One that started way too early, but still an awesome day!

I had my alarm set for 6am. Unfortunately, the furry alarm clocks had other plans. It was light out, anyhow, so I got up and did my morning rounds.

It turned 6am as I was getting back into the house!

My daughters didn’t fair much better, and one of them was up working all night.

My younger daughter and I made sure to grab breakfast before we left, but did make a stop at a gas station convenience store along the way to make sure she had a couple of large water bottles to keep with her during her workshop. I’m glad we left nice and early, because we drove right past the place and had to turn around. 😁

When we got there, others had arrived even earlier than we did. My daughter had a standard waiver to sign as we made our introductions with one of the instructors/owners, then my daughter headed over to their “classroom” to pick an individual forge for the workshop, while I headed out.

The road the forge was on turned out to go almost directly to where the small Walmart we tend to go to is. Very convenient! My new shoes, while fitting where they need to, are still size 11 men’s, so they are too long, and my heels were popping out. So I went searching and found some insoles and heel thingies – I can’t remember what they are called – to reduce the problem. Once I got those into my shoes, I set a timer for myself, settled into the truck and went for a nap in the Walmart parking lot! It was much needed.

They had a 1 hour lunch break scheduled to start at noon, so after a lovely little snooze, I went to a downtown grocery store to hunt down a lunch for us. I asked during the drive in, and my daughter requested something cold for lunch, since she was going to be working with fire all morning. I knew this grocery store would have some good options. I ended up getting some fresh made sushi, a lovely little charcuterie board, cut vegetables and hummus for us to share.

When I got back, it was too early for lunch break yet, but my daughter showed me some of the hooks she had made, using various techniques. She finished one last hook before break was called.

This place has a really good set up – one with extra care taken, since they’re under a fire ban, too. All the forges had new hoods put on them, and everything was set up under a roof. The walls were open, but several sections were covered with a particular sort of cloth/netting. I’d thought it was to prevent sparks from blowing out, but it turns out it was to keep flammable cottonwood puffs from blowing into the fire zone!

The entire grounds were fascinating, with all sorts of equipment – some modern, some antique – around. Even the house was amazing, built out of huge logs. It may have had a modern metal roof but, from the aging of the logs, I wouldn’t be surprised if the house itself is probably close to 100 years old.

The grounds were also very open and spread out, and they had a picnic table available in the shade of some trees for those who wanted to have lunch on site. The instructor/owner that has met us when we came in soon joined us, along with her husband, and some of the other students had brought their own camp chairs and settled in the shade nearby, too. We all had some grand conversation; the other attendees were very interesting people!

Then my daughter’s cell phone rang, which is always a surprise. She uses her phone as a phone even less than I do with mine! 😄

It was from her doctor’s office.

She quickly got up and went aside to take the call until she needed to come back and clear some dates for me.

Her surgery to remove her ganglion is going to happen in July – about 3 weeks from now – and she’s got a consultation appointment to go over the details, tomorrow, late afternoon.

The hospital is in the same small city we frequent in between stock up trips, and it basically across the street from the vet clinic that’s been doing our spays and neuters, so it’s all familiar territory for us.

Of course, other people heard us as we put the appointments into my calendar. Afterwards, we learned that one of the guys that joined us at the picnic table had had a massive ganglion removed some 25 years ago – large enough that he still has a scar! So he and my daughter commiserated about how painful those things can be, for a while. 😁

When the scheduled lunch was done and everyone went back to the workshop, I went back to the city and spent some time actually looking for stuff this time. We need at least one more garden hose, but the only ones that were affordable were the ones that keep breaking on us. In the end, I ended up picking up some replacement couplings, instead. Hopefully, higher quality ones. They also have a built in shut off valve, so you can switch attachments and not have to turned the water off at the tap or, like I usually do, kink the hose to stop the flow – which is part of why they end up breaking so quickly. Oddly, the one that’s leaking on me right now developed a pin hole in the metal of the female coupling. How that happened, I have no idea, but it’s enough to send a tiny, barely visible stream of water shooting out at least a foot!

I also picked up some water soluble fertilizer for the vegetable garden, and some potting soil. Our massive jade trees need repotting. We need to find a new home for them. We have to keep them in the cat free zone/living room, and there just isn’t enough light for them in there. Maybe rehoming plants will be easier than rehoming cats!

That done, I took my time checking out a couple more stores, just to pass the time until I headed back to the forge.

