You're A Farrier If...
© Henry Heymering, CJF, RJF, and Jack Millman, CJF
Published in ANVIL Magazine, June 1995
You're a farrier if:
-
shoe supply stores instantly recognize your voice on the phone.
-
you have more photos of horses' feet than all your other photos including
vacations, pets and relatives combined.
-
the barn dogs recognize your truck a mile away and will follow you anywhere.
-
you subscribe to two or more farrier publications.
-
going to the Bluegrass Laminitis Symposium is your idea of an ideal vacation.
-
you have more equine hoof models than the local veterinary college.
-
you have two or more hoof gauges - and no two give the same reading.
-
while working, you notice blood - both you and the customer are relieved
to find it's just yours and not the horse's.
-
you change T-shirts more than four times a day during the summer, and people
still hold their noses when you walk into a store.
-
you think that it is normal to come home to messages on your answering machine
from strange women who say they need you right away.
-
you watch the way people walk and say to yourself, "With the right shoes,
I could fix that."
-
you can't comfortably stand upright for very long, but can stand bent over
all day long.
-
when friends talk about their investments, you think of hand tools.
-
you have an answering machine, a pager and a car phone, and still return
most business calls after 8 pm.
-
you carry 40 different sizes/styles of shoes and/or 80 feet of bar stock,
and it's not enough.
-
from force of habit, when you are all dressed up at a social function, you
still wash your hands before you use the toilet, instead of after.
-
you find that this year you have fewer shoeing problems for which you know
the absolutely guaranteed, fail-safe, most effective method to deal with
them than you did last year.
-
you use lemon juice to deodorize your hands, and Bag Balm to keep them from
cracking.
-
every time any nail is driven anywhere, you listen very carefully.
-
when as you approach the rear end of a horse it is not unusual for the owner
or handler to say to the horse, "OK, let him have it - now. Give it to him."
-
you're not a stripper, but the people who hire you spend more time looking
at your buns than your face.
-
when you check under your truck seat you don't find any loose change, but
you do find the remains of your lunch - for the entire week.
-
you're not a trucker, but your truck payments are larger than your house
payments or rent - which is justifiable because you spend more time in your
truck than in your living room.
-
you think a relaxing evening is standing by a hot fire making shoes.
-
working from 8 am to 8 pm is what you call working a half day.
-
you look ten years younger, but feel ten years older than you really are.
-
you were to win the lottery and were asked what you plan to do with all the
money, you reply, "Shoe horses 'til the money runs out."
Return to the Farrier Humor main page.