Fingers That Weed . . . .

After accumulating the front pile of weeds, I know where my baby spinach grows. 

My daughter-in-law Debbie and I were talking fingers yesterday.  She was dealing with a couple of hang nails.

 

That brought up discussion of the wear-and-tear on our hands, based on whatever digital task we happen to be doing.

I showed her my pathetic hands with their cracked thumbs and indelible dirt stains.  I hadn’t yet put on the afternoon set of band aides on my thumbs.

She took a look and then told me about how her mother sorts mail and has the mail-room tan on her fingers to prove it.

I told her about years of peeling apples in the fall and making the mistake of going to town and making purchases.  Stepping up to the counter at Yoke’s, Wal-Mart or Penney’s the naked truth stands out on my hands as I attempt to sign checks or autograph those electronic machines that make your penmanship look like you’re a third grader.

Darn!  Why did I forget to wear gloves to town on this hot autumn day???

Brown fingers, which I’ve washed and bleached and done everything possible after apple peeling rear their ugly tips for all to see and for me to race through the transaction as quickly as possible without having to explain that those stains are just apple acid.

Over the years and through many embarrassing check stand experiences where it looks like my fingers have gone somewhere they shouldn’t have, I’ve learned to wear gloves on a regular basis while peeling apples, brushing horses and weeding my garden.

While stuffing baby plants into compost, my skin seems to react like no other with its apparent affinity with dirt and grime.  Those fingers, especially on my right hand which I’ve recently realized does most of the weeding, meet up with a good pot of plant soil or some plain ol’ garden dirt, and they fall in love, marrying that dirt for life, it seems.

Dirty fingers and cracked thumb season has swooped in on my pathetic hands for yet another year.

 

Over the past few years, Bill has bought me two packages of those Costco gardening gloves----each package with six pairs of apple green, purple and pink.

I’ve worn them faithfully, and the gloves, like cheater glasses, are stashed in various places inside and outside the house, so I really have no excuse not to wear them.

Still, during spontaneous moments when I feel a need to either dig up dirt or pull some unsightly weeds and with no gloves are within reaching distance, I have fallen off the glove-wearing wagon a few times.

And, those brief moments are all it takes for my hands to turn into those telltale summer working hands.  I wonder sometimes how much good the glove-wearing even does when my hands continue to look so bad and ugly during the spring, summer and fall.

The fact that they’re old hands adds to the spectacle.  More wrinkles and dryer skin provide a bigger welcome to dirt stains, it seems.

It never seems to matter how often I try to wash, wash, wash that grime away, it stays----usually until winter when dirt has turned to cement and grass and weeds do not grow.

A few months into winter, my finger nails finally start looking normal again and those crusty-looking age lines on the fingers eventually turn somewhat pink.

It’s tough duty doing the gardening, weeding, and horse grooming when one’s hands endure such misery and cause so much embarrassment in public places. Nonetheless, that doesn’t stop me from digging in, pulling and doing my best to reduce the weed population.

 

I guess the next time I go to town, sign a check at the counter and feel self-conscious about my weed-pulling, dirt-digging fingers, I should announce to everyone around me that these are “working hands, and you oughta see my garden . . . it looks a lot better than my fingers.

Happy Thursday.  More weeds await!