Actually it was Kind of Great - Blacksmithing with Children - (No)NaBloPoMo Day 4
Allegedly, back when he was six, Jackson asked me how old he had to be to blacksmith and I said "in five years." So ever since the kid turned the big one one, meaning 6+5=11, he was on me like white on rice to try out the forge.
I was pretty sure I had a one-year reprieve. He was seven when we had this conversation. I knew this mainly because I wrote a blogpost about it. I didn't even bring up this factoid though. I figured I had an ace in the hole: "Go ask your mother," I told him.
"Sure," said my sister-in-law Mary. "Ella wants to try too."
That didn't go as planned.
Not that I wasn't loving the idea of schooling the kids in the art of bending steel, but to bend steel, you need a fire that is two thousand degrees Fahrenheit. That's fucking hot. You get your tiny eleven-year-old fingers anywhere near that roaring white-hot scorcher and you have a 3rd degree burn worthy of an inpatient stay. Plus, my shop is not OSHA compliant. By a long long shot.
So then I said to Jack, "You need 100% cotton clothes. No synthetics. Synthetics burn like plastic and stick to your skin. It's very dangerous. So make sure you dress right otherwise no dice." I guess I was thinking he'd get distracted sometime between my proclamation and the day of his visit.
Jack was not distracted.
He came flying in our front door and showed me the label on his pants.
I took Jack and Ella down to the forge and we practiced not reflexively picking up things we've dropped, which is a fantastic way to either smash your head or burn yourself or both. Then we practiced tossing off a glove if it felt hot.
Jack made an S hook and something we decided after the fact was a marshmallow skewer for open fire roasting scenarios:
I was pretty sure I had a one-year reprieve. He was seven when we had this conversation. I knew this mainly because I wrote a blogpost about it. I didn't even bring up this factoid though. I figured I had an ace in the hole: "Go ask your mother," I told him.
"Sure," said my sister-in-law Mary. "Ella wants to try too."
That didn't go as planned.
Not that I wasn't loving the idea of schooling the kids in the art of bending steel, but to bend steel, you need a fire that is two thousand degrees Fahrenheit. That's fucking hot. You get your tiny eleven-year-old fingers anywhere near that roaring white-hot scorcher and you have a 3rd degree burn worthy of an inpatient stay. Plus, my shop is not OSHA compliant. By a long long shot.
So then I said to Jack, "You need 100% cotton clothes. No synthetics. Synthetics burn like plastic and stick to your skin. It's very dangerous. So make sure you dress right otherwise no dice." I guess I was thinking he'd get distracted sometime between my proclamation and the day of his visit.
Jack was not distracted.
He came flying in our front door and showed me the label on his pants.
I took Jack and Ella down to the forge and we practiced not reflexively picking up things we've dropped, which is a fantastic way to either smash your head or burn yourself or both. Then we practiced tossing off a glove if it felt hot.
Jack made an S hook and something we decided after the fact was a marshmallow skewer for open fire roasting scenarios:
Ella at the forge:
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