Muddy boots

I grew up in New Jersey, and spent my college and veterinary school years in New England. I am used to the winter. Heck, I learned how to drive on the ice in NJ and spent over 30 days in a row where the temperature never got above 20 degrees in Massachusetts one winter. (Frozen pipes? Yep.)

I know that wouldn’t count as a harsh winter for my North Dakota friends, but it was touch much for us Mass folks.

In New England, once winter sets in, it gets cold and snows. It stays cold and that snow sticks around until the spring. Not so in Indiana. Indiana cycles through snow, rain, and mud. For months.
The week after Christmas, we got somewhere between 12-18 inches of snow, in two storms. On January 11, it rained somewhere around 2 inches. The snow melted and the ditches flooded.

And it made mud. Lots and lots of mud.

Now this farmwife has boots!

A while ago, I finally upgraded from a Nissan Altima to a Ford Expedition. Driving a truck finally made me feel like a farmwife. But something was still missing. It took me a little while, but I finally figured it out.

Boots!

These boots have done their walking

I have this pair of Merrill hiking boots. I got them during my residency, and they have worked hard.

They have been worn on 16-hour shifts, working in the large animal hospital. They have been worn at 2am to see an emergency in the middle of the night. They have been worn at 10pm when the work isn’t done for the day yet.

They have been in horse manure, sheep manure, cow manure, alpaca manure, and dog poop.

(I had a different pair of boots I wore when I helped cows give birth. THAT is a different kind of mess…)

Now they mostly sit in the corner and collect cat hair.


The cats are fans of these boots. Something about the smell of all that poop is just so great to rub on.