Bean Can Boot Repair
How it all started
North of Hyannis, Nebraska
I noticed the hole in mule Polly’s boot the day we missed creaming a tortoise by a hoof-width. Click here for a bodgey repair story…
Mule Polly and I recently near-creamed a tortoise.
Near collision
North of Hyannis, Nebraska
Thinking she’d enjoy meeting Mr Slow Poke, I held the critter to her nose. She responded with a snort and rein-wrenching bolt. That’s when I noticed the hole in the toe of her EasyBoots, the rubber boots she’s worn the past 1000 miles.
A hole big enough to drive a finger through
Now, holes in the toes of your boots don’t sound like a big deal. They’re not, if you’re walking on grass or sand. On pavement it’s a different story. Think metal rasp on cheese. As many miles as we travel on asphalt, sometimes 20 per day, her toes would have soon been worn to the quick.
It looked like a patch was in order.
But how? How, in the middle of the Nebraska Sandhills, traveling among the least-populated counties in the United States, was I going to fix the hole in Polly’s boot?
Flash forward to a few days later. It’s lunch time. I’m enjoying the standard-issue RiverEarth lunch: canned black beans, garlic and olive oil. Spooning the beans out of my can it hits me.
Steel toes! That’s what Polly needs. Steel toes for her boots. Or rather, inside her boots. After lunch I cut the top and bottom out of the can of bean.
Bean can boot repair kit
I slipped the tops into the boots, so they covered the hole in each toe, and hit the road.
Bean can boot repair
The repair lasted ten miles. At which point the metal patch wore through, leaving me to open another can of beans. And so it goes. Walk ten miles. Eat a can of beans. Walk ten miles, eat another can of beans. Soon we’ll be in Loup City, where I can make a more permanent repair.
In the meantime, I’m getting damn sick of eating all these beans….
(Post Script: EasyCare, maker of EasyBoots, having heard of our blown-out boots and growing resistance to canned beans, kindly supplied mule Polly with new boots. Thanks Garret. To check out EasyBoots and EasyCare’s line of hoof boots,click here.)
