Reasonably Educated Bumpkins

(Photo stolen from these guys)

If I had been wearing swim fins and a snorkel, I would have been dressed only slightly worse than I was yesterday morning, at 9:00 a.m., while feeding hay.

I had to be at church at 9:30, kidlets in tow, but I had to feed hay first. Got the girls up, showered, dressed, fed, hair done, teeth brushed -- the whole shebang. I matched them lockstep, but added some makeup and hairspray into my personal transformation. So we were all dolled up and ready to go; I remembered to feed the outside cats on the way out, and I had enough presence of mind to grab my old tweed work coat to throw on while I fed hay (it's lovely).

But I felt pretty stupid when I found myself standing on the haystack in a black wool shirt and black tights, throwing flakes of hay into the stiff north wind. Each flake I launched into the air sent a shower of hay and dust cascading back onto my black clothing, and onto my black shoes, which had HEELS. At least they weren't pointy-toed stilettos -- naww, they were just my old black Fart Shoes -- but still, they were grossly inappropriate farm shoes, and they had a mighty thick coating of chaff clinging to them by 9:15.

But by far the worst choice I had made that morning was to apply lip gloss before I left the house. Have you ever fed hay in a gale while wearing lip gloss? No, I didn't think you had; I'm the only one here dumb enough to have tried that one. For the uninitiated, lip gloss has the consistency of glue, and when a 25-mile-an-hour sustained wind whips your freshly-brushed hair across your face, as it will the second you get out of the car, the hair glues itself to the lip gloss and stays there. This tends to occlude one's vision, which can make walking on a haystack somewhat treacherous, relying (as I do) on one's sense of sight to get around.

So, there I was, standing on a haystack in heels and tights and wool galore, wielding a gigantic hay knife, my hair firmly glued down tight over my whole face, feeding hay into a powerful wind.

Not so much.

Warmer.
(Photo stolen from these guys)

Oh, did I mention my nose was running?

I had my own special little prayer once I reached the church.