Well, here we are yet again mildewing in the gray damp. I think I'll throw the AC's into the windows tomorrow in hopes of encouraging the arrival of Summer.
I'm looking forward to this month's open forge day at the New England Blacksmith's smithy in Brentwood. I've belonged to the N.E. Blacksmiths for a while, and lately I've been able to be a little more active. I just joined the Artist Blacksmith Association of North America (ABANA). I have a long way to go before I consider myself a competent blacksmith let alone an artist, but these organizations are devoted to preserving and encouraging the craft and they provide a lot of support to anyone wanting to learn. Blacksmiths are a great group of people who go out of their way to help out and teach new blacksmiths. I'm fascinated by the way blacksmiths have been able to start with little more than a fire and some iron and produce basically all the tools of their trade as well as the history of making just about every iron object their community might need from hinges and latches to nails and horseshoes. I'd like to throw a photo of the smithy in here, but the ones I have contain people doing smithing. I don't want to put recognizable folks on the internet without their permission. I'll ask on Saturday and get some pictures of the smithy, anyway. I've got a little project this weekend that a co-worker asked me to try. Seems a not-to-be-named family member ran over the handle of an antique little red wagon and re-shaped it more or less irretrievably. When he first showed it to me, I thought he wanted me to repair it, but he agreed with me that it would probably be better to make a new one. I think I'll try to repair it as a welding exercise, but not until I've got the replacement in hand! The photo above is the before image. If it's not too embarrassing, I'll post an after picture this weekend.
Nice comments from the kids - thanks.
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