John and the boys went with the scouts down to Denver to meet with one of our State Representatives, to tour the capital and the tunnels underneath it and then to attend a Rockies game. That means that because they left at 6:30 a.m. the horses, the barns AND the chores were all mine today….both morning and night. From start to finish this morning, the chores took me three hours……..yep, three hours and that’s only five horses and soon we will are going to have 12 out there for the winter boarding season. After I finished up, I decided to drive over Boreas Pass to Breckenridge……getting an Aspen Color Drive in on my way to run some shopping errands. As I drove, I realized my hands were sore and as I took my hands off the steering wheel, one at a time of course, I saw someting on each of my hands. When I reached my destination for lunch, The Dam Brewery, as in Dillon Resevoir Dam, I took a closer look. Could it be? Yes, it was…..I had not only one callous……but one on each hand.
Now, not to sound snooty or anything….but I don’t think I have ever had a callous on my hand. I’m SURE my pioneer forefather mothers…..(ha!)……had lots of callouses on their hands. BUT, I don’t remember ever having one….and now I have one on each hand. Funny…….these hands have worked hard at various tasks……but not ones that formed callouses. Lest you think I’m obsessing, WHICH I AM……..but my hands are pianist’s hands…..I mean, I majored in Piano Performance in college……and I don’t think I’ve seen many if ANY classical pianists with callouses on their hands.
Needless to say, while I was shopping today, I picked up some gloves. It’s not so much that I mind the work that formed the callouses….but I don’t want to end up with “man hands” if you know what I mean…..isn’t it bad enough to know that if I was in a pinch….I could wear my husband’s blue jeans. Sheesh! Hopefully all these chores will solve THAT problem…and the gloves will prevent the “man hand” issue.
Hey, maybe I should even get some of those rubber gloves for washing dishes and cleaning…….and maybe I should lather my hands in lotion and wear gloves to bed…..maybe do that with my feet too….OH…and then, if I have an “updo” done on my hair….I can wrap my head/hair in toilet paper like the chicks in the 60’s used to do. Oh dear! I do believe I’m getting carried away. No plans to do any of the above……I’ll just stick with wearing gloves when I’m doing outside chores…and keep my fingers crossed that by faithfully shoveling horse poop….I’ll continue to drop weight!
Whew…what a strange post this one is!
From my “home on the range”,
Lori
The Beginning Rancher's Wife 
Well, friend, I grew up on the family dairy farm where everybody did barn chores and worked in the hayfields as soon as we were old enough to contribute. So these pianist’s hands have seen many a calllous. I will say, however, that age makes such things more and more uncomfortable and tends to impact my playing more these days. So DO take care of your hands. (And I do use dishwashing rubber gloves once heasting season starts, because my skin tends toward dryness 🙂
Oh Joan…..I had forgotten about that! Yay…that makes me feel so much better because your pianistic skills are nothing short of AMAZING! How right you are about things impacting our playing more and more over the years…..this morning…….I feel like my hands are permanently stuck in a position as if I was holding a muck rake! 😦 AND, from the looks of them, I am DEFINITELY buying a pair of rubber gloves…….but will probably still pass on rolling my hair in TP! HA! Have a great day!