Thursday, October 2

Farm Clothing

Seeing this post on Farm Natters reminded my of what you wore to the barn.
The Evolution of Farm Clothing

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I was by all means a tom-boy growing up. I was the youngest and scrawniest of the kids in the neighborhood and received lots of hand-me-downs. I preferred the boys Levi jeans best. As a farm kid you have two sets of clothes: Barn clothes + School clothes. And if you forgot to change and got something nasty on your best clothes...no fear they were instantly transformed to barn clothes. Barn clothes were OH so much more comfy. If you were lucky nobody would notice that you had been wearing the same pants all week (I know the cows didn't). Mom would sooner or later WASH them, ugh they'd be stiff and tight from hanging on the line to dry.

You always wore jeans during haying otherwise your legs would get scratched to hell and you'd look like you had a tussle with a cat.

I was the only one on the farm that wore shorts in the barn milking in the summer. My father thought I was out of my mind. My legs would get completely covered with every disgusting thing that you could possibly find in the barn. But it was cooler and we had a great pond that we swam in after chores.

In winter it was a different story. The barn was always warm from the cows body heat. But getting to and from the barns and having the coat hang in the barn picking up all those wonderful smells that only farm families relish....you had to have a barn coat too. The hat I wore was an old red wool cap with ear flaps that I inherited from my father after my mom washed it in hot water.

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