A Tactical Matter

This is the dead of winter, I am told by the meteorologists in Minnesota. To counteract this "deadness", my mind drifted to May with thoughts of purple coneflowers, budding alders and  lots of dirt and mud. Truth be told, I love mud and dirt. It's gratifying digging in the luscious, earthy, loamy soil (albeit with gloves). Transplanting  blue flag iris, adding a new sidewalk, removing old stumps, dumping rock mulch next to the house....these are all fun gardening activities for me.

It's in my genes and my jeans. Grandpa's paths in his vegetable garden were  meticulously and constantly rototilled. His habit of walking barefoot in his garden  extended into his eighties or until he died.  I'd sink  to my ankles into this aerated, soft brown stoneless dirt that made wiggling toes a must. This foot massaging sensation can be  compared to walking barefoot on a three inch foam mattress topper.   The dirt at my cabin does not compare with Grandpa's well composted vegetable garden. I can't walk barefoot and I don't own a rototiller.  My garden get-up consists of  a light colored T shirt(better to see the ticks on me), ragg wool socks, Asolo hiking boots and the ugliest pants in Minnesota.

That brings me to my jeans or ugly pants attire. I might have a genetic predisposition for gardening and that includes my pants. Grandpa would only wear blue jeans, oftentimes overalls. Back in the 60's, when hippies glommed on to jeans, I thought my Grandpa was the coolest, hippest guy. No one else had a Grandpa who wore jeans.  Today, I prefer light colored pants (again, to see the ticks). They're usually rejects from my husband, back when he had a smaller waist size.  After five years of gardening in his pants, I can say they are sufficiently broken in. The knees have been patched three times and the stains refuse to come out in the Clorox infused wash despite lengthy soakings. My neighbors must shudder at my lack of haute couture.

So I spent this dead of winter day surfing through the web for gardening pants. L.L. Bean instantly  answered my email. "No, we don't carry cargo pants anymore." Any hope of replacing my comfortable but stained and ripped cargo pants diminished at once. Then, out of the blue, the word "tactical" came into my google brain! For the next two hours I googled "women's tactical pants" and found the perfect online review of such pants, "The Tactical Pants Review"! I had a treasure trove of the best tactical pants companies. In spite of bookmarking the site twice, I had to print out the 15 page document, much to the consternation of my spouse who would have preferred saving a few trees instead of watching the paper flowing out of my printer.

I discovered in my googling that Lisa Robbins, who started the Royal Robbins clothing company in Colorado, designed the first tactical  pants and called them 5.11, which refers to a particularly difficult rock climb. I'm about to order the Women's Taclite Pro Pants "designed after the original 5.11, with a woman's fit, lightweight 65 % polyester/35%poly-cotton ripstop, an external pocket, HT teflon treatment, a clip loop, elastic waistband, seven pockets,  48 bar-tacks and a bronze YKK zipper."  Need I say more? Oh yeah, my husband has informed me he wants a pair too...in men's, of course.