If you’ve just had two cubic metres of lovely steamy mushroom compost from the local mushroon farm delivered to your house, and you are desirous to pull on your gumboots and get to shovelling….
If you haven’t worn your gumboots for a while, say, a week or two.
Maybe a month.
Perhaps you haven’t worn them since last Winter, because you’ve always been Laura Ingalls and never got used to wearing shoes except for school and work.
Perhaps you haven’t worn them in a while because the kids use them to walk down and feed the horse, and they leave them in the feed shed.
Or it’s been a hot Summer and the thought of encasing your feet in sweaty rubber makes your hair stand on end.
But…if it’s been a while since you put your feet in your gumboots…
Do fill them up with hot water first. Do.
Do fill them up with hot water and let them sit for a minute or so. You can recycle the water onto your plants. You can tickle them with a duster before filling them up. You can stir the hot water around with a wooden spoon handle. But trust me. Don’t skip the hot water bit. The squishy feeling of a soggy boot is 100% better than the squishy feeling of a bug, or the skittery feeling of a spider, the uncertain feeling of cobwebby dustbunnies, or the pinchy feeling of something else that I don’t want to even know is in there. Yuuurrgghhhhhhhhaaaaachhh.
Trust me on this.
I forgot to knock out my work shoes the other day before putting them on, but fortunately nothing had taken up residence in them yet …
I couldnt agree more! Contrary to popular belief, floral, stripy or otherwise, its not just princesses who love their gumboots. If there was ever a use for those ridiculous hand held tiny vacum cleaner thingies, it might just be outside the backdoor next to the piles (sorry NEAT ROWS)of boots?
OMG OMG OMG _What exactly did you stand on?
It doesn’t take long does it James? I need to date stamp between wears because it only takes a few weeks to get a couple of generations of spiders going in there!
Hi Duckherder…I think it’s interesting that I find redback spiders in my black cherry boots, and stripey legged huntsman spiders in my leopard print ones!
Hi Rhubarb, it WAS (emphasis on ‘was’) at least one big juicy redback spider with a lovely collection of eggsacs. Brrrrrhhhhhh!!!
Good idea. I have been afraid to put my foot into my boots for that very reason. I was afraid to put my foot into my sneakers even, when I realised the foot holes were completely covered over in webs.