista, dressing daily in duds designed and created by the premiere house of farm fashion, Dickies.  Pockets galore, durable fabric, always of a color that never goes out of style.  There are, however, a couple of tips I can give to anyone who wishes to follow my lead and wear bibbies (otherwise known as overalls).

1)  The designers seem to feel that if you buy a set of bibbies large enough to fit your derriere, you must be seven feet tall and they make the legs accordingly.  This will require an industrial-strength sewing machine to shorten or many, many turns of the cuff, creating the perfect place to store foxtails, bits of alfalfa, and a pound of dust/dirt.  Caution:  always empty the cuffs before washing bibbies.

2)  Straps on bibbies are adjustable.  There is a sort of mechanism by which they can be shortened for those of us who are vertically challenged.  Be forewarned.  The straps tend to readjust by themselves, and they're pretty sneaky.  You may not realize this until you see that your pants legs are dragging on the ground (filling the cuffs) or that the crotch is down around your knees.  Consider this a word to the wise.

Regardless of these drawbacks, I heartily recommend bibbies as probably the most comfortable britches out there with no waistline to bind as you sit to milk, loose enough to let air circulate in the heat, and they do wear like iron.

One-hundred in the shade and 90 degrees in the house.  I carried a spray bottle with me all day and frequently used it on myself and Bessie Anne (the cats were in hiding).  I had put in a call to Helper Dude to take the covers off the windows in the barn, something I've always done without thinking twice, but my rib told me in no uncertain terms not to try it this time.  Unfortunately, HD cannot come until next week and I didn't want the girls to suffer through the night.  I mentioned this dilemma to Camille and, bless her heart, she came in the afternoon to do this for me and the goats.  It was a ten-minute chore that will make all the difference in the world now that any puff of air can come through the windows for a little relief.

We then retired to the shade on the deck for a cold drink and a nice chat.  Heat or no heat, it was a good day.