The training has begun

Woodsmens Games!

I'm trying desperately to get caught up here before the summer ends.  The weekend before Mom and Dad came to visit was a busy one.  Nathan came down, Sarah met Livia for the first time (her international student-friend), I rented an "Electric Eel" from Home-Depot to snake the clogged main drain from the house, and Sarah and I took Zhora to her first lumberjack competition.

These first few are gratuitous and self-indulgent shots of my own small forays into lumberjackdom.

Jonas loves to go to Pat's to help me work the horses, mend the fences, and process the trees.  He does get a little tired after awhile... or lazy; it's hard to tell.  Anyway, he loves to ride on the tractor.  We do this a lot, but since I'm normally the cameraman, I don't have any pictures of it, so I asked Pat to take this shot.

I took this one because I wanted a close up of Jonas and myself.  I just trimmed my beard yesterday and, looking at this picture makes me miss it.  It was a good beard, but it was getting a little silly.  Anyway... that was Friday.  On Sunday we got up early and headed to Boonville, NY for the last day of the games.

We were surprised (at least Sarah and I were, Zhora seemed to take it in stride) to see A. how big the event was and B. how many vendors there were.  Usually this kind of blatant commercialism bothers me, but apparently when what is being sold splits logs into 8 sections in one step, my punk rock attitude takes a back seat.

There were several food huts, but not as many as you might think.  There were smoothies and hot dogs and cheese steaks, lots of fries, pizza, and of course ice cream and funnel cake.  This one sold all things elk.  We were all pretty impressed with the size of the antlers.

The size, quantity, and variety of the machines was surprising.  These were what our fore fathers had in mind when they wrote about life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness; cut from the original document was Jefferson's eloquently written, but questionably placed prose on the TW-Pro MP XL Firewood Processor.  "The tree of liberty must be felled and split from time to time with the sweat and blood of lumbermen and there is no better machine that I can think of than Timber Wolf's Pro MP Firewood Processor."  Franklin argued that the Declaration of Independence was no place for Jefferson's proclivity for lobbying and self interest and the sections about Timber Wolf, Coca Cola, and Monsanto were all removed from the final document.  Still, the Pro MP is a heck of a machine.

So, after we wandered around for a little bit, got some salted potatoes, ice cream, and thick fresh cut fries with malted vinegar, we settled into our bleachers for some competition.  This is my favorite event, called springboard chop.
 

The competitors start on the ground, chop a bite into the trunk, throw in a springboard, jump up and repeat that, then jump up again, and from what is essentially a pirate's plank, chop off the top foot of the pole!  It is very exciting and cool to watch.  The guy on the right is Mr. Waterfield.  He is one bad lumberjack.  We rooted for him all day, and although I don't think he won, he was awesome in all his heats in all his events.  I'm not real knowledgeable about the whole scoring of this thing, but there were a couple events he didn't compete in, and he got DQ'd in the open hot saw event (probably for going faster and more hardcore than was acceptable).  Anyway, we had a good time choosing someone to cheer for.  Zhora still talks about him... so does Sarah.

Here you can see Nathan Waterfield  relaxing and waiting for his competition to catch up.  He placed two springboards and highballed up the pole in 66 seconds.  He could have lit a pipe while he waited for his heat to wrap up... and done the whole event again before the last man finished!

Zhora was  in the minority, being neither overweight nor attired in flannel or truckers cap.  She made up for these deficiencies by cheering, clapping, rooting, and generally being more enthusiastic than most of the people around us.  She even yelled at me a couple times for taking pictures when I should have been shouting or clapping.

The materials of the games have been standardized in the last decade or so.  Apparently until very recently betting on the games wasn't especially difficult; bet on the guy with the smaller log with less knots.  Now they take pains to make sure everyone gets a fair shake.  The posts in the front are for the springboard competition, the horizontal posts were used for the crosscut competition and for the hot saw, and the tall tall posts in the back were used for the tree felling competition.

Between events we walked around some more.  There was an great little tent filled with raptors and this beautiful lady vulture.  I've really come to appreciate turkey vultures of late.  They are impressive and under-appreciated birds.  This one was in a playful mood and flew off the handlers glove and scared the crap out of several small children.  It was pretty funny... once I knew the bird was ok.  The woman who told us about all the rescued birds was very nice and brought most of the birds out for everyone to see.  There was a barn owl and a barred owl (who don't like each other), a peregrine falcon, a Harris's hawk, a kestral, and two screech owls.  We learned that the odd calls we've been hearing at dusk lately are screech owls.  The evening campfires feel more exciting somehow.

