Bottle of Alfalfa Saves Western Boot

October 2011 was a great month in so many ways, but one of the highlights was a visit from my cousin Dawn from Canada whom I had never met. We had SO much fun getting to know each other, sharing family stories and of course exploring the Austin area, which meant seeing some sights, snapping pictures, eating specialty foods at restaurants with atmosphere like the Salt Lick BBQ, and a visit to downtown Austin which included a Trailer Food crawl.

Austin isn’t just the music capital of the world – it’s the trailer food capital as well so as a side note on Trailer Food – the following quote from our friend Tiffany Harelik’s Trailer Food Diaries Cookbook describes it best, “if you’re not familiar with trailer food, it is street food created by up-and-coming chefs who offer their delicacies out of re-purposed Airstreams and cargo trailers.”

Back to Western boots! I’ll get to the Alfalfa part in a bit! So during the visit, Dawn really wanted to load up on some authentic Western gear and I learned that she’s fun to shop with – a woman after my own heart – she tries on everything in sight until she finds just the perfect combination. One of the shopping trips found us in Bastrop at the Texas Boot Company for 3½ hours of trying on clothes, boots and belts! After a while, I got bored watching Dawn, so what do you think I did? Yepperooooo!!! I started trying on boots for fun!

Here’s what I discovered. Boots without zippers don’t go on easily for people with a high arch. In fact it was some of the hardest work I’ve done recently. My left foot was the chosen guinea pig and by the time I had laboriously pushed, squeezed and stomped it into ten or so boots, the pain and swelling on the top of my foot kicked in fiercely and I took some “screwitol” (more about this for a future blog) and feeling a bit better started squeezing another part of my anatomy into a series of low-slung jeans. Better luck with these…found a pair right away. Woohoooo!

I sat down with a glass of wine the delightful attendant provided, while my loving husband, not being one to see his wife cheated out of a pair of boots, went on a mission and found a pair that HE liked and demanded I have them if they fit. Sure enough they were gorgeous Lucchese python boots – ones I’d overlooked – not hard to do in a store with hundreds of boots! The desire to try them on superseded the pain in the left foot, so I stuffed my swollen foot into them and found the length was perfect – but they were tight! No problemo! Tall-guy-in-a-Stetson hat came to the rescue “We’ll stretch them out for you!” And so they did.

A couple of glasses of wine later Dawn and I left with our loot.

It became painfully apparent the next day that the foot was still traumatized and the boot was not going on, nor the next day, nor the week after, nor two weeks after! Bummer! My foot was no longer swollen but refusing to enter the boot beyond a certain point. Chuck to the rescue with a brilliant idea! We take Shaklee Alfalfa for allergies, arthritis, fluid retention and you name it. What if we fed the boot a bottle of Alfalfa, said he. So he grabbed each boot and shoved a full bottle of Alfalfa down its throttle! Meanwhile we left for our Bahamas trip and it wasn’t until sometime after Thanksgiving I remembered the boots and decided to try again. Success! Both boots had responded to the Alfalfa treatment and my foot slipped in and out so much easier.

I’ve worn them three times so far and all is well – comfortable and getting broken in! Each time I put them away? They get the Alfalfa treatment!

Amazing the difference a bottle of Alfalfa can make to a Western boot!