Shortly after she stepped into the basement as a volunteer to sort donations for a used tack sale, Audrey Lewis heard the sound of wind chime potential as someone pulled a nest of old horse bits out of a box.

“I just heard them touching,” she said. “But I thought, ‘Listen to that!’”

Lewis found her initial inspiration there, in the still air of the century-old farmhouse basement at the Colorado Therapeutic Riding Center in southeast Longmont.

But growing up in gusty Kansas heightened her awareness and appreciation of the wind.

“I just like the sound of the wind and the feel of its strength — especially when you hear it up in the trees,” the Denver resident said.

That background fanned her creative yen to repurpose the old bridle parts into wind chimes as a fresh fundraising idea for CTRC — a nonprofit organization that started in 1980 with a few borrowed horses, a few riders with disabilities, and some volunteers who gathered at a Longmont park.

Lewis is a mosaic artist who focuses mostly on arranging shapes and colors. Repurposing bridle bits and leather into wind chimes seemed doable.

There was just one hitch — how to create the soft dinging and ringing of chimes instead of the thudding sounds she got with her earliest wind chime assemblies that weigh more than 2 ½ pounds.

However, before that challenge became obvious, she just gathered her supplies — a wreath hanger to hook over a closet door for easy vertical assembly; a chin strap of chain links or leather with buckles to act as the wind chime’s handle; and three different bits wired together and balanced just so with tension.

Because most of CTRC’s horses wear side pulls — a bitless headstall that works with the rider’s rein pressure on the upper noseband — Lewis could cherry pick bits from a great variety of unused donated ones.

Bits come in two main types — snaffle and curb bits — and each one offers a different patina, metal color tone, shape and pressure intensity.

Snaffle bits usually have a break or two in the middle called a joint. Circular or “D” shaped rings hold snaffle bits in place on each side of the horse’s mouth and work through simple direct pressure.

In one wind chime, Lewis incorporated a twisted copper snaffle bit that could have been forged in the Dark Ages during the Roman Empire’s decline. (In reality, that torturous-looking twisted copper bit just provides more points of contact in the horse’s mouth, which amplifies cues for horses less responsive to a rider’s direct pressure communication.)

Other snaffle bits featured in her wind chimes include those with built-in fidget spinners and plain Jane snaffle bits with smooth metal on both sides of the joint.

Curb bits come with a curve in the center of the bit that puts pressure on the poll — the area behind the horse’s ears — in its mouth and under its chin.

The bit’s metal shanks on either side of the horse’s mouth extend a few inches down to add greater leverage to the direct pressure coming from the rider through the reins.

As Lewis had hoped, the bits made a lovely wind chime array. But without music, the wind chime project was a bust.

To be sure, some of Lewis’ difficulty existed because a Grand Canyon separates the original life of a bridle from the second life of the bridle repurposed in parts as a wind chime.

After all, a saddler originally created a leather headstall with a metal bit attached to reins — a complete bridle — so a rider could influence the balance and movement of a horse and, ultimately, stop the horse.

An artist, on the other hand, repurposed small sections of the headstall and the bit with an opposite idea. That is that the hardware would go wherever the wind blows and make soft music in its wake.

Lewis finally landed on the idea that worked — wiring a single bitless metal shank from a hackemore bridle to the assembly as the lightest piece. Then, she decorated its wire with beads and a highlight stone to add interest.

“It has to hang at just enough of an angle for each piece to chime,” Lewis said. “So, I just played with the visual elements and the auditory elements. These two things need to be in harmony. If they’re not, I start over. And I’ve started over lots of times.”

CTRC offers Equine Assisted Activities and Therapies and celebrates its 45th anniversary in June. The tax deductible suggested minimum donation for a wind chime is $50.

For more information, call CTRC at 303-652-9131 or visit ctrcinc.org.

Pam Mellskog can be reached at p.mellskog@gmail.com or 303-746-0942. For more stories and photos, please visit timescall.com/tag/mommy-musings/.