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  • From: Road's End Farm <organic87 AT frontiernet.net>
  • To: Market Farming <market-farming AT lists.ibiblio.org>
  • Subject: Re: [Market-farming] workshoes
  • Date: Thu, 21 May 2009 17:33:38 -0400


On May 21, 2009, at 3:56 PM, Curtis Millsap wrote:

My brother turned me on to Timberland Pros for work boots.  Steel toed, but more comfortable than any other pair of shoes I have owned.  Expensive, in the range of $140, but last time I went shoe shopping, I couldn't find anything else that felt anything like it.

I can't wear steel toes, because I spend a lot of time on my knees; the foot position required causes the steel plate to dig into the top of the toes. Ouch.

Red Wing doesn't make shoes or boots to fit me any longer, though they used to. Hardly anybody does. I have a wide foot, including wide toes -- my toes don't taper, and I'm unwilling to do what many women wind up doing and mutilate them into tapering by bending the little ones over. However, my feet are only moderately long for a woman, and too short for the smallest size in many men's styles.

What has come closest to fitting me is usually a men's 7, 7 1/2, or 8 (depending on style and company) EE width; but these are almost always too wide in the heel. (Women's sizes, even those labeled "wide", are almost always too narrow in the toes, and often even too narrow in the ball of the foot.) Narrow heel and wide toe is common enough that it used to have a name: combination last. Many companies used to make some styles in combination last sizes. I don't know any that still do, but there may be somebody, somewhere.

I don't like sandals for other than light work (my toes don't like rocks, which I have lots of; and I want more protection and more support for rototiller work -- yes I know boots won't protect me from the blades! but rocks fly sometimes); but something that breathes would be great for summer.

Any suggestions? (oh yes, I am currently very short on money . . . )


-- Rivka; Finger Lakes NY, Zone 5 mostly
Fresh-market organic produce, small scale



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