A Bit of Good Luck

Why is a horseshoe lucky?

I'm not sure who makes the rules on these things but a horseshoe is considered luckiest when it is a found horseshoe. A horseshoe which has been worn by a horse is luckier than a purchased horseshoe which has never previously been used. One of the reasons that finding a horseshoe was considered lucky is that many horseshoes were made of iron. Iron was a valuable metal back in the old days when money was hard to come by and supplies even more so. If you stumbled upon an iron horseshoe, you could either re-use the shoe itself, or melt the metal down for creating a brand new metal object. Finding an iron horseshoe was indeed a lucky event as it increased your prosperity. Of course it was much easier to find a horseshoe back in the old days when everyone traveled by horse, or horse and buggy, and horseshoes got tossed to the side of the road much more often than they do today.

I just happen to have a husband that rides horses, so horseshoes are very easy to come by for me! Horses around here get new shoes every six weeks and the old ones get tossed here...

I remember having one hanging over the front door growing up. My dad said that they helped to keep the haints away. I've also heard that you should hang them facing up, like the letter "U" so that all your Good Luck doesn't drain out. 

So I washed them really good (because they were attached to a horse once). Then sanded them down a bit to get rid of some of the rough rusted over debris, and added one coat of this paint...

When they were dry, I hung one over each door in my home...no more haints in my future!!

I've been wanting to do this for a while now, so why not start the year off with a bit of Good Luck!? Thanks for reading!!

**some parts of this blog post adapted from squidoo.com**