Flooding you with blacksmithing posts.

Luckily, my husband has been bitten by the blacksmithing bug. After his introductory February 15th class, we headed to Metal Supermarkets - Marietta (ask for "Heinie") to purchase some of our own square stock steel for Hammer Therapy on Friday nights at the Goat n Hammer. We picked up some 1/4" and 1/2" square stock (1/4" hooks, 1/2" fire poker.)

While we were only supposed to go to Hammer Therapy on the 27th, we decided to go on the 20th as well (who am I to argue, right?) The drive down to Atlanta was fun (not! see "omg! snow flurries! panic! pull over!") and we arrived in time for Hammer Therapy. I decided to just work on J-hooks while Andrew decided to work on all three. After a good two plus hours of hammering some steel, we called it a night. Not much to brag about. We made hooks. It was cold.

Instead, we invited any of our friends to come down on the 27th to the 6-8 Hammer Therapy and dinner afterwards at Six Feet Under. I've been arguing with the weather and crossing my fingers for a clear night, and it appears to have worked (thus far. It is Georgia, after all.)

I don't have any new and interesting pieces to share with you, but if you think blacksmithing might pique your interest, I invite you to Hammer Therapy on Friday nights. It is open to beginners who want to see if they might enjoy swinging a hammer enough to participate in the introductory classes.

I enjoy it so much that I signed up for the blacksmithing curriculum class and start on Monday, March 2nd! (which I just realized is not too far away)

Everybody's working for the weekend; I'm working for blacksmithing.

The title about says it all. I don't have many updates to share, but I will say that I forged to finished my first knife last weekend (the 14th, of all days.) I enjoyed it immensely. Thanks to the wonderful instruction by Mark (see previous post,) I have learned a sliver of how metal moves, how to make it move in the direction I want it to move, and how to fix most of my blunders. However, not so contrary to the rest of things I try, every once in awhile, they'll be a blunder that I am at a complete loss as to how to fix, and even Mark asks, "what the fuuuuuuh?" I don't know. I consider that talent!

The culmination of the previous classes (J-hooks and S-hooks, fire poker, and copper spoon) is the railroad spike knife. Everything that had been learned in prior classes is used in the railroad spike knife class. I had some wobbles along the way, but instead of causing a "WTF" moment, I was able to pull it back around and, with the help of Mark's instruction, fix my minor blunders. Looking at my knife NOW, I pick it apart, "I could have cleaned this up a bit more; I could have straightened that out just a bit," but that's how it's supposed to be, right?

And this is my finished product.....

 

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Riding on the confidence high from my RR spike knife, I then signed up for the Viking Belt Knife class. Now, I could already tell by the finished product that this knife was going to be quite different from the RR spike knife. The fact that it is forged from a piece of curved metal from a coil spring didn't bother me. The statement by Mark earlier in the day was enough to make me go, "oh dear God...." and that statement was, "dress warmly...make sure you eat a good meal before you come...we have a lot of metal to move, and I don't want anyone growing faint." Normally, that'd be a har har har moment. This was NOT a har har har moment.

After leaving work near the Atlanta city limits at 4, I drove home, grabbed good to eat on the rest of my drive home, got home at 5, let dogs out, fed dogs, changed clothes (wear layers,) waited for Andrew, and headed down to Goat n Hammer. Basically my drive went point A to point B to back down to point A and then 15 miles further. Did I mention it was f*%#ing cold? Cold as in....20s (Fahrenheit) with a windchill making it "feel like 8 degrees." Good thing forging = fire. 

We start with the spring coil that has been cut, and for sake of brevity, I will say the steps go something like this (give or take a dozen I am probably missing, and several heats in between:)

* Forge curve to flat piece
* Set down at measured mark
* Set down on horn at original mark and then 90 degree mark until about 3/8" or so
* Flip piece around, and start drawing out the 4" to 7" (lots and lots and lots of King Kong hammering...not with a power hammer....a regular 2 - 2-1/2" hammer)
* Clean up drawn out piece into nice squared piece
* Make octagonals on diamond one side, 180 degrees to other side
* Make octagonals on opposite diamond on one side, 180 degrees to other side
* End up with a nice, almost round shape
* Flip piece back around and put in fire
* Bring piece out, hammer square point on end to draw out to 4-1/2" length (I think...if I remember correctly.)
* Hammer "blade" flat (after turning 90 degrees from the hammer point)
* Hammer the shit out of it until it's the right thickness
* Clean up hammer blows, ensure bottom line is straight, smooth top line to a nice, gentle curve, draw down tip
* Cross peen down the middle of one side of the blade
* Cross peen down the blade edge of the other side
* Repeat
* Ensure blade is cleaned up nicely
* Flip blade around
* Fish tail the end of the octagonal side
* Curve fish tail to match curve of ricasso
* Heat and curve fish tail end into loop
* Fish tailed end should fit nicely in ricasso area

I got the set down portion. I ran through octagonals (because of time and the fact that I can come back and clean them up,) and I started on my blade. That's it, and hey, I'm okay with that. I won't give up on my little knife, but like other pieces I work on (artwork,) there comes a point when you need to set it to the side and give it some time before picking it back up again to continue work on it. I'm not mad at it. I'm not upset at the way it is turning out, but it just needs some time so that I can work on some other things (like hooks and such,) build up more confidence and skill, and approach it fresh in the future.

Got home around 11:30 last night, showered, and in bed for work the next morning. Feel like a cross between a flu patient and a hard-worked older woman.

Essential Oils: Some tweaking.

Tweaking...as in a little bit here, a little bit there,  measure, re-measure, measure one more time, dilute, check any warnings, any contraindications, any health warnings, phototoxicity....

