How to deal with a hole in your shitkickers.

Excuse my colourful choice of words, I’m nothing if not a bit crass. Cheap too, if you ask my kids. My son swears I won’t buy anything that costs more than $15, and to be fair, that’s not much of an exaggeration. But you can’t live off one small income in order to homeschool in one of the most expensive cities in the world and not be a bit cheap. Living paycheck to paycheck for 16 years will make a bargain hunter out of anyone.

When I do spend more than $15, it’s because I know I’m buying something of quality that will be cheaper in the long run. My Blundstones are one example. My first pair was a shower gift when my son was born (best sister-in-law ever), and I’ve worn out and re-soled a couple of pairs since then. I rarely wear anything else.

I was hoping these Hunter rain boots would be the same, but a couple of years of hard work caused some pretty serious cracks, making them almost unusable. Which is a shame, because I love the way they fit, and keep my pants dry no matter how deep the puddles are.

With spring just around the corner, I knew I had to start figuring out what to do about my rainy weather footwear.

Rather than throw away boots that were 95% intact, I did a quick online search and discovered this shoe repair kit that comes with black tint (and it was less than $15!).

I cleaned the edges of the holes with rubbing alcohol, stirred in a bit of the black tint…

…and wondered how the heck I was ever going to patch a crack this big.

I didn’t do the neatest job of it, but I got as much goo inside the hole as I could, closed it up, painted it over the seam to hold it together and left them to dry (after patching 3 more similar cracks on the bendy spot on both boots, as well as some suspicious looking cracks on the soles).

I was quite pleased with how well the compound leveled out and blended into the boots once it dried, and so far it’s strong but flexible, and seems to be doing what it’s supposed to do.

It even passed the most important test of all!

Hang on a minute, shitkicker is a totally appropriate description for boots that spend their lives wading through compost, manure, chicken litter, and navigating the dog bombs that Princess leaves hiding around the property. I stand by my earlier use of the word.