Squirrel and Hare Hats for Any Occasion
I received an email from a friend who owns one of
the hats I make. No, not the fur hats but caps with squirrel or hare “accents”.
His emails said “why don’t you write about those hats and post a few photos?”
To be honest, I had totally forgotten to do so. In
the past 3 years I have been experimenting with taxidermy methods that can make
the fur and heads of small game amenable to new ways of making caps for outdoor
activities, hunting, or just as a conversation piece. After quite a few trials
I believe that now I can cover any cap with taxidermied small game.
Quite a few people have these hats I make. Sometimes
I get photos send to me of them wearing them almost always saying “people could
not believe what they saw!”
So, I searched the web to see if these are others
who make such hats. While rabbit fur hats go back to the start of humanity (I
think…) I did not find anyone who covers the hats with a full squirrel or has
the head of a hare at the front.
So, as far as I know, these are unique creations.
Ok, here are a few examples:
A. Squirrel
hats. The entire squirrel is used. The eyes are taxidermy glass eyes. Sometimes
I add hare front teeth on a squirrel to confuse people…
These three represent some of the postures of the Abert’s
tree squirrel found in Arizona. The one
on the left is a squirrel ready to jump to a higher branch in the ponderosa tree.
The one in the middle is one who has seen you under the tree and is looking
down to make sure you are not trouble for it. And the one on the right has seen
you, thinks you are trouble so it is laying flat on a branch trying to
camouflage.
And, here is a close-up showing the trans-genic “artistically
induced mutation” of having hare front teeth on a squirrel…
B. Hare
head hats. While the squirrel is permanently incorporated into the cap, I use Velcro
on the cap and the hare neck base to take the head off and perhaps replace it
with another head. It seems a strange thing to do, but those who have use my
hare hats for conversation piece (say as part of a Halloween costume) can have
various expressions alternatively displayed on their hats.
These three represent
various styles and methods of incorporating the squirrel atop and over a cap.
The one on the left has the ears about the way one sees resting hare in nature.
But I added a small piece of snow fox fur atop its head to make it special. The
one in the middle has the ears in the camouflage mode position. I also tried to
make its face and eyes of the alert and hiding mode. Finally the one on the
right has the ears in the running position. Hare can run as fast as 35 mile and
hour so the position of their large ears changes with the need for aero
dynamism or if needed to be used as highly sensitive listening tools.
So here you have it. I
have made many of these hats with slight variations, but all are unique in
their look and function.
One of these days I may
try to make a hat where a hare is placed next to a squirrel… I think that has
to be a larger hat.
April 20, 2019
© Vahé A. Kazandjian, 2019
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