And I will be releasing my first batch of Purity & Simplicity products soon!

This first batch will be cold weather-seasonal (just in time, right? Winter is supposed to officially end in a month and a half.) I won't go into details, but some of the Winter-specific products (available year-round) will include body butter, body scrub, aromatic chews, a soothing cough syrup, and lip balm.

We are putting some final touches on labels, in order to follow proper FDA, USDA, and USDA/NOP guidelines*. HOPEFULLY we will have our first run of products available soon.

* We believe in following the rules and guidelines set forth by product-governing organizations such as the FDA, USDA, USDA/NOP, and the EPA (for our insect repellent.) Therefore, we ensure all of our products' labels include the following information:

1. Name of our product
2. Our name: Purity & Simplicity
3. Net quantity, including net weight for items sold by weight
4. Place of business
5. Ingredients using INCI name from most to least
6. Safety statements such as "not for use in children under the age of 8," etc.

The majority of ingredients (95%) are Organic-certified (by USDA).

Blacksmithing.

Blacksmithing has always intrigued me: intrigued me in a sense of "well that's neat." It wasn't until I had seen some of my friend, Brad's, creations that I became interested in wanting to learn how to do that. When my friend, Nona, had mentioned Goat n' Hammer in Atlanta, I quickly visited their website and saw they offered classes.

Under the guidance of the ever-patient and entertaining Mark Hopper, I have been honored and humbled to explore the realm of blacksmithing with the 4-part Introductory Series of classes: J-hook and S-hooks, fire poker, copper spoon (now steel spoon,) and a railroad spike knife.

After my first class, I couldn't feel my forearms and burned myself in two places. After my second class, Nona couldn't feel her forearms. Mark and Jessica told us about some exercises we could do to strengthen a "teeny tiny muscle" that is a flexor muscle.

If you succeed at other forms of art and hardwork, and you go into trying blacksmithing and apply things you know about whatever, you'll be sorely disappointed. Blacksmithing is quite a bit more than heating up some metal and smacking it with a hammer. There are body mechanics. There are ways various types of metal move under heat and when cold. It's like chasing a herd of cats, and then when you're done, you have this finished piece. This chasing cats activity is even more prevalent in working with copper. There was a point (the first hour and a half) where Nona and I looked at each other and said, "I have no idea what I'm doing, but apparently, I'm doing it right." We just followed instructions and continued from there. Hammer here, hammer there, file here, do this, go here, do that, not too much heat, more heat needed, and voila! A spoon! Okay, it's a bit more than that, but OUR first time? That's what it felt like.

Goat n' Hammer is located off Foster Street in Atlanta, Georgia. It is part of the Goat Farm Arts Center. Classes are offered in the four part introduction series and now a blacksmithing curriculum as well. Mark and John are both very patient with newbies, and they offer open anvil sessions referred to as "Hammer Therapy" and open anvil without any form of guidance sessions called "Church."

And now....pictures....

Gardening in Suburbia

One topic of interest for many people is gardening and specifically gardening in a suburban or urban setting. When we lived in a rental house that had land that just was not conducive to a normal garden, we researched and found City Picker's Patio Garden Kit. That was back in 2011. We purchased one Patio Garden Kit and mistakenly planted three tomato plants in it. I say "mistakenly" because the instructions say to plant that many, but what we ended up with was three, 7 feet tall tomato plants and an over-abundance of tomatoes. (How many friends got dozens of tomatoes THAT season?!)

Here is what our first round of City Picker's Patio Garden Kits looked like:

We had cute little marigolds planted, mainly because they were easy to grow, but also because they act as natural pest deterrents. These three little plants became monstrous tomato plants, and while we did have to hand-pick two tomato hornworms off of the plants, we still had an incredibly successful "harvest." 

That brings us to our growing season of 2014 wherein we purchased three City Picker's Patio Garden Kits. This time we planted two tomato plants in one, a pickling cucumber plant in another, and a straightneck squash plant in the third.

As you can see, this was one week after we planted our City Pickers (by the way, they are very easy to set up, and the instructions are easy to follow.) When we first had our City Pickers, they included small binder clips to use to anchor the black plastic covering. In 2014, large rubber bands were provided. You can also purchase replacement black plastic coverings to reuse your planters each year. 

By June 2014, this is what our garden looked like (with a cameo by Grimm, our German Shepherd: )

As you can see, TWO tomato plants (far left) is also entirely too many for a City Picker. I'd recommend ONE. One issue we DID have last year with our City Pickers was MOSQUITOES. We could not figure out why we had so many mosquitoes in our yard last year when there weren't any bodies of standing water nearby...except for the City Pickers.

You see, City Pickers are self-watering garden boxes. They are on raised casters, and there is a fill tube (as you can see in the April 5th, 2014 photos) where you fill water, and then wait for it to dribble out of the overflows on the side to stop. Unfortunately, this also means there is a small, standing, water reservoir in the base of the City Pickers. THIS was the perfect breeding ground for mosquitoes as they would fly in through the fill tube, lay eggs which would hatch, and fly back out...that was even with TWICE a day watering.

When the plants were done growing, we dumped the City Pickers, and small swarms of mosquitoes came flying out of the bottom of the planters.

To combat that this year, we will be adhering pantyhose to the fill tube as well as both overflow holes on either side. Well...I say pantyhose, but we may use some other form of mosquito netting like what is used on rain barrels and such. This *should* prevent mosquitoes from setting up their brothels in our City Picker Patio Garden Kits.

We will also be planting ONE tomato plant in one of the Pickers and probably keep the one cucumber plant and one squash plant. On top of that, we will be planting A LOT of marigolds and sunflowers to help deter harmful insects as well as attract good predator insects.