This is a hot saw.  It's like a snow mobile and a chainsaw had a baby.  It is a very exciting animal.


Also, it is loud.  Speaking of, I had my hearing tested in a booth at the show.  Turns out, according to the test at least, that I have great hearing.  So now I really don't know what my problem is.  Probably something in my auditory cortex.

Strong like Mr. Waterfield!  Check out the size of the wood "chips" the woodsmen were chopping!  Incredible!

I have no idea what happened here, but got a real kick out of imagining that somebody just got overzealous and defoliated everything that resembled a tree in the area.

On our way out at the end of the show.  A lot of big wood had been turned into smaller wood.

Life is good.

The Forge

So this is the short story of the forge.  I'm not sure when I got interested in forges and blacksmithing, but it's been a couple years.  I approached it in quite a desultory manner; so much so that its very existence on my property is remarkable.  Anyway, one evening last fall I was standing around a friend's hunting camp mostly nervous drinking due to the social nature of the evening when the conversation happened to turn to forging and I expressed an interest.  

Frank.  The builder of the camp and owner of the forge.  "I got a forge ya can have.  It's in the barn, though, you'll have ta wait til it dries out a bit."
 The forge was, of course in the back corner of the barn behind a bunch of maple shack equipment, a couple lawn mowers frozen in place with locked up wheels, a pile of tetanus and some other odds and ends related to farming and personal injury.  Anyway, we extricated it, got it in my truck somehow, and I drove it home.




It belonged to Frank's grandfather originally.

She was well rusted out and the blower was seized up and filled with the hopes and dreams of some long dead chipmunk.  The hood is in pretty poor condition, and the rust is pretty extensive.  So it sat for a good time under the roof of the shed.

Until Nathan brought over his anvil and rehung a straight peen hammer to get me unstuck from my indifference.

As usual, I had some help.  Some of it was even helpful, but that particular variety is not pictured here.

I heated up the nuts and bolts with a torch and was amazed when almost all of them came apart.  A few broke, but none created any real problems.  Here you see the blower removed from the body of the forge.  It cleaned out pretty easily and with a couple screw tightenings it spun freely again.

Here you're looking at the bottom of the firepot and the clinker breaker, which... wait for it... breaks the clinkers.

The tools and supervision of the trade.

Firepot removed from the hearth and belts removed from the flywheel... perhaps a little prematurely, but it gave Nathan and I some brain games to play.  #staving off the Alzheimers!

Gratuitous shot of the flywheel.

In need of having the rust burned off 'em.  The pot, clinker breaker, and blower.

Nathan came down the weekend before last and we did some thrift store shopping.  Popped some tags as the kids like to say.  Nathan was excited about the sparkly belts and plans to make his Halloween outfit out of the buckles and a few leather scraps.  The rest of the belts we cut up and used to attach the hand lever to the counterweight and the counterweight to the flywheel (main band) shaft.

Nathan brought his angle grinder and attention to detail and spent a better part of Saturday cleaning the forge and cutting the belts.

He had better luck with the belts than with the rust.

This past week I finally got the main belt assembled and run around the main band wheel and the blower shaft.  I couldn't help but try it out.  We had collected some charcoal from the fire the previous weekend, and I'd been collecting charcoal from the other campfires.  The forge roared to life for the first time since before WWII!  Everything held together and worked as it should.  I couldn't have been more pleased.

The current, less than ideal setup.  We'll have to carry Nathan's anvil around whenever we want to use it, which is troublesome.  It weighs several pounds or more, and really begs to be attached to something sturdy for hammering.  Also, there's not a tonne of room to work under the roof, which, besides all the firewood, is also flammable... or inflammable.

Haven't done much yet, just tested it out by heating up an old horseshoe.  I hammered on it for awhile and made a paper weight that was the butt of many a joke.  Hope everyone wants paper weights for christmas this year!

The catalog for Buffalo Forges can be found here.  Mine is a pretty similar to Model No. 0 on page 245.  It retailed for $54.00 (with the water tank attachment) in 1891, and was to be appreciated by all smiths for it's cranked blower rather than a fan or bellows.

