The Apprentice Blacksmith

I'm a homebody.  Granted, I like to travel and see new places, but my roots are at my home and on our little farm.  I love the land.  That being said, I think it is important to get away sometimes, to see new sights, and expose the kids to things outside of our normal realm.  Most importantly, it allows us to spend some valuable time together as a family.

I really admire the Amish and have read extensively about them (AmishAmerica.com).  One of the interesting things about them is that they use a horse and buggy for transportation instead of a car.  Their reason for this is that the horse and buggy gives them a traveling range of about 20 miles.  This limitation does several things: it slows down the pace and acts as a 'brake' to the daily hustle and bustle we experience.  It also helps to preserve family and community as mobility tends to fragment families. Finally, the horse and buggy is a deliberate means to resist the ways of the world in order to maintain a healthy distance from a worldly, corrupting culture.

Well, the Great Smoky Mountain National Park is a lot further than a 20 mile traveling range.  While my goal is to maintain distance from the world, we had to rent the "horse and buggy" below since our vehicles are too small to carry us and our camping gear to the mountains.  We drove 12 hours straight and arrived at our destination - Smokemont Campsite in the Great Smoky Mountain National Park right outside of Cherokee, North Carolina.

Arriving at Smokemont campsite and unloading after a 12 hour drive

We got our tent set up in what would serve as 'home' for the next week and unpacked.

Home Sweet Home (away from home)

We pulled out our Coleman stove that runs on unleaded gasoline.  We got this as a wedding shower gift back in 1990 and it is still going strong - just like our marriage and just like the Coffee & Chicory we made on it!  We laughed at the box that the stove is still stored in that touts its fuel economy using regular gasoline compared to Coleman Fuel because the price per gallon of gasoline in the comparison on the box was $1.50!  Why do meals cooked outdoors while camping always taste fantastic? 

Camp Coffee with cream from Daisy that we brought along for a taste of home!

Just a literal stone's throw away from our tent was the Bradley Fork that flows into the Oconaluftee River.  I cannot begin to explain the peacefulness that a babbling brook right outside your tent will do for you.

Standing on the Solid Rock

We headed over to the Oconaluftee Visitor Center where Benjamin started the Junior Ranger program. The Visitor Center had a Mountain Farm Museum which featured a rustic farm set-up with barns, a smokehouse, a springhouse, corn crib, garden, place where they made syrup from sorghum, pig sty, hen house, blacksmith shop, etc. Benjamin attended an exhibit where a Ranger intern discussed how kids amused themselves before iPads, the Internet, and smartphones and showed them how they played games and made toys that didn't have batteries.  Wow!

The next exhibit was put on by Ranger Sarah in the blacksmith shop.  Benjamin got to put on a leather apron and gloves and learn by hands-on experience about blacksmithing.  I wish you could have seen how excited he was!

Ranger Sarah in the Blacksmith Shop

On the left you can see the bellows which blows oxygen into the fire, enabling the fire to burn hot enough to make iron 'cherry red.'

Two way bellows 

Speaking of hands on experience, here is Benjamin operating the bellows.

Our Apprentice Blacksmith

As he pulls the lever up and down, oxygen is injected into the fire fueled by coal.  Iron is laid in the fire and you can see it begin to glow.  Ranger Sarah described that North Carolina is not a coal producing state. Settlers had to travel to West Virginia, Ohio, or other neighboring coal producing states and barter for coal. We had a family discussion about this later and posed the question to the kids, "If the economy crashed and money was worthless, what skill do we possess that we could produce goods to barter with?"  People working in coal mines don't have a lot of time to raise crops so one could trade corn or grain for coal.

Have you ever thought about what good or service you could trade for items that you need?  We trade some dairy products for honey from a local beekeeper friend.  We both benefit from the transaction.  Eggs were a typical commodity that could be traded in farming communities as well.  I'm sure you've seen Laura Ingalls bringing surplus eggs to the Oleson's Mercantile on Little House on the Prairie.  A family farming economy is a wholesome enterprise and one that teaches valuable life lessons.  I wouldn't trade growing up on a farm for anything.  It made me who I am today.

We joked that our President would not like this blacksmith shop since coal is not one of his favorite industries.

Benjamin had the opportunity to make a dinner bell for our family.  Here he is putting a piece of red-hot steel into an appendage of the anvil with his vise grips where he will make his first bend and then dunk the steel in a bucket of water to cool it before making his next bend.

Making the bend

Now Benjamin is using a hammer to shape the ringer.

Bang! Bang! Bang!

Here is the finished product - a homemade dinner bell made by our resident blacksmith.

You can ring my bell...

Blacksmith Benjamin demonstrates how one might call the family for supper.  It is hard work being a blacksmith and makes you work up an appetite.

Supper Time!

I took a picture of part of the mountain farm exhibit below, showing a corn field in the foreground, with a corn crib, large barn and split rail fence in the background. This looks beautiful, but as I explained to the family, getting this farm to this point required clearing the land, removing rocks from the soil, and building the farm buildings all without modern tools and equipment.  The farm family worked together and worked hard. Their very survival depended upon it in a land that could be unforgiving and cruel at times.

Mountain Farm Museum at the Oconaluftee Visitor Center

Farm families worked long hours 6 days a week and then on the Sabbath, they rested. They gathered with other farm families and worshiped God and fellowshipped with their neighbors.  Faith, Family, and Friends were vital.  It was inspiring to see the work ethic displayed by our forebears and the determination to survive and thrive amidst numerous obstacles.

I'll bet they were glad when the dinner bell rang!