Spring Clean Chore Clothes, or Not!!!!!

It happens this time every year; I just can’t seem to help myself. About this time we experience a warm up that feels like spring has finally sprung and it is one of the best times of the year. You know what I mean, that first time the temperatures reach 70 degrees after a long stretch of really cold weather. The first real stretch of weather when the morning temperatures are warm enough you don’t have to worry about ice on the water tanks or frozen hoses.

This is the week when you start hearing the turkey’s gobble, the birds sing and the grass starts to get that green tinge. We all get spring fever and think that maybe, just maybe winter’s grip as loosened. Any of us who have lived in Kansas for any length of time know that this is a mean trick the weather plays on us each year. I am sure that we will have another stretch of cold, freezing weather with most likely some snow. That is why the thoughts I had this week are so bad.

Yes, I admit it; I nearly washed my chore clothes this week. I mean the weather was warm enough that I could hang them out on the clothes line and they would smell incredibly fresh. More importantly the weather was warm enough I could go about my chores and work without freezing to death while waiting on them to dry. The thought of clean chore clothes that are not crusty and did not curl paint was almost too much to bear.

The consequences would have be dire. We are just a little over half done calving and I still have four more ewes to lamb. Things have gone reasonably well and this is certainly no time to tempt fate because it is a well known fact that if you wash your chore clothes during calving or lambing season bad things happens. I don’t care how bad your chore clothes smell or how many layers of organic matter they have on them, resist the temptation.

Calamities will befall you immediately, probably while your coveralls are still on the line drying. A cow will have trouble calving or a calf will fall in the creek. You will put your shiny clean, fresh smelling coveralls and chore coat on and, boom, it will happen. In no time at all, the grossest, nastiest, most foul situation of the calving and/or lambing season will happen with no warning and then where will you be?

You will have a new layer or layers of blood, afterbirth, manure, dirt and slime all over those fresh clean coveralls. It will run down the cracks and fill the pockets of your recently laundered chore coat. It will go from the freshest, spring breeze smell to the depths of the cow lot. I truly believe it is better to keep the grunge and grime that you know rather than risk new, extreme levels of gunk. After all, you probably have grown used to the smell.

This will get harder and harder to resist as the weather continues to get better and better. We will all fall to the siren call of clean chore clothes and make that horrible mistake. Sure there will be that fleeting moment of sheer joy when you put your clean chore clothes on. You will inhale deeply and smell nothing, but we all know the worst is coming.

Think about it, when was the last time you washed your chore clothes and they staid clean? That is what I thought; I bet they needed washed in just a week or maybe just a couple of days. Think of all the time, detergent and water wasted so needlessly. It is better not to risk it, save the clothes pin for your nose and save a couple more for friends, family and neighbors you encounter.

I had better finish this up and go back outside before the siren call of the washing machine is more than I can stand. Before I start to thinking of my bibs hanging on the clothes line, softly rustling in the breeze and the warm sun slowly drying them out. I just can’t take it anymore. Where is the Tide? Oh well, I guess the ensuing calamities and misadventures will give me something to write about.