It was a mad search. Moving through the mud room like a hurricane, uprooting everything in my path, coats and gloves and shoes flew right and left. Leaving that locale in chaos, the next spot I hit was the pickup. Resituating the bucket of vaccines and cattle O.B. supplies, I found only a log chain and large slip-lock pliers. Behind the seat nothing but ropes, bungee cords, and road hazard flares. Under the seat only draw pins, miscellaneous bolts, nuts, and a semi-functional vise-grip. I searched the car trunk even though I knew it was useless.
    The situation was becoming critical. I was getting frantic. My very survival depended on finding them. Scouring the machine sheds and the barn, I moved quickly, watching the dark clouds in the sky. Cold rain drops hit my face as I hopped over the rapidly forming puddles. How could I have misplaced something so important? Where did I leave them? Dodging into the shop I looked under the disassembled corn planter, but to no avail. I had lost my boots.
    Putting my boots on and taking them off occurs frequently throughout my day. They can usually be located quite easily somewhere along the trail traveled daily between the calving shed, barn, house, and shop. They were nowhere, not even stuffed in the four-wheeler toolbox. The raindrops fell faster. Desperately pulling on someone else’s heavy four-buckle overshoes, I tried to chase a cow. The oversized clodhoppers sucked my feet down into the muck. They wobbled and flopped as I lunged forward to lock the gate behind the aggravated animal. Shedding the dangerous footwear that nearly tripped me up, I resorted to wearing my insulated boots, even though their waterproof capabilities extended only from sole to ankle.
    More rain fell. More frantic digging unearthed a pair of cast-off vinyl boots with attached torn liners. Uncomfortable as they were, even this seemed like an improvement as the cow lane turned into a stream with its own swift current. It was a temporary solution until the aging vinyl broke apart. When my husband returned from the feed store without a new pair of boots that would fit over my work shoes I thought we might need a lawyer. Things got ugly. I accused him of hiding my boots. He suggested that I might be developing memory deficit. I washed his chore coat and deliberately “forgot” to put it in the dryer.
    Stomping out in my manure-tea saturated socks and bread-bag lined cracked vinyl footwear, I climbed into the tractor parked in front of the haybales that I needed to access. When I reached down to adjust the seat, something rubbery blocked the lever. My boots! I found my boots at last!    Hugging them like long-lost mud-encrusted friends, I remembered stashing them cleverly out of the way one day when it was warm and almost dry. It was a fleeting sunny memory. I forgot what day that was. It is all water-over-the-dam now.