Forging into Unexplored Territory

“Hey grandpa,” Scott approached his grandfather as the representative of the cousin clan. “Wouldn't it be cool if we had a forge? You know, like a blacksmith forge?”

“Hmm,” Richard responded thoughtfully. “I suppose it might be a nifty project to take on. It's a little more of a project than you children might think.”

“What do you mean, grandpa?” Samuel asked. “All we need is a fire, an anvil, and some tools, right?”

“Oh, not exactly,” the older gentleman replied with a chuckle. “A forge is a lot more than a fire and an anvil. You need a furnace that can take a lot of heat. You need a bellows to give the fire all the air it needs. Besides that, you need some metal to work with. What good's a forge without some metal to hammer on?”

“Are you telling us it's too much work?” Luke inquired with a disappointed look.

“No,” Richard responded slowly. “I just want you to know how much work it's going to be. Now let's see if we can find what we need to make a forge.”

That's how it all started. One short conversation detailing the possibilities and Grandpa Henning was building a forge. The first thing he needed was a furnace of sorts. He found an old truck rim and attached three legs to one side so that it would stand horizontally about two feet off the ground. Then he attached a short metal pipe through one of the holes in the rim and lined the rim with concrete, being careful not to cover the end of his pipe. Once the rim was lined to his satisfaction, he concentrated on the other half of the furnace issue: the bellows. 

Richard rummaged through his workshop until he found a small bolt of vinyl seat upholstery. It was charcoal gray and looked like leather to the children. He set the vinyl aside and looked through his scrap board pile until he found two pieces of wood that suited him. He sketched an outline on one board, nodding his head from side to side as he saw the desired shape form under the careful guidance of his carpenter pencil. 

“Okay, kids,” he turned to his entourage. “It's dinnertime. This project will keep until tomorrow.”

Cries of protest echoed out through the small workshop as the children implored their grandfather not to leave their project unfinished. He insisted that they had plenty of time and one must eat in order to accomplish anything in life. The children relented for the time being as their own hunger settled into their consciousness.

The forge preparation project took a few days. Richard made the bellows from scratch using the vinyl, the wood pieces, a pair of wooden handles, a small spout, a round hole in one board, and a cardboard baffle on the inside. When it was all said and done, the bellows did exactly what it was meant to do: puffed air with every cycle.

Finally, after days of hard work, the forge was ready to fire. The cousins all gathered around as their grandfather built a fire in the truck rim furnace. He directed one of the kids to pick of the bellows and blow air through the metal tube. The fire flared with every puff. After a few minutes, it was ready for coal. The black chunks of coal slowly shifted color from dusty black to dull red to bright orange. Finally, the fire was ready for use.

“Now you will all have to take turns running the bellows,” Richard explained to his grandchildren. “The fire needs a lot of air to make steel soft enough to manipulate.”

“What's manipulate mean?” Luke questioned from the sidelines.

“It means change,” Samuel explained hesitantly. “He means it has to get really hot before we can hammer it into a different shape.”

Richard nodded as he carried a large chunk of fire wood from his pile and placed it on end a few feet away from the fire. He sat his large anvil on the chunk of wood and stepped back. He filled a five gallon bucket with water and situated it in between the anvil and the fire.

“Well, here's what you have to do,” he began with his trademark patience. “You can use these tongs to put you metal into the coals. Once it turns orange, you pull it out and take it over to the anvil. After you get tired of hammering on it, you dip it into the water until it's cool. Now listen. There's only one anvil so you have to take turns.”

The children eagerly agreed to the terms of use and lined up to pick out tools from the myriad of options before them. Then they turned to the pile of scrap that had been provided for manipulation. They each sorted through the pile until they found something that seemed to suit them. It wasn't as if the children had anything specific in mind when they asked their grandfather for a forge. They just wanted to heat some metal up and pound on it until it looked different than it had before. Richard understood that this was probably the case. However, he seemed to find value in that particular type of exploration and saw no reason not to give his grandchildren the opportunity to explore. That's what the kids loved about their grandpa.

