Your favorite barn fashions?

[Salal Sue]

What do you wear for barn work? More interested in the practicality than a fashion statement.

I don't like baby mice running up my legs, spiders in my hair, or hay sticking like velcro, and the less laundry the better.

My best outfit was a 3/4 light coat made out of windbreaker fabric. It was black, would fit over a jacket, nothing stuck to it, and it washed very easily. I wear sweats with elastic at the ankles in case of the rare mouse. OK, I admit it, I'm a whimp!

What do you wear?

[Saul Mine]

http://my.photodump.com/uploads/SmartAZ/b62b45ba0d151d57.jpg?875363857

[Salal Sue]

Total, absolute meltdown here! Glad I had finished my coffee!

OK, so you have never had a barn mouse run up your bare leg!

[goatlady]

Sweats with ankle elastic are THE best - easy to stomp on those boots without scrunching up the pant's legs. I also have a "slick" fabric jacket, but this time of year I'm back to wearing my insulated coveralls over my sweats which don't attract hay and stuff. As I mentioned, scarfs work good for hair/head protection for me, and always light weight gloves and a rag in the pocket.

[Little RedRidingHood]

Let's see ... Flannel shirts early in the am. Knit hat, leather lined gloves, light boots, warm fuzzy socks, extra flannel outer shirt under heavier coat.
Once the sun comes up here I have to start shedding layers or by 8-9 I'm way overheated!
Carpenter jeans with keys, hoofpick, small comb, old old silver $ and two cystals in the pockets, with nippers in the side pocket.
Since we rarely get snow here but do get down in the low 20's at night sometimes ... If I have a mare foaling or goats kidding at night then the thermals get pulled out of the drawers and put on for that.
Nothing fancy at all ... just workable here! LOL!

[Kayla]

Pretty simple here. Year round my barnyard attire is jeans and T-shirts. Tennis shoes, weather permitting. (Used to wear riding boots, but a horse wreck resulting in damaged feet ended that.) Hate hats and never wear them unless I must.

In the summer I wear a long sleeve denim shirt as a light weight jacket for cool mornings & evenings or when I need arm protection. Lace-up riding type tennis shoes when I need more foot protection. Thin leather gloves. Baseball cap if needed.

In winter I add layers: Flannel shirts, fleece or goose down vest, ski pants over my jeans as needed. Heavy coat with slick exterior for most days, Aussie coat for wet/snowy days. Stocking or fleece hat in the cold, Aussie hat for rain. Insulated leather gloves.
Heavily insulated boots...my feet hurt terribly when they get cold. I like slip-on boots because I'm in and out constantly, but when the snow is deep I have to wear lace-ups...it's not fun hopping around in the snow or icy mud in your stocking feet trying to get your boots back on!

Lots of pockets on everything. In the summer when I'm down to T-shirt & jeans, I'll sometimes wear one of those heavy fabric short aprons, the carpenter type that holds nails, etc.

Yeah, sometimes I make a real fashion statement, but all I care about is comfort and practicality.

If I EVER have a mouse run up my pant leg, my cats are FIRED! :D

[Yooper]

All of the above for me. I look like a pizza most times. When a herdshare customer pulls up in the drive for their milk, I usually frighten them. :mrgreen:
It's the occasional chipmunk running from my shoulder over the head while I'm milking that starts me yelling the most.

Before marriage, being a single professional woman, I packed up a box of 55 pairs of high heels before the wedding. I found that box the other day and had a good laugh! 3-4 inch heels in all colors.
Haven't worn anything fancy for 10 years! Sad, I know, but funny too. Ah, life is good! Shhhhh! don't tell Mr. Yooper.

791
If the pic comes through, the above woman would never have dreamt of touching a chicken, let alone milk a goat! My how things have changed!

