My dad’s blacksmith shop set at the lower end of our meadow beside the dirt road. It was a small wooden building that held his tools and big equipment. During the winter months and the rainy days of summer Dad had lots of smithy work to do. Neighboring farmers brought their horses to be shod, harnesses to be mended, and tools to be repaired. They hitched their horses to fence posts and sat in the shop or on the porch to talk while Dad worked. Some jobs took longer than others to finish.
I was not allowed inside the shop when Dad was heating the forge and working with hot iron. Sometimes I stood outside and watched him through the glass window pane. When he pumped the big bellows to make the fire burn hotter, flames shot up high and sparks flew everywhere. To me, at nine years old, it looked like a fire breathing dragon. I thought Dad was very brave. He took a piece of iron, holding it with a big pair of tongs and put it in the fire coals until it turned red. Next, it was dipped into a bucket of water to cool. Then on to the anvil, where Dad beat the iron with a big hammer until it was just the right shape. All of that looked dangerous to me, so I quit watching.
My dad could fix almost anything. He bought a cane press, repaired it and mounted it on a small wooden platform with sled runners. When our neighbors cane patch was ready to harvest, they stripped the leaves off and cut the stalks. The cane tops were saved for seed or to feed the chickens. On molassy making day they brought a horse and hooked it to the little sled and took the press home with them. It was a very busy time for adults. Someone was feeding cane stalks into the press to extract the juice. The horse, tethered to the mill with a long pole, walked around and around in circles making the wheels turn. Other folks were setting the long vat over the fire pit getting ready to boil the molasses. Quart and half gallon mason jars were clean and waiting for the hot molasses to be poured in and sealed up. That was hard work. It took all day.
We kids did small chores, played games and climbed up on the discarded pile of cane stalks and slid off. We were waiting for the molasses to finish boiling and come off the fire so we could sop the empty boiler. Small wooden paddles were whittled for us from thin pieces of wood, no splinters. We put them to good use and loved it when we got a taste of the foam on our paddles. Our neighbors brought the cane press back and also gave Dad a half gallon of molasses for the use of the mill. I have sweet memories of going to the molasses makings at our neighbors house.
Dad’s blacksmith shop is long gone and only stands by the roadside in my memories. The blacksmith equipment from the shop is on display at the Mountain Farm Life Museum at Ashe Park in Jefferson, NC.
