Hell Hats: AWESOME!!!

I do wish that I could take credit for the creative Hell Hats.  These are taking your riding helmet to a whole new level.  No freaky brim blowing off....and if I do say so myself they look incredible.  Before anyone gets scared these do not involve screws or anything invasive to your helmet shell.

Materials:

• Cowgirl hat of choice.  Mine came from Amazon for about $15.00 plus shipping.  The photo when I shopped looked black, it came to me a chocolate brown.  It also came to me FLAT as a pancake.  It looked like it had been driven over by a tow truck.  F-L-A-T.   Thank goodness for wire brims....
• Duct tape (the narrow kind is better) I used the basic wide black and ripped it lengthwise in half to make it more narrow.
• Hat band, do-dads, sparkly things.  I had no hat band and did not see the sense of paying $20 to get one, so I made my own from jute twine from my jewelry stash.  I had plenty of do-dads, and sparkly things in my jewelry making tote.
• Hot glue gun (don't panic, the hot glue never touches your helmet).

The basic process is you take that hat and cut the entire crown off and deposit into the trash.  Set the helmet on the flat brim and draw around it with a marker or chalk.   Then you cut little "v"'s around the entire inner brim. Just like the notches in your Easy Boot Gloves.   Slide it over your helmet and seat it so it hides your helmet brim and looks nice.  Duct tape.  Now you tear off a very long strip of duct tape (I recommend black or brown depending on the color of your brim).  Tape that puppy into place.   I made a second lap around it pulling the duct tape very snug and pressing gently as I went.    Some people just let the duct tape be the hat band, but I didn't like it, looked cheap *LOL*.  Once that was done and everything stuck down and looking right, I moved on to the home made hat band.   Dug through all my various craft things, fabric scraps....couldn't find anything that did it for me.  Even tried a piece of black biothane left over from another project.  Looked good, but wasn't quite wide enough to cover the tape.  I'm sitting at my work bench and all of a sudden I notice the roll of jute string....and I was sure I had a hot glue gun, yeppers!   So I hot glued the jute around, and around, and around many times, with the glue all going on the duct tape (not the helmet itself).

 Front

Back

Finishing Touch...so pretty!

 Credit where credit is due:  Hell Hats...join the posse  Check out some of the cool things people do to enjoy and wear their helmets.

HOLY WHEELBARROW BATMAN!

At Tango (competitive mounted orienteering sanctioned by NACMO ) a couple of weeks ago we were given a beautiful full tack set from Two Horse Tack that we got to more or less raffle off among our riders.  Even though chances were priced low, we did raise enough for IN/IL CMO to purchase a  wheelbarrow for the brand new horseman's camp there at the Versailles State Park.  The campground is lovely, has ten electric sites, and dumping areas for manure, but there were no wheelbarrows to haul it to the dump site.  You had to drag/carry a muck bucket to keep the camp sites clean.  Marti and Dave Caldwell (wonderful people) went to the trouble of making the purchase and painting a "brand" on that baby, and hauled it back down here to give to the park.

 Admire it's sleek lines...

 And the custom paint job...

And the happy park ranger!

Entering a new phase in life

It is odd to me, physically getting older.   Emotionally I feel like the "me" I 've always been.  Probably more grounded,  more understanding of a lot of things, and having no understanding for others.   On the precipice of being a senior citizen myself, knowing my time with my own Mom is probably more precious now than it has ever been.  She speaks a lot about dying, that she knows her time is short now at eighty-three, and it breaks my heart inside to know how everything will change.   I lost my Dad when I was twenty-six, two of my children have proceeded me in death, but nothing effects me (though all those things shook the foundations of what makes me who I am) like thought of losing my Mom.  She has always been the force to reckon with in the family, and the sun which we orbited as siblings, though time has loosened that gravitational pull for some  due to time constraints and geographic separation, Mom has always been my anchor.  We've experienced some close calls...an exploding gallbladder that nearly killed her, emergency heart bypass, valve replacement, lots of near misses.   Now the enemy is time.   Just simply time.  Her skin is paper thin,  and blood thinners keep her looking bruised.  Tiny and frail, with a painful little old woman shuffle.  My power house of a Mom is old.   Hard to say.   Harder to accept.   I've been in denial for awhile now.  If I didn't own it, it couldn't really happen, could it?  Today she was puttering along.  Still lives on her own.  Asks for so damned little from a family that she has truly given a lot.   She will never read this.  But today I have to say, I love you Mom.   I hope I have you for another twenty years.

August 31 is a long time ...

Though I have been muddling along, for the most part I have not been well the past couple of years.  My digestive issues continue to worsen, the medications I'm taking not touching it, and now increasing nausea and downright incapacity twice this month.  I finally got in to see a gastro specialist, but my appt for scoping is not until the last day of August, and this has been a very bad weekend.  Very. Bad. 

August is a long time to wait.  A very long time.

I am so excited about this project!

Two Horse Tack has given me some flexibility to work on a custom endurance bridle.   So far we have made two of these, and are getting a feel for what may be wanted in an endurance bridle at a very competitive price, while maintaining quality.

The Other Horse

Photo credit:  Kirrily Niswander

We selected two endurance riders to test and review these and though these are not yet available on the website,  I am able to get these made to spec.

In Omnia Pratus

Photo credit: Liz Stout

Both bridles are halter bridles.  One with browband, and one without.   We chose very thin biothane for these to reduce weight,

Traditional Halter Bridle from Two Horse Tack