[Freeholder]

Jeans and a t-shirt in the summer, with socks and garden clogs. As the weather gets wetter/colder (it pretty much only rains in the winter here), I switch to rubber barn boots, then to my Sorels with the felt-liners, and two pairs of wool socks. Add long underwear (I'm hoping to get a new pair of Carhartt overalls soon, as I wore my last pair out), switch from t-shirt to turtleneck and a sweat-shirt, then add a lined windbreaker-type coat over that. Heavy work gloves as needed, switching to wool gloves in the really cold weather. My sweatshirts and coat have hoods, but I also have an oiled canvas hat with warm ear-flaps -- best money I ever spent. I got one for DD this year, when I saw them on sale again (at Bi-Mart, if anyone is looking!).

Not really clothes, but I also have a headlamp for doing chores in the dark. That was some more money very well spent!

I only wear sweat pants to sleep in.

And, as someone else said, if I even SEE a mouse in the animal shelters, my cats aren't doing their jobs!

Kathleen

[momof23goats]

summer, dress ,long skirt, in winter, jeans lined with flannel, or sweat pants, if really cold, both, then a pair of carhart bibs, and coat, knitted hat, with face mask, then hood, hunting mittens, so I can milk. tall winter boots,with a foot warmer thing stuck down inside, or a pair of socks, that heat up, with batteries. the cats stay out of my way, so do the mice ,and chip monks, but I hate the bats in the barn. and in the evening they will fly out. I hate that!!!!!
IN the winter months, or any time , not going for the beauty queen look here .

[Salal Sue]

It's too bad we all don't have photos to add to these descriptions! I think that Saul Mine would win the prize for creativity, though.

One thing I learned from the posts is that I need a barn cat! Hadn't thought of that! We have a cat but the goats hate him and charge him whenever they see him. Guess I need to start out with a kitten in the loft and feed it only there...is that how you get a cat to stay in the barn?

[Summerthyme]

Salal Sue... you need to start with TWO kittens, and feed them in the barn. They'll quickly learn to co-exist with the goats, even if that means they stay strictly away from them. Get them fairly young (around 9-12 weeks is generally a good age to get them to adapt to barn living... if they are house kittens for much beyond that, they get spoiled and it's harder to convince them they belong in the barn). Set up a warm, snug "kitty house" for them some place safe... I've made a bunch of them over the years, usually just cardboard box with a door cut just big enough, and plenty of snug soft rags or an old blanket inside.

Have them neutered (either sex) when they are around 5 months old, and they'll stick around for life.

On the barn "fashions", warm, fairly hard surfaced (so every bit of straw and hay doesn't stick), preferably with turtleneck (at least in the cooler weather- it keeps stuff from getting down your neck) and NO DANGLING ENDS. If you're not mechanized at all, it's not quite as crucial, but you can get a drawstring from a hood or a loose sleeve end caught in a crack or on a nail. If you have machinery of any kind, it's a recipe for disaster.

We wear good running shoes for everything but wading around in the barnyard muck, or if we're working outside in the snow for hours. With both of us having badly injured feet at one time, they are the only things that really are comfortable for hours of milking, feeding, etc on concrete.

Summerthyme

[Kayla]

Kathleen, I'm going to have to make a stop at Bi-Mart just to check out those hats.

Sue, I agree, some pictures would be priceless.

Anyone else ever get embarrassed when company shows up unexpectedly?

Our barn cats live in enclosed barns and have boxes with blankets for sleeping so normally they're pretty comfy in any weather. However, one winter we had a few weeks of exceptionally cold weather and I was concerned about the cats keeping warm at night.
I found some med. sized styrofoam coolers ($1 at the thrift store) and cut a door in one side just big enough for a cat to squeeze through. Added a soft blanket and put the lid back on. The cats loved their little houses!
Sometimes the new styrofoam coolers have an awful chemical odor (what IS that stuff?!) so if you try this, make sure the coolers you use are odor free.

[Disastercat]

A visiting friend just made our barn cats some little houses made from the ends of blue plastic barrels. We put those in the old conservatory outside the kitchen door with a window removed for cat access. We tried a cat flap, but we have a couple of very tiny cats who just couldn't push it open, since we will be redoing the conservatory into a storage room in a year or two it doesn't matter much. Meanwhile the elderly cats are toasty warm and some have bathroom habits that won't allow them to become indoor pets, even in old age.

