[Sca-cooks] Age of Iron- what fun ;-)

[Phlip]

Well, as some of you know, this weekend was the weekend I had planned for a
mundane event, a hammer-in.

"Mundane" in this context means non-SCA- a "hammer-in" is a meeting of
blacksmiths.

The event was held at Hancock Shaker Village, in Massachusetts, a lovely,
well-maintained historical village created by the religious sect known as
the Shakers. If you don't know about the Shakers, they were wonderful
people, very much responsible for shaping their segment of early American
history. I don't know if there are any still alive, but back in the 60s, I
went to school just up the road from the Canterbury Shaker Village in New
Hampshire, and was taught to use a treadle sewing machine by Sister
Marguerite Frost, so in a very real sense, spending the weekend at Hancock
was like a homecoming- a very comfortable place to be, and I'm thinking that
Sister Marguerite is smiling too, at all the wonderful memories that were
aroused.

Rather than camp, I stayed with my dear friends, Aaron and Liz Silver, who
live nearby. He's a blacksmith, active on TheForge, and she's a wonderful
violinist. We're bringing them into the SCA- and a great contribution
they'll be, as they learn their way around. They had gone on vacation to
California during the previous week, and were due in about midnight Friday
night. They had left me a key to the house, and I arrived Friday evening,
bringing a roast chicken, thinking they'd be hungry after their air travel,
and was planning on waiting up to meet them. The best laid plans of mice and
blacksmiths go oft agley...

At 10 PM, all the electricity went out. Unbeknownst to any of us, the local
power company had chosen that evening for a planned power outage. I waited a
bit for the power to come back on, then went out to my truck, read for a
while, then got some candle lanterns out and set them up in the kitchen, etc
so they could at least get in the house without breaking their necks. After
1 AM sometime, I went to bed, since I knew we had to be up very early the
next morning to unload our vehicles and set up our forges- we had to have
our vehicles off-site and in the parking lot by 9 AM. Apparently, the
weather had caused their flights some delays, and they didn't get in until
about 2:30. When they did, their first thought was, "Oh how nice, a
candlelight welcome" until they flipped the light switch.....

At any rate, they got to bed, and next morning, I got up about 6AM (had been
awakened at 5:30 by my cat) and discovered Liz already up and making coffee.
I rousted Aaron out, we blundered about getting ready, and off we went- got
to the site about 7:30, and got set up.

We had a marvelous time. Since we were near the "green coal area", and I had
planned to be there, and consequently had chosen my equipment to help show
how you could get set up inexpensively, we discussed how you could set up
with a brake drum forge and a RR track anvil, and Aaron showed off his
forge, made of a defunct gas grill. We talked to lots of people, including a
few SCAdians, and I mostly worked on building another US Civil War
reproduction collapsible cooking grill, like the one I had given Lord Ras,
and Aaron guided a young boy and his uncle through making a couple of small
projects. (I was mostly piddling around- it was pretty cold and wet, and I'm
not a smith and a cook because I dislike heat- think Trimaris could use a
smithing demo, in, say, July?) (Trimaris is the Kingdom in Florida, for my
non-SCA friends.)

Next day, the same sort of thing, although we had fewer "guests" because of
the storm warnings and cold weather. Those we had, however, were very aware
and interested in what we were doing- very much a pleasant group ;-)

There were lots of good things happening, both at the hammer-in, and around
and about. Lest I forget, I want to give Hancock Shaker Village my deepest
thanks for making this a very pleasant experience for we demonstrators.
There wasn't much you could do about the weather, but the lovely lunches
y'all set up for the demonstrators were very much appreciated. I hear the
cook-out Saturday night was very good too, but as cold and wet as Aaron and
I were, the thought of a hot shower only 15 minutes away won- it took me 5
minutes under the shower at full blast for the goosebumps to subside. Liz
had cooked us a lovely dinner, too, including a "traditional" dish of
chickpeas and spices. It feels very Mediaval Arabic- Aaron, please send the
recipe, so I can check it against the corpus. Very tasty ;-)

As to the demo itself, while I spent most of my time at my forge, I did have
some time to wander around and meet some people, and discuss some
techniques.

Bill Clemens- very much a pleasure to meet you, and see the Mastermys
collection, as it stands. Also, I very much enjoyed your little guidance
demo, about making the frog on the end of the bar of pure iron- and the
hand-out sheet that went with it. Think I'll be doing something similar
soon. April, if you ever want to get rid of him, let me know- He's a big
boy- bet he keeps you warm at night ;-) In fact, if I could just have
convinced him to stand upwind of me all day, I bet I'd have been 10 degrees
warmer ;-)

Mastermyr collection, btw, is a reproduction of artifacts from the Mastermyr
find from about the year 1000, done by a combination of modern and SCA
blacksmiths from TheForge mailing List- and we're still working on it. Steve
Smith, that tool chest you made is every bit as wonderful in person, as the
pix you sent- didja know Bill has put a mirror inside it, so we can watch
the locks you made work? The grill is great too, Bill, and the loving detail
in every one of those other pieces makes me proud to know such fine
craftsmen ;-)

We had a beautiful set up by a couple of guys doing an historical
reproduction of a Viking forge. They aren't SCA (yet ;-), but their set up
was positively inspiring ;-) I WILL have a set up like that soon, from
paired single lung bellows, to "sand pit" forge, to stake anvils. Dale Wood,
your award for the most historical set up was very justly deserved ;-)
Thank-you for bringing it, and I hope to see you guys soon ;-)

The musicians in the shelter, the different tools I'm coveting and will be
making, the genuine niceness and willingness to inform of everyone I met was
just AWESOME ;-) I got a lot from this weekend, and I'm going to be doing
everything in my power to share it with my beloved SCA. Thank you so much,
one and all ;-)

And, for the denouement.... I spent Sunday night again with Aaron and Liz,
and took off for home about 11 AM, trailer in tow, having fixed the lights
(a wire popped) before I left Hancock Village. Now, you gotta understand
about me, that trailer, and those lights. When I left for the demo/event, I
was on my 4th set, having finally broken one myself the previous weekend-
all the others I'd replaced had been broken by other people in parking lots,
and I'd carefully moved them inboard.

Pulled up to pay at the the tollbooth at the Massachusetts Turnpike, and got
rear-ended by a semi....sigh. Another set of lights- makes my 5th....told me
roommate, Rob, to get me two sets- figure I might as well have a spare, the
way I'm going through threm....


Phlip, NOT frigid, by choice....

 If it walks like a duck, and quacks like a duck, it is probably not a
cat.

Never a horse that cain't be rode,
And never a rider who cain't be throwed....