Lucky Horseshoe

My family hikes a lot.

One day near the beginning of July, not long after my mother’s memorial service and after a few weeks of gorging ourselves on sympathy food, I got fed up (so to speak) and suggested that we find a woodsy park where we could take the dog for a walk.  We’ve been hiking once a week ever since — 85 miles total by my Runkeeper records!

We find all kinds of interesting things while hiking.  Not just snakes and bees and freaky fungi, although they certainly make appearances.  This past weekend Dad spotted a 105 year-old dime.  We got pretty excited about it until we googled and found out that a Barber dime that has been sitting in a field for a century is worth about $4.  Not gonna pay for a post-hike dinner.

Two weeks ago, I spotted this thing in the dirt near what may have been an old farmyard back in the day, but is now a weirdly desolate part of the Wissahickon Valley Park:

An ancient horseshoe!  Who knows how long this thing had been sitting around.  Perhaps as long as the dime?  Parts of it were nearly rusted through, but I like rusty old things (and horses, of course!), so I took it home where I could attack it with some vinegar and a steel bristle brush.

This was the night, for those of you who follow me on Twitter, that I ended up putting my iPhone through the washing machine.  So I’m a little suspicious of this “horseshoes are lucky” thing, but I mounted it above a doorway anyway.  This is the correct position, right?  I was told I hung it upside down the first time.  I am a bad luck magnet.

Work, little horseshoe!  Win mama the money she needs to finish those baseboards already!