Muck Boots

When you live out in the country, you need appropriate footwear.  We have all manor of creepy crawlies including fire ants, wasps, bees, roaches, beetles, etc. We have trees and intermittently tall grass, weeds, shrubs and sand burrs.  And we have snakes both poisonous and non.  I wear sandals most of the time when I'm driving or in town or grocery shopping but on the property I wear muck boots. 

Muck boots come in various persuasions.  You can get them tall or short, thin or padded, steel toed or not, with heavy lugged soles or nearly smooth, camo colored or with bright patterns, for little girls, little boys or adults.  The tall ones are great for summer since you can step right into them and not have to worry about tucking in your jeans and they tend to be thinner.  But they are also hot.  Short ones are easy to step into even while wearing heavy pants so they are perfect for winter and they often are padded or lined.  But they are also hot.  I don't generally wear steel toed boots because I'm not usually doing anything that could put my toes in jeopardy and they tend to be very heavy.  And they are also hot.  I'm sure you see the trend. Muck boots are pretty much always hot.

I have two favorite kinds of muck boots.  The first are tall and come in all sorts of wonderful patterns.  You can't ague with any pair of muck boots that sports Van Gogh's Irises!  They are perfect for heavy rains because they are tall but they tend to be thin so it's hard on my feet to walk down my gravel driveway.  Oh, yes.  Socks. I don't generally wear them except in the worst of the winter which is pretty short here in central Texas.   If its above 40 degrees I'm not wearing socks.

My other favorite kind of muck boots is actually called Muck Boots.  They are short even with the top turned up and are even shorter when you fold the top down which is exactly how I wear them.  They are easy to step into and out of without requiring a helping hand.  They are padded and insulated so my feet are less hot in the summer and less cold in the winter.  I picked them up and set them on the table to take that photo above.  Whew!  That's the closest they have ever been to my nose and they really stink.  That probably has something to do with not wearing socks and wearing them all summer long in the heat.  Although I am the first to suggest that I never smell bad, I glow rather than sweat and I've never said a cross word.  And if you believe that I have a bridge in Brooklyn I can sell you.

I bring up the muck boots today because of my dye day on Sunday.  I wore these wonderful muck boots from about 8 am till nearly 2 pm when I finished cleaning up the dye shed.  I dumped water, washed things with the hose, filled up the dye pots with the hose, rinsed off the yarn with the hose, washed out the dye shed floor with the hose...  I spent most of the day doing something with the hose which meant I managed to get most of myself wet.  Repeatedly.  Including my muck boots and feet.

Note to self - take the muck boots off when they get wet.  Or wear socks.  Or both.