As for kittens, train them to use a litter box before you move them outside. Then if you need to bring them in because of illness or when they are old they have a better chance of remembering how to use them. Cats were considered such an important part of farming that Neolithic farmers moving to Malta 9,000 years ago brought cats along with their pigs, goats and wheat seeds. One was buried with her human, I like to think she was deeply loved.

As for fashions, I no longer do very much of the hard labor, but when I garden I go for old jeans (a size too big if possible), "Your Grandfathers Shirt" cotton shirt with pockets and hand knit wool socks, even in the Summer with Birkenstock sandals. Sometimes I wear a long skirt, and end up using it for an apron. I also have rotten leggings I use underneath the skirts most of the time, except for the few days when it is really warm.

In Winter, I'm either in the Birkenstock still, my lace up boots or DH's wellies. I wear heavy pants, sometimes with long silk underwear underneath and turtle necks. I have a very heavy hand knit sweater with hood (the Wonderful Wallaby pattern from Cottage Creations). It has a big front pocket perfect for stuffing the last of the tomato in the night after the frost, then forgetting they are there until taking it off in the kitchen to have the amazing flying tomatoes! The hood can be pulled down when we get sudden rains and it is so warm with layers under it I have worn it in light snow and freezing weather. The heavy rug wool repels water, it was leftover yarn from one of Ireland's last rug companies before it all went overseas.

Dh prefers the hand spun hand - knit sweaters because they also repel water, but he is so hard on them that he doesn't have one right now. He doesn't realize that if he waits until they are nothing but holes before he give them to me for repair that there's not much left to repair...instead they make wonderful cat blankies in the cat houses.

The area outside my kitchen door is now known as "Cat Hame" or "The Cat House Hotel..."

The downside is when I'm cooking there are about a dozen little faces looking pathetic through the glass door at me...

[Alder]

Ha! Not very fashionable, I'm afraid.

Summer: T-shirt, sweatpants/riding sweats, visor hat (inseparable!!!) and muck shoes or my riding boots...leather lace-up western packers or paddock boots and leather knee chaps...depends on what/if I'm riding that day.

Winter: Air Force parka, wool pants, long-sleeved T or Henley, wool stocking cap, wool shooter's mittens (mil surplus-allow use of forefinger), Sorels, and poly long underwear tops and bottoms as needed.

In between weather? Add a hooded sweatshirt to the summer ensemble.

[GingerN]

All of the above for me. I look like a pizza most times. When a herdshare customer pulls up in the drive for their milk, I usually frighten them. :mrgreen:
It's the occasional chipmunk running from my shoulder over the head while I'm milking that starts me yelling the most.

Before marriage, being a single professional woman, I packed up a box of 55 pairs of high heels before the wedding. I found that box the other day and had a good laugh! 3-4 inch heels in all colors.
Haven't worn anything fancy for 10 years! Sad, I know, but funny too. Ah, life is good! Shhhhh! don't tell Mr. Yooper.

791
If the pic comes through, the above woman would never have dreamt of touching a chicken, let alone milk a goat! My how things have changed!


What, you have never been to the barn in heels? Many times, here. When the barn was right down the street from the house, I was bad to go feed in the morning before work wearing heels and dress clothes. I have unloaded the occasional quick trip feed load in 3 inch pumps, and climbed a gate in a pencil skirt in the COLD rain once I don't recommend it....My mother has ridden before in a dress and heels, but only because she stopped at the barn on the way home from work and Daddy just had to get her to try out his new Racking horse.....

If I am heading to the barn on purpose for a while, I wear a denim shirt or tee shirt or sweat shirt, depending on the weather, a pair of stretchy jeans and either tennis shoes or lace up boots, depending on the chores to be done.

Show days require the closet as we show Racking horses and Quarter horses, and alas, never the two shall meet in the clothes dept with our styles of riding....