The group of cousins worked that forge all day. They took turns at the bellows as their grandfather added coal to the fire as needed. They put meal in the fire and watched the dull rust layer heat up and fall away to reveal a bright orange piece underneath. They pounded the hot metal just to see what they could do with it. They'd bend it in half or pound it out as thin as it would pound. once the color faded to grayish black, they plunged it into the bucket and watched the water dance around the metal as the steam rose into the air to the sound of hissing.

Richard supervised patiently from the sidelines, only interfering when it was an absolute necessity. Don't touch that yet. It's still hot. You should leave that in the fire a little longer. Wait your turn. Gentle guidances like these accompanied the busy tasks of the children until it was time to shut things down for the day. Grandpa doused the fire with water from the bucket and instructed the kids to leave things as they were. He could clean up after they left, but not too much. The South Carolina cousins still had a few days to spend in Ohio and he fully expected to be firing the forge once or twice before they headed south. The kids reluctantly left the forge behind as they headed back to the farm for the evening chores.

“That was awesome,” Benjamin sighed contentedly as the kids climber over the pasture fence stile (A stile is a set of small steps that allowed a human to climb over the barbed wire fence but still prevented the bovine pasture residents from escaping.) “I'm pretty sure that grandpa could make anything.”

“Yup,” Scott agreed. “I think you're right.”

Ben'sThree-Wheeler Mishap

“Come on, Benj,” Scott addressed his younger cousin. “Hop on the back. We gotta bring the cows in.”

Eleven-year-old Benjamin was eager to oblige his cousin as he mounted the Honda three-wheeler. Riding the three-wheeler was always fun even though nobody ever let him drive. Who knows? He thought to himself. Maybe today is the day? He leaned back on the seat and tightly grasped the warm metal bars of the cargo rack that was mounted on the back of the ATV. Scott turned the key, bringing the machine to life, and shifted into first gear before pressing the accelerator lever with his right thumb.

The boys drove up the barn hill, past the big sliding doors on the barn, and past the shop where Uncle David worked diligently replacing triangle blades on the cutter bar of the farm's haybine. Ben leaned close to his cousins back as they approached the sugar camp. There was a single strand of bared wire stretched across the driveway. Scott leaned forward and pinched the wire between two barbs with his thumb and fore finger. He picked the wire up over his and Ben's head as he drove underneath on the way to the pie pasture.

“You ever drop that on your head?” Benjamin asked.

“No,” Scott replied. “But Luke forgot it was there once and drove right through it.”

“Man,” Ben replied with a grimace. “I'll bet that hurt.”

“Oh yeah,” Scott confirmed. “His tummy was all scratched up. He was pretty tough about it though. Right up until mom saw, that is. She made a big deal about it and he started crying. Funny how mom's can do that, huh? You know, ruin your tough attitude with one 'oh honey, what happened?!'”

Ben nodded in response as they drove by the lumber barn. The slab pile laid put front. The top boards were bleached from the weather. That's why it was so obvious that Scott had been searching through the pile for slabs that might be useful for his purposes. Scott had developed an interest in carpentry thanks primarily to the influence of his grandfathers. Scott wasn't allowed to use the lumber from the barn for projects without his father's expressed permission, but the slab pile was fair game. He made regular trips back and forth between the slab pile and his “shop” in the sugar camp.

The boys turned left into the pie pasture (so named for it's triangular shape) and drove along the high tensile fence line to the back corner of the pasture. The cows were all bedded down in the lower back corner where the trees from the woods provided a welcome relief from the hot summer sun. The cows heard the sound of the three-wheeler and glanced lazily across the field at the approaching boys. Some of the older and more experienced cows took the initiative and got to their feet. By the time the boys go to the herd, half of them were already moseying in the general direction of the barn.

Scott carefully steered the ATV through the remaining cows, poking them with a length of one and a half inch black pipe he carried for herding purposes.

“Hyaa,” he hollered as the cows paid him just enough mind. “Come on. Let's go. We don't have all night.”

Scott maneuvered the three wheeled vehicle back and forth behind the lumbering herd, ensuring that the stragglers didn't get left behind. After an amount of time that wasn't nearly as long as it felt to the boys who were riding around on a vehicle going well below optimal driving speed, the last cow finally walked into the barn. It took quite a while for the herd to get far enough into the barn for the boys to successfully close the gate. There wasn't a reliable water source in the pasture so the cows crowded around the large watering trough, insistent on drinking their fill before continuing to the feed bunk. It always amazed the boys how quickly the cows could take a five hundred gallon trough from overflowing to empty.

