It's hard to say goodbye to a good pair of gardening gloves. Traitorous, really, after everything they've been put through. I mean, look at them. All that hard work, all that labour. Things I try to hard to avoid yet here is evidence that I actually do manual labour.
I'm so proud of that, I might frame them to hang on the wall.
The pink ones on the left are the best pair of gardening gloves I've ever used. I'm hard on gloves, as you can see, so I used to buy in bulk: 12 cotton pairs for ten bucks. I'd use every pair in one gardening season. The pink gloves, however, were a birthday gift from my best friend, Sarah, either last year or the year before. Likely the year before because Sarah doesn't actually get a gift to me on my actual birthday, or really even in the vicinity. So could have been three years ago that I received them, in September or perhaps as a post-New Year's gift. Considering my birthday is in May, today in fact, it's hard to know how old those gloves are. (And in case you're wondering, no, no gift from her today. I'll get an email at 11:30 tonight. She builds anticipation.)
Also, because they are/were pink and well-fitting and absolutely lovely, it might have taken me a couple of months to actually use them. I wouldn't haven't wanted to get them dirty.
All I know is that I continued to wear them with a hole in the finger, that's how good they are. Then I was able to wear all last season because I remembered the country boy fix-it: duct tape.
Those gloves (and my country boy) are everything I am not: tough and comfortable and most excellent for digging in the dirt. I have several trowels but I tend to use my hands. These gloves could take it.
Actually, if my husband hadn't bought me the new gloves on the left this year, I would have continued using Sarah's gloves and just kept adding duct tape to the fingers because they are the best gloves I've ever used. I might just do that, you know. Perhaps a pair of gloves this good deserves to be worn until every finger and thumb is wrapped in duct tape.
It pays to pay more for gardening gloves. Like shoes and jeans and underwear, if you buy good quality, it lasts more than one season. And when you find something you enjoy wearing, like gardening gloves or underwear, you want them to be tough and comfortable, excellent at dealing with dirt, and last a long time.
Especially if you live in the country like I do and the gloves are called upon for other duties: Scooping up rabbit poop; grabbing and holding chickens when they need their wings clipped; stacking wood (no splinters); scooping gravel; carrying slate rock. I even wear gardening gloves to collect eggs because hens get broody in the summer and they peck at the back of your hand when you reach underneath their feathers to gather eggs. They actually draw blood and it was awkward explaining the heroin-addict-like scabs on my hands.
A good pair of gardening gloves can even make you smarter.
So, Sarah, hon, if you haven't yet got around to sending my birthday gift, or even purchased it yet, try, dearest, to remember where you bought those gloves and send me another pair. I'll look forward to their arrival at Thanksgiving.
And, please, please, please make sure they're pink.
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