This time, I hung out in a seating area they had in the “classroom”, where my daughter was conveniently set up. They were working on long implements at the time, with a twist in the handle.

My daughter was in absolute heaven.

It was an interesting group to watch. There was about 10 people there, each at their own forge (there were a couple of “spares” that weren’t being used). Most were men that looked to be about my age, give or take a decade. There was one other woman there, who looked to be in her 60s. My daughter was clearly the youngest person there. Everyone seemed to be really enjoying the workshop, too.

Talking about it later, my daughter said she was 99% sure she would love blacksmithing, but there was still that 1% she wasn’t sure of. After today, she is 100% she is in love with blacksmithing! She’s really looking forward to building her own forge and smithy here at the farm. It will take time to acquire the materials, and set up a safe area to work in. Particularly since the area that makes the most sense to build it in is where the fire pit currently is, and there are several dead or partially dead trees with branches overhanging the area that we need to clear out! I plan to make our outdoor kitchen in a different area, so the fire pit area will be available to her. Thanks to this workshop, she also knows which things she prefers to have, such as a hand operated blower instead of an electric one. We do already have some of the tools, since my late father had done some blacksmithing here, though his forge got scavenged at some point. One pair of tongs I found were broken, but another is fine. My daughter says she has seen other tools that are suitable, laying around, including ball peen hammers of the appropriate size and weight. There is a tiny anvil, made from a piece of railroad tie. When I was growing up here, I remember we had a full size blacksmithing anvil in the pump shack, but that is another of the things that grew legs and walked away over the years before we moved in. So it really wouldn’t take much for my daughter to be able to set up her own smithy!

Here are the things my daughter made, by the end of the workshop.

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The first image is a series of hooks including one that is meant to be hammered in like a nail. The others have different shaped flat parts, including one leaf shape, with screw holes in them. The screw holes were added towards the very end, using a special hole punch. Then there is the handle; getting the swoop shape it was supposed to be was not easy!

The second image has a fire poke, with a twisted handle. The other thing is a steak flipper. Not something either of us is familiar with!

The owners/instructors welcomed people to stay as long as they needed to put on any finishing touches on their projects before leaving, and most of them did stay longer. My daughter just needed to use the hole punch before she was done, so we had a chance to chat with the other owner/instructor.

My daughter still wants to clean up the stuff she made with a wire brush to give them a more finished look. She plans to give some to my brother and his wife, as a thank you for their birthday gift of this workshop. The steak flipper and fire poker are both going to get use when we do outdoor cooking again – which might be a while. With the current fire bans, some fires are allowed, but with our own fire pit area we aren’t going to chance it for some time.

With staying longer to finish things off and chat for a bit, it was getting pretty late, so we went into the city again, and I made sure my daughter got fed! She ended up choosing to go to a Subway, but she was so tired – especially her hands, from all that hammering! – she could barely hold her sandwich! My husband messaged me to see of I could find something at Walmart for him, and she stayed in the truck while I popped in. She was so tired this morning, was absolutely fine during the workshop, but once it was over, she was basically crashing!

It was absolutely worth it for her, though!

By the time we got home, it was well past time to feed the outside cats, so I took care of that while the girls took care of bringing stuff inside. I ended up bring out a bowl of warm water to wash leaky eyes, assembly line style. Kale and Zipper are still the worst for it, and I’m afraid that Kale might lose an eye. She has missed some eye washing, simply because we couldn’t reach her, or she wasn’t around at the time. Most of the other kittens look like they are recovering quite well.

When I go out to take care of the cats, I’m always on the lookout for more kittens. So far, nothing. I am seeing Sprout more often and, this evening, I could just make out as she ran passed me, that she has at least two active teats, but we can’t get close enough to really see. With others, I just can’t tell. Not even with Slick, who will jump up onto the roof of the cat house to eat. She doesn’t give us a chance to see her belly!

Today turned out to be a really lovely day in the weather sense, too. The high of the day was supposed to be 18C/64F, but we did end up reaching 20C/68F, but with a lovely breeze to keep things from feeing too hot. We’re supposed to get warmer over the next few days, but nothing excessive.

I am very glad I got the garden in when I did, that’s for sure. If I hadn’t, I probably be dealing with dead transplants right now!

Mostly, though, I’m just so happy my daughter enjoyed the workshop, and is now sure that blacksmithing is something she really wants to continue with.

The Re-Farmer