Scott closed the gate and wrapped the chain around the post to keep it closed. He turned to his cousin.

“You wanna drive?” he asked with a smile.

“You bet!” Ben replied, his voice thick with excitement.

Ben jumped onto the three-wheeler and waited impatiently as his cousin climbed on behind him.

“Okay,” Scott began. “Shift with your left foot. Up is up down is down. Brake on your right.”

“Okay,” Ben replied as he put the ATV in first gear. “ Here we go.”

He apprehensively pressed the accelerator lever and the vehicle slowly started up the sugar camp hill. He was so excited. He was finally getting a chance to drive the infamous three-wheeler. His excitement was dampened slightly when the three-wheeler stalled halfway up the hill. The boys began to roll backwards down the hill.

“Brake, brake. Brake!” Scott instructed with increasing urgency.

Benjamin did not step on the brake pedal and Scott was too far back on the seat to do so. Instead, the two cousins and the machine upon which they rode rolled backwards down the hill and over a small bank right through a single barbed wire fence that separated the driveway from a cow lane that lead to the heifer pasture. The three-wheeler flipped backwards causing Scott to land on his back in the rocky dirt. Benjamin's landing was somewhat softer as his fall was broken by His cousin's soft paunch. The three-wheeler would have mad the situation much worse of Scott hadn't managed to catch it somewhat with his feet. The boys laid there stunned for a few moments before Scott broke the silence.

“Can you get off?” he grunted. “I don't think I can hold this thing much longer.”

Ben rolled out from in between Scott and the machine and awaited further instructions.

“Can you hold this so I can get up?” Scott inquired of his cousin.''

Ben grabbed both handlebars and steadied the three-wheeler while Scott got up. The boys gently returned the machine to it's upright and parked position and took a few moments to catch their breaths.

“Um,” Scott began. “I don't want you to take this the wrong way, but I think I'm going to drive.”

“Yeah,” Ben replied with a sheepish grin. “ I think that's probably a good idea.”

Eventually, Benjamin got a second chance at operating the three wheeler with much more favorable results. He eventually became a proficient operator. This just goes to show, if at first you may not succeed, make sure you have your overweight cousin on board to break your fall.

The Swamp Tree

The Henning boys walked through the heifer pasture in search of a new adventure. The backlash from their recent creek damming activities was enough to push them in a different direction for the time being. However, it wouldn't be long before they found their way back into the shallow water of the pasture creek. On this day however, they looked elsewhere for entertainment. 

They were on their way towards a large deformed willow tree that laid in the middle of the pasture. The tree in question was highly unusual. The tree grew in the middle of a wet spot in the pasture where the soil never really dried out. As a result of the softer soil, the tree had failed to grow in the traditional upright manner. Several trunk-like branches grew from a central source but none of them grew straight up as one would expect of a tree. They all turned and seemed to lay across the ground instead. The tree was definitely alive, but the soil in which it grew lacked the structural properties required for more traditional growth patterns. 

The boys didn't mind the weirdness of the willow tree. Do to the trees unique nature and relative isolation in it's wet location, the boys had named it the swamp tree and they spent a lot of time playing on the swamp tree. Regular trees were a lot of fun, but they were fairly limited canvasses for the young imaginations of the children and they posed certain risks due the height of the structurally sound branches. A regular tree might become a castle tower or a light house but more often than not, the tree remained only a tree while the environment around it changed. For instance, many of Prince Johns lackeys had fallen prey to the arrows of Robin Hood's men as they made their way through the dangerous paths of Sherwood Forest. The trees of the forest provided the perfect vantage points for the men's constant struggle on behalf of the oppressed and poverty-stricken peasants against the minions of the greedy prince.

