It's getting chilly (i.e. 2 degrees Celsius -- don't laugh) through the nights now and I find my fingers getting cold during morning and evening chores. Wearing gloves while working is a challenge for me, mostly because I have ridiculously square hands.
My maternal grandmother was tall and slim with the long, elegant hands of a model or a movie star. My mother and sister are very petite with tiny little hands that require child-sized jewelery and gloves. My hands are exactly like my father's, only 2/3 of the size. The fingers of any glove made for women are too narrow, and their tips inevitably extend half an inch beyond my own. The fingers of small gloves made for men are still too wide so that my hands flop around inside. Beyond Farcical Farm I am happy in mittens or those stretchy one-size-fits-most gloves, but neither is ideal for doing chores. Today I found these nitrile-coated nylon beauties. They are tight through the fingers but they are the right length and they make me look like the Incredible Hulk.
It was beautiful here today and I am finally feeling confident enough about Raven to voluntarily leave her unattended for hours at a time. David and I took the dogs down to the river for a walk in the chill wind and I snapped this picture around 15:30. Daylight hours are getting short and sweet.
And some more of the dogs, because it was too dark to take any of the horses by the time we got home:
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11 comments:
I'm so glad to hear that Raven's doing well - touch wood!
You know, I think I'm down in your live feed as "Tauranga" ... which amuses me, as it's so specific yet so very wrong XD New Zealand, yes. Tauranga? Hah!!
Well, that or I'm just not showing up on there and there's another kiwi on the blog :P
Oh well xD I'll go to bed laughing at the idea that my house walked off on chicken legs to Tauranga. Your dogs are adorable and I want to steal them!
I think that could be MY HAND!
I love the color of your gloves too...mine are orage this year, and in EVERY pocket of everything I wear to the stable and even in my car's door.
Like the air your dog got in theat last pic!
Nice to have sunshine for a days in November!!! YEA!
Go Raven!
Your dogs have you trained so well! I see The Ball behind... Watson?
I like those nitrile-coated woven gloves too. I have a pair for hoof trimming and they're great for that type of work. Mainly I wear thick leather gloves, but I need a pair of thinner-but-insulated ones for winter riding!
Dogs in order of appearance are Willow (L) and Tilley (R), Watson, Willow again, Tilley again and Watson again. If anyone is considering stealing one or all of them, I will pay you to take them off our hands.
Tilley is making a funny face in the picture with the green ball because she doesn't like not being able to see The Ball. She absolutely refused to put her ears up for me.
And yes, the live feed thing does have some interesting notions about where people live. I have never been too sure about how they use IPs for geolocation, but sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn't.
What a fun day for the pack! I love the flying dog in the last pic, wheeeee!!!
OMG, my hands are the same! Short fingers, wide palm!
I did find a great pair of deerskin gloves at Sheplers waaaay back when I lived in Denver. They fit like a dream, are warm as long as they're dry, and I bought them almost 20 years ago!
As long as the dogs don't chew them up, they can last forever and stay supple and warm above zero. I played hell finding the right size, too. I think I ended up with a man's small, Not exactly perfect, but the best fit so far.
Hulk hands would RAWK! And nitrile is awesome, I'd feel pretty safe putting my hands into just about anything while wearing them!
Ok, I'm going out on a limb here - Tilley is a tricolor merle, right? I'm absolutely awful at color genetics.
Yup, she is a blue tri. Merle is a colour modifier overtop of her black tri base (black+merle=blue). Willow and Watson are both bi-coloured merles, though Willow has the traditional Irish spotting (white chest, collar, blaze, socks and tail) and Watson has minimal white (a little on the chest, toes, and a few white hairs on the tip of his tail). I call both of them "muddy merles" because their base colour is not obviously black. They could both be weird-looking red bi merles, but they don't have the tell-tale liver-red noses.
Whatever. A friend of mine says they all look mouldy, and that's about right.
The first time Kerstin ever came to Farcial Farm she was late because she had to euthanize a newborn foal. It turns out that horses who are heterozygous for the overo colour modifier can have all the same problems (usually ear and eye malformations) as dogs that are heterozygous for the merle modifier. Nature works in mysterious ways!
Yeah, I've read about overo lethal white syndrome. So sad, especially because it's so easy to prevent. Don't breed two merles/overos!
Have you read Temple Grandin's books? (I think I already asked you this, and you had read Animals in Translation.) She noted that white markings tend to appear on domesticated animals - "wilder" type dogs, cats, cows, horses, etc don't have white blazes or socks. When the Russians domesticated silver foxes, the "tamer" generations started getting white markings too. Pretty cool!
Also really glad Raven is doing so well.
Interesting about the gloves. I'm still looking for perfection, but continue to marvel at how well the neoprene ones work for wet weather. The sheepskin lined for cold, dry days work okay except that they are cumbersome.
Hm.. two of your readers have the same hand shape. Maybe it's a requirement for pony whisperers:)
Forgot to mention your beautiful dogs! Lovely to see the photos.
I will check out that book, Funder. And now I kind of want a pet silver fox. Thanks for that.
Neoprene gloves are great for cycling, but too thick for me to wear for chores. If my gloved hands aren't 95% as sensitive as my non-gloved hands I will pull the gloves off almost subconsciously.
As for dogs, people often tell me that they beautiful to which I always reply "beauty is as beauty does". As a stickler for canine obedience I will take good manners over good looks any day!
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