Blacksmithing!

Ever since I decided to change my thesis topic to a study of medieval smiths and their work, Hugh and Christopher have been suggesting I join them at their weekly blacksmithing evenings. They started this with Christopher's son, Dave, and have made a forge, set up a few anvils, and started a regular back-yard blacksmith's smithy. It's a lot of fun. I've been twice now, and it's a fun learning curve. The metal looks very neat when it's all glowing and maleable, and I sort of wish there was a way to keep it looking that way... It's kind of surprising that banging on something with a hammer can shape it smoothly, but it happens... somehow.

So far I've made two hooks, which are proudly on display in my kitchen. One is holding a series of sealed bags containing a lot of dried fish I brought back from Iceland - gotta keep it away from the cats somehow! I'm trying to make a viking-ship candle-holder... but so far just practicing making the "tail" of the dragon-ship... It's a lot of fun, and definitely the funnest part of my thesis research...

These are photos of the forge. It doesn't get hot enough to weld the iron, but just hot enough to shape it. And here's Hugh using a more modern way of cutting the iron into smaller pieces. I have not found that sparks fly off the anvil as you pound hot iron with a hammer, but maybe I'm not doing it right, or maybe the metal isn't quite hot enough...

In more cat-like news: today is the THIRD day in a row that I have found a rather dead or dying mouse in the apartment. Mice have been known to infiltrate my pantry sometimes, and meet their doom in a trap. But I have NEVER known mice to enter the apartment itself. Ava has been THRILLED at the hunting opportunities. She is always VERY proud to have caught a mouse, and she has this rather maniacal blood-thirsty purr that's quite funny and rather terrifying. To my knowledge these are the first mice she's ever encountered. So far as I can tell she's not interested at all in eating the mice. Just 'playing' with them until they do not play any more. I have only found one alive so far. The other two were decidedly dead and not so much fun as playmates any more... Ajax doesn't seem so interested in the mice. Or maybe he is, but Ava is so bloody terrifyingly protective of HER kills that he doesn't dare come near them.