Thursday, January 21, 2010

You were right. . .


. . .those of you who told me I needed a bootjack. Exactly what I needed. It works perfectly. You step on the back with one foot, and stick your other foot in the U-shaped opening and pull. Then you do the same thing with your other foot.


So easy. No grunting, no strain, no getting your hands in whatever you have on your boots.

I found my bootjack at a store called Coastal Farm and Ranch, out just beyond Hillsboro in farm country. I feel like such a city girl. I didn't know it existed and what a great store! I wandered around for nearly an hour, with my bootjack, just looking at everything. They carry all kinds of boots and work clothes, as well as other casual clothes, any kind of rope or twine you would ever want, tarps in a gagillion sizes and colors, tools, woodstoves, car stuff, pet supplies, animal feed, wheelbarrows, wheels, chain, hardware, ranch-y furniture, lighting, cages for animals of all sizes, many things I could not even identify, but I'm sure were dandy, etc. etc. etc. They had the greatest looking buckets I have ever seen. They were heavy duty plastic in all the colors of the rainbow. I guess this is so you know which bucket is for the chickens and which one is for the pigs, but I just thought they were great looking buckets. Outside the store there was more—fenceposts and water troughs and tubs and on and on.

So, thanks for the tips on the bootjack. It opened up a whole new world of possibilities!

...........................................

Thanks, too, for even more comments on the blog redo. Candied Fabric mentioned that the new template looked skinny. I agreed, but I had not been able to see a way to change that. I finally figured out that I could tweak the html and change the width. I like it better. I also brought the size of the font down a notch. Bigger than the default, but not as big as I had it. I am so impressed with how much Blogger has improved their layout tools.

8 comments:

  1. I like the new look -- and beautiful top banner!
    Thank goodness you didn't get one of those dreadful faux-antique cast iron bootjacks of a woman spreading her legs! I used to see those in every antique store in New England, I think.

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  2. Now that you've discovered boot jacks, you'll have to keep an eye out for teh cast iron ones that look like a bug and you put the boot between the antenae -- much more socially acceptable than Diane's. ;-)

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  3. I told you Hardware store on steriods....next you'll have chickens!

    j

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  4. Did you buy anything else? I'm not sure I could have resisted.

    You're blog looks great. So fresh. I agree, the blogger layout tools are wonderful.

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  5. I like the new look, too. I need to clean mine up a bit- maybe change colors. You've inspired me.

    I live west of Hillsboro- and we love to go to Coastal Farm and Ranch. It's amazing what they have there! They have more Carhart's than the Carhart's store! And it's THE PLACE to go for boots. If you're into smokers (outdoor grills), they have more kinds of wood chips than I thought existed!

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  6. Costal Farm & Ranch sounds just like Boise's D&B Supply and Pocatello's Cal-Ranch, where my mom and sisters spend hours of their day (and I somtimes run go to run their horse-y errands) :) Each of them have a more than one boot jack (in fact I trip over one at the front door most days!)

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  7. I never heard of a bootjack before. How did I miss such a thing for 61 years?

    I feel honored to be called a "Blog friend"!

    BTW, you wouldn't believe how many hits I get when people Google "Generation Blue/Green/Brown Mist". As I recall, that's what connected us.

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  8. Your Coastal Ranch and Farm store sounds like a chain here called Peavey Mart - everything you need and lots you didn't know you needed till you saw it! I love just wandering around there and seeing what they've got. LOTS of John Deere themed home accessories and toys too!

    Your boots look like what they call "chore" boots here - I have a pair with insulated liners that I bought when they told me I needed rubber boots when I was working as a cook in the oil patch camps in Alberta. I just call them my farmer boots (gggg) and they have nice wide tops so your pants etc can fit in.

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