The swamp tree was different. The unique shape of the tree allowed so many more options for the boys. The fact that the tree grew primarily horizontal to the ground also decreased the risk of injury when the boys inevitably lost their footing as they played. The swamp tree could still be used as a tree. The imaginations of the children could easily add a tall trunk to the base of the tree and have the branches on which they played exist well above the ground on which their enemies walked. However, the swamp tree more often became anything from a pirate ship to a skyscraper. There were any number of island scenarios that became available to the boys due to the soggy nature of the ground around the swamp tree. Lava scenarios were also an option, though that one more or less broke down when the boys slipped off the tree and got their feet wet. 

The boys each carried their slab wood rifles as they jumped from one solid clump of grass to the next until they finally reached the tree. The children in the Henning family were not allowed to have toy guns because their mother was not comfortable with her children growing up with a flippant view of firearms. Therefore, the boys had to improvise in their imagination supplementation. A slab wood rifle was a throw-away piece of wood that the boys had pulled from the slab pile up by the heifer barn. The piece of wood was usually three or four feet long. The piece was narrow at one end and wide at the other due to the shape of the log from which it had been cut. The narrow end of the piece was the barrel and the wide end was the stock of the rifle. The boys would usually use their pocket knives to enhance the shapes of their rifles and would usually add a nail to stand in for a trigger and another as the site. 

Upon taking their places on their ship, the young seamen were almost immediately attacked by pirates. They fought bravely, shooting as many of their attackers as they could before their vessel was breached. At that point, they were unable to reload their rifles and were forced to cast them aside in favor of weapons more appropriate to the close combat situation. They drew their cutlasses from their scabbards and fought their way through the droves of grisly pirates who sought to take their tree...um, I mean ship. They tossed daggers to each other just in the nick of time and made it a habit to draw pistols from the belts of their enemies and use the weapons against the owners whenever possible. The battle was epic. The three strong sailors stood back to back to back and fought bravely. Many a buccaneer fell by their swords before they suffered first casualty. The youngest member of the three man crew lost his footing and fell from the ship. They tossed him a rope as he thrashed in the waves (stood calf deep in the mud) as they continued to fight off their attackers.

“Um,” their companion interjected. “I think I'm stuck.”

“Here,” the first mate responded as he held out his hand. “Grab my hand!”

The fallen sailor obliged but remained unable to rejoin the battle.

“Um, Caleb,” Scott addressed his captain. “He's really stuck. We can't get him out.”

“Oh,” Caleb responded as the ship morphed back into a tree and the pirates disappeared. “Here Luke, grab my hand to.”

Luke held tightly to his brothers' hands as they pulled as hard as they could to no avail. Luke remained a captive of the swamp. After a few more tries, he decided to leave his boot in the mud as he climbed back onto the swamp tree with one foot only clad in a white crew sock.

“Well, now what?” Caleb inquired of his brothers. “We can't just leave your boot out here. Mom and Dad will not be happy about that.”

“We could try to pull it out now,” Scott suggested. “Maybe it'll come out since Luke's foot isn't in it anymore.” 

He knelt down on the tree and held his left out towards his older brother. Caleb took his hand and applied appropriate weight away from his brother. Scott leaned forward and grabbed the boot and pulled. He grip slipped from the boot causing both boys to jerk and wobble. They swayed back and forth until they regained their balance.

“Whoa,” Caleb exclaimed. “Let's try not to do that again.”

“Seriously,” Scott agreed. “I can't keep a tight enough grip. I thought I felt it coming loose, but I couldn't hold on.”

“Do you have your pocket knife with the pliers?” Caleb inquired as Luke sheepishly stood by.

“Yes I do,” Scott replied. He reached into his right pocked and pulled out a shiny silver multi-tool.

“Grab the boot with the pliers and maybe you can hold on,” Caleb direct.

“Good idea,” Scott replied as he followed his brother's suggestion.

Scott reached out and pinched the top of the boot tightly with the pliers of his multi-tool. He tugged on the boot until it's sole was freed from it's swampy prison. Scott gingerly stood back up, being careful not to make any moves that would resign any of the boys to the fate from which the boot had been rescued. He held the boot out to his brother who took it gratefully and returned it to his foot. Caleb looked at his wrist-watch.

“I thinks it's time to dock this ship and head back to the house,” he declared.

“Just watch where you walk,” Scott suggested to no one in particular as the boys collected their slab wood firearms. “We don't have time to go through that again.”