One last vacation post

So this will be the final vacation post, as the title indicates, and it's likely to be a long one. This is all the miscellany of activities and sites that didn't get into the other posts. So prepare yourself for some jumps through time and between topics.

First off, we have ostentatious displays of wealth.  The harbor was crammed full of incredible yachts and schooners and whatever else rich people call their boats.  This one had some incredible lines and woodwork.  Next, we have ostentatious terrestrial displays of wealth.  Again, what can I say... the houses were beautiful.  It's pretty cool what a few million bucks can buy.

At the end of Watch Hill, there is an operational lighthouse.  Both the point and the structure itself are amazing.  Very picturesque.  Although I would be willing to keep this house if it was the only one available, I would prefer something much more remote.  Still, it was a neat feeling to watch the light blink and to hear the horn blow at night.

These wild roses were everywhere.  I suspect that they are deliberately planted and pruned by a legion of underpaid migrant workers just to perfume the atmosphere of Watch Hill.

On Monday Sarah, Veneta, Zhora, Jenn, and I went to a restaurant called Mews Tavern in Wakefield, Rhode Island.  They had a nice offering of various seafoods and pizzas and burgers; better than average pub fair, but we were especially excited that they had 70 beers on tap.  Now, be assured that I am bragging when I say that I had tasted all of the beers on the menu except a handful of local brews.  It's pretty cool to have all those flavors in my taste memory.  For better or worse, "Tasting" is not a learning style.  Neither is drinking beer, for that matter.  I may have missed my calling.

Zhora was a great part of the crew.  She was well behaved, enthusiastic, and curious pretty much simultaneously, pretty much all the time.  We played a lot of games, made a lot of believe, read some books, solved some puzzles, and ran around an awful lot.

I don't remember exactly what the deal was with this carousel, and I'm too lazy to look it up, but I do remember that the hair is from real manes and tails and that it's one of the few remaining carousels where the horses hang from chains.  The horses themselves struck me as rather grotesque, and the eyes in particular gave them the appearance that they might turn on the young riders or the surrounding crowd if given half the chance.  Still, the kids seemed to enjoy it, especially the end when they got to try to grab the rings on their way past.

Zhora won a ribbon and a ring one afternoon, ostensibly for grabbing a bunch of rings on her way by, but I suspect all the kids get rings after their parents dump the equivalent of $20 in change on the ride.  Still, I was happy for her, and it was nice for Bob to see some tangible results from buying so many tickets and standing by and watching his kid go round and round.

I think this one might not need a caption...

It was very nice that the house had a fire pit.  This crew HAD to take advantage.

It was the 195th anniversary of the birth of Herman Melville, and since we didn't go to Mystic to hear the marathon reading of Moby Dick, we read the first few chapters around the campfire.  It was pretty awesome.  I realized how rarely we, as adults, read aloud or to each other.  I really enjoyed hearing everyone's voices.

Veneta was really excited about going on a train ride and purchased tickets for us all to get on-board a Pullman car for a little scenic tour.  Though short, the ride was very enjoyable.

We enjoyed watching the scenery go by and looked for egrets, osprey, and other birds as we rode past rivers and marshes and inlets.  It was quite relaxing.  At the far end of the line we disembarked to get on a river boat and ambled up the river a ways before returning to the train and, ultimately, back to the rail yard.

Engine 3025

One of the big events of the trip was Sarah's quest for her first lobster.  We had tried and failed to accomplish this task on our trip to Maine last year.  We were too far out of tourist season, apparently.  But this summer; success!  We ate at a restaurant in the old coastguard barracks.  There was a SUPER swanky part inside, downstairs, so we proceeded upstairs.  As an aside, while waiting for a seat, I had the best local beer of the trip.  A really well balanced, flavour packed Belgian.

A little help from Mom!

This is the two headed monster!  Scary.

This is my dream boat.  Seriously.  If I had to have something bigger than a canoe, this is what it would be.  Note the Coors Light tap handle attached to the throttle lever.

This is from one of the final days where it rained and we walked around Stonington, went to the "fair", visited the farmers market and the wharf, and did a little shopping.  I wish this was more in focus, but it was a moment and a vision and I snapped it on the fly. 

Thanks for this picture, Zhora!