So even though the air is still a bit chilly here in British Columbia, I try to spend any semi-sunny afternoons outside weeding and sprucing things up around the house. And today, after a very vigorous weeding session, I decided to venture out in the very back of our property, which is not so much like a yard, as much as it is a swamp. I retreated back for my gumboots, which had been sitting forgotten on a corner of our back porch since the fall. My first thought was.... spiders! I just read about a case of a brown recluse spider hiding inside a person's shoe and said person ended up with a gangrened foot. I put on gardening gloves and hoped for the best as I felt for any arachnids that may have taken up residence inside my boots, but, luckily found none.
That's when I had an idea for a very easy solution for this problem: pantyhose! I've used pantyhose before for a different project (seriously, who wears pantyhose these days? I'm embarrassed to say I had a pair left from the 1990's - in ivory!), so you could say I am a fan!
Here's what you do: to prevent spiders, or any other bugs from invading your gumboots, slip on a piece of pantyhose, tying up at the top if necessary (I only had one piece of pantyhose leg left, but it worked just fine):
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The pantyhose fits very snugly around the opening, and it allows the boots to breathe.
On a side note - last summer I noticed my cat hanging around the porch and looking intently into my gumboots, I had the shock of my life when I saw the reason for his odd behaviour - my guess is that he caught a mud weasel and carried the poor thing back to present us with it; the creature somehow either got away from him and hid inside my boot or got put in there by the cat, I'll never know. Either way, it had expired by the time I found it :(
