Shoes Appropriate for Rain

For my grandparents' 50th Anniversary, they flew the entire extended family back to their childhood home, Holland. On my Grandpa's childhood farm, I noticed that there were still the traditional klompen, the wooden shoes.

Phil has wished for wooden shoes for some time: how well they would work for digging! How sturdy they would be! So when we found some wooden shoes in the Dutch store (Phil's pair was the largest, the only in that size), we each bought a pair.

Later, we went to an adorable Dutch reproduction village and learned a bit more. Wood shoes first began about 800 years ago due to a leather shortage. Also, in the moist climate of the Netherlands, wood holds up much better than leather. A pair of wooden shoes would last about 25 years (and since I've worked through roughly a pair of shoes a year since moving here, I'm ready!).

Today was a day of intermittent torrential downpours. We had both a FedEx delivery and visitors arrive in the midst of an especially hard deluge, and I was impressed with the lovely dryness of the wood. I like the sturdy support on the bottom, too.

I went to do a little weeding in the greenhouse comfrey: the newly spread compost has sprouted a surprising number of weeds. The wooden shoes spread my weight nicely.

I don't especially love the wooden top: I think it feels a bit odd when I step. And without socks, the wood is almost torture. But for work that requires slow movements (like weeding), I like them.