The Coat

It patiently hangs around, with dangling threads, silently watching over things and is easily overlooked since it blends into the cluttered, hodge-podge collection strewn throughout the shop.  It's seen better days.  Burnt, torn and tattered, it can barely function but is kept more for sentimental reasons. 

My blanket-lined, Carhartt Duck Chore Coat, a Christmas present over 25 years ago, anxiously awaits more use.

NEW

Due to the insulated lining, the coat was an integral part of my winter work wardrobe. On one end of the spectrum, it got soaked shoveling out endless lengths of feedbunks during wet snowstorms and, at the other end, it caught fire multiple times in the shop while I was blazing away with the oxy-acetylene torch.

  

The coat saw more feed than most livestock.  Alfalfa and grass hay (ground or in bale form), corn sileage, whole corn, high-moisture corn, cracked corn, ground corn, brewer's grains, ammoniated wheat straw, cottonseed, blood meal, and various supplements all buried the coat at one time or another.

 

Stinky stuff was far too familiar to the coat.  Cow manure, super-sticky calf poo that adheres to things better than roofing tar, rotten grain dug out of the pit at the base of the feedmill's elevator, greasy sheep wool and even skunk spray has blasted the coat. Exhaust fumes from engines ranging from chainsaws to 4-wheelers to farm tractors to backhoes to huge front end loaders to big trucks. Thick, curling smoke from brandings has also saturated the fabric where the burnt hair odor can't be washed out, but only dissipates with time.

 

Liquids of all varieties have soaked into the coat.  Rain, snow, engine oils, antifreeze, hydrolic fluids, amniotic fluids from cattle, sheep and horses, as well as milk squirted from a wide variety of animals. Llamas have hacked their signature spitball on it and the coat even wrapped up an injured owl that was taken to the raptor rehab center. Naturally, blood from livestock species as well as coyotes, deer, elk, ground hogs, muskrats, rabbits, raccoons and plenty of my own has stained the fabric. 

 

It has served as a protective welding blanket to catch red-hot cherries raining down when welding overhead which freckled the coat with dozens of tiny melted holes. 

 

It has been trampled by critters, run over by machines and has been pierced by far too many wooden splinters from corrals and other assorted structures.

 

It has been wadded up to serve as my pillow while sleeping in a pickup truck during calving season, a blanket for newborn calves and lambs, a shroud veiling animal deaths and a rag to wipe who-knows-what off my hands.

 

It has seen nature's beauty up front and personal. Not only breath-taking mountianous scenery, but animals ranging from the biggest bull elk I've ever seen (to include pictures in magazines) to a flock of wild turkeys roosting in a cedar tree to the delicate nest of a hummingbird.

 

A local farm/ranch supply hosts an annual ugly Carhartt coat contest where the winner voted the ugliest is awarded with a new replacement.  For fun, I've entered my coat the past 2 years where the attending employee takes it from me using a pinched finger grip like its a dirty diaper. It hangs with competitor coats and I am asked if I want it back.  Of course I do!  They appear shocked to learn the value I put on my coat and how I want it returned even if I win a new coat. So far, my coat hasn't won, and that is okay. 

 

USED

 

 

There's still a lot of life left in my coat. Plus, it is like a lifelong friend who I can't bear to severe ties with because of the rich history we share together.

 

I wish it could talk and remind me of memories already forgotten...