These are items I’ve grown to appreciate over the last six months or so.

It gets hots here. Little things matter more than they have in my past experiences. White shirts help a lot; much more than I expected. Recently I wore a black t-shirt as a test. Arg!

Black gloves… well gloves. It’s just that I bought a pair of black Mechanix’s brand gloves that I love. They are unbelievably ugly with writing all over them. However, they are the kind of gloves I can wear while doing tasks that require a certain sensitivity that gloves normally lack. I can pick between an 16d nail and an 8d nail from my tool belt without looking. Pretty cool. The main thing is that I wear these glove all the time and that’s what I wanted. A lot less splinters and cuts for me since I started wearing these.

I’ve never been one to carry a knife, though I always like the idea. I never needed one enough to go to the bother of locating (I lose stuff all the time) one and putting it in a pocket every morning. I had a feeling I might before we moved here and I bought a couple. One is a simple flip open and lock style. I use this all the time and feel quite lost without it now. The other is one of those multitool ones with pliers, wire cutters, and a pretty nasty locking blade. I use this one much less often, but when I do it always saves me a walk. I wear this one on my belt which is a bit of a bother to put on each morning, but I always regret it when it’s not there. My only unhappiness with the miltitool is that it has a little clip on its side that would only result in its loss if I used it, that causes it to get stuck in the sheath. I’d like to take it off, but I’m pretty sure it would spring into a million pieces if I ever took it apart enough to remove it.

The list is longer of course. Big leather gloves are on the list too. Oh yea, the big Toyota Tundra is probably the top of the list. We’ve hauled some pretty big loads and it gets us through all the nasty roads around here no problems.

Ice water… did I mention ice water? We’ve learned to keep a couple of plastic jugs three-quarters full in the freezer. When we head to the ranch (or even a long drive) we grab a bottle, add some water and go. It’s stays cold for hours.

-brad