Saturday, February 12, 2005

We took advantage of an unseasonably warm afternoon to catch up on a few chores. A new truckload of alfalfa hay stacked in the barn, a sizeable stack of old feed bags off to the dump, several months accumulation of debris around the barnyard straightened up. As usual, I forgot to bring gloves to handle to the stalky alfalfa bales and grimaced in the shower when the hot water hit the dozen or so tiny puncture wounds left from tossing bales on and off the truck. Looking down, I would have to say that I have halfway hands. They are not farmer's hands; not rough or hard enough. Nonetheless very few other lawyers have the array of cuts, scrapes and calluses that you find at the end of my coat sleeves. I am afraid I would never make it as a metrosexual. Something about working with livestock permanently alters your sense of what constitutes high fashion. After a while, you get to thinking that Carhart coveralls and insulated rubber boots look pretty darn snappy on a fine Winter's day.