Owww

WAIT!! I know this looks really rude, but truly I'm not giving you all the bird. I'm just showing you the BIG blood blister I have on the tip of my middle finger, proof of my unswerving devotion to the care of my equine family. Yes, I actually, for the first time in years, cleaned the three horse stalls all by myself! Not that it doesn't get done, but my strong handsome son has done all the shoveling since that fateful day back when he was 15 or so and asked his dad, within my hearing and while I was ankle deep in horse pucky, if there was something he could do to earn some money? I thought I'd died and gone to heaven. He had a firm grip on that pitchfork before he'd finished the question. He's 26 now and has been shoveling ever since. He also is staunch in his resolve to never have horses of his own, because they're "too much work". Imagine that! Anyway, what with all the recent barn building, the horses haven't been in their stalls much through this summer, but now we are back in the swing of things, and they spend days out and nights in, and thus, dirty stalls. I have been conscientiously picking the stalls out daily, partly because it's a new barn, and partly because we didn't have any sawdust/wood shavings bedding material to spare. So today I had planned on just tidying up the stalls, but we finally got bedding delivered and so I went ahead and stripped the stalls completely. The middle finger thing is a result of using a big shovel to scoop up the bedding. As I lifted the shovel, I put my hand at the juncture of the scoop part and the handle on the shovel; and at that moment, the tiny looseness in the fit between the two parts pinched my finger. Jeez that hurt! The entire tip of my finger is numb, and everyone here is telling me to poke a needle in the blister. My response? Uh, no? As it is at least it can't get infected, and it will doubtless break on its own. And isn't it cool that I get a legitimate reason to show everyone the bird??

Hereafter, gloves. And check out that manicure, huh?