by My battered hands tell me Spring is here. 35-65 mph last Wednesday, a more
steady 40ish yesterday. Bruised ***(landing on my board on my tailbone
after a bail), helmet ripped completely off my head (we had sustained
gusts of 15-20 above the base wind both days, and the usual nicked,
scraped, irritated hands with those little open, painful "paper cuts" in
the skin at the corners of the fingernails and the red, almost raw callus
pads. Time, Tylenol, ice packs, and, later, heat packs will heal the
tailbone, but what to do about the hands, especially if you get frequent
wind for days or weeks or for a whole season?
Bag Balm. Go to your feed store, your farm vet, your rural hardware or
general store, any buy a can of Bag Balm. It's a heavy-duty Vaseline-like
antiseptic salve, about the consistency of wheel bearing grease and the
clarity of Vaseline. It's too greasy to wear all day if you work in a
bank, but when you go to bed rub a dollop of this stuff on those sore
hands and slip on some cotton gloves. Everybody from drug stores to Home
Depot to K-Mart sells dark brown cotton work gloves for 98 cents. Your
hands wake up refreshed, supple, and pain-free, ready for another day of
cruel abuse. Hint: Do not use***or *** gloves. About two nights of
that and your hands smell like a rotting corpse because no air gets to the
skin. Walk around like that and you'll notice a pack of hyenas and dingoes
following behind and a circle of vultures overhead -- even in New York
City. Little children will hold their noses and run screaming; only little
Jeffie Dahmler would have shown any interest.
Bag Balm is made to heal sore cow udders, and many farmers and ranchers
also use it on their hands as well. It is stiffer and more tenacious than
Vaseline, yet washes off easily enough, and its antiseptic content helps
heal all those superficial little boo-boos. Another version I've seen but
not tried is called Udder Butter. Really.
Mike \m/