As I said in the previous post, Ringwood Manor had a great Fourth of July celebration that was a throwback to the Colonial period. In addition to the excellent food and weaving demonstration, we also got a chance to watch the blacksmith do his thing. (Go here for a better look at the outside of his hut).

This is the fire that he uses to soften the metal. There is a giant bellows that he pumps to blow air on the fire, giving it fuel to grow even hotter. The object he is working on has a handle of 3 feet or so so that his hand doesn’t get burned. It is a relatively small fire, so the room was not that hot, but the blue tinge to the flames is your sign that this was still a pretty high-temperature fire.

The blacksmith's fire

This is our blacksmith, pounding at his piece with a small hammer. Note the long handle on the piece and how gnarly his forearms are.

Blacksmith at Ringwood Manor

Here’s the red-hot piece being flattened on an anvil. Yes, that’s a real-life anvil, the kind that coyotes drop on roadrunners, being used for its intended purpose. He was working on a nice leaf. I suspect that the long handle was just to make melting easier, and it’ll be broken off the final object.

Pounding metal on the anvil

Here are some of the smaller tools he used. I believe he made the knife. He showed us another knife he made that had a maple handle. It was a piece of wood he found on the ground at some point. It was lovely.

Blacksmithing tools

Because Ringwood Manor is a historic mansion with ties to the Revolutionary War and George Washington, they have a special Fourth of July celebration. Their staff dresses up in period clothes, gives out watermelon, does craft demonstrations, fires some muskets, and plays some colonial games. It’s really a great time. It’s a small crowd, so it feels very special, and the grounds are so huge that you can just sit on the grass and enjoy the scenery, which includes fountains, statues, an art exhibit, a greenhouse, barbecues, a playground, several ponds.. etc.

That day, I had the privilege of watching a young lady work a drop-spindle to make thread. First, you start with your materials. Does the below look familiar, like the inside of your pillow, perhaps? Yep, it’s cotton!

Cotton fluff

This young lady is using a drop spindle to make that ball of cotton fluff into thread.

A girl making thread

The drop spindle is basically a top with a long shaft. The cotton is at the top, and you draw some fiber out of it, then wrap it around the shaft. Then you drop and spin the whole device. The weight of the spindle pulls out more fiber from the bundle of cotton, and the spinning twists them to make them strong and (relatively) unbreakable. Everything you see wrapped around that shaft has been created out of the ball of fluff in her lap. You can see the twists in the piece in her hand. The thread will get longer and more compact as she keeps working on it.

Using a spindle to make thread

This is what you get much, much later, after more work and some dying. Beautiful colors, huh? I love the blue and yellow combination. These threads are actually bound up on a floor loom, where they are being weaved, one row at a time, into a cloth.

Thread close-up

Here is a wider shot of the thread on the loom. In the lower righthand corner, you can see more thread wound up on the bottom layer. I watched an elderly woman teach some young girls how to weave a row – you pass the shuttle, which is an oval device, under the row of threads, then push that wooden bar, which flips the cloth over so you can do it again.

Loom with thread

Here’s what they look like now. See that thing in her hand? It is the shuttle. She’s passing it beneath all the thread.

Floor loom - Not My Picture

The pond at Ringwood Manor is surrounded by reeds and crossed by a wooden bridge. It’s not very large, and the tall, dense reeds make it almost claustrophobic. The pond is quite shallow but is home to frogs, dragonflies, beetles, bees, and probably other insects we didn’t see it. I took these photos with my telephoto lens, not my macro lens. It’s a cheap telephoto, too — a non-L series Canon 70-300mm, but I’m pleased with these photos. They aren’t mindblowingly clear, but you can see the fine webbing on the wings, and that’s good enough for me.

I like this next one because it was the only photo to showcase the extraordinary iridescence of a dragonfly’s eyes.

Dragonflywith iridescent eyes.

This one has wonderful wing detail. This specimen is in contrast to the other dragonfly I photographed, which had ragged wings and seemed much older. I’m not sure if he is resting on this stalk or eating — is there anything edible to be found in a dried up, broken stalk? Apparently, adult dragonflies only eat flies and smaller insects.

Dragonfly resting on a stalk.

Note the wing damage.

Dragonfly at Ringwood Manor.

More dragonflies after the jump.

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These beautiful berries were just growing on a bush near the pond at Ringwood Manor. They are wild blackberries; the red ones will ripen and deepen in color until they are black. The bottom corner has a transitioning berry that still has some of its dark red streaks. I didn’t try any, because I’m wimpy. When I was younger, my deer hunting neighbors had an orchard that had pear trees, and all the neighborhood kids were convinced the fruit was purposely poisoned, partially because it didn’t look exactly like what you got in the store. Even honeysuckle made me a little nervous.

Berry bush.. a nice reminder that fruit can grow all by itself in the wild.

I like the light diffusing through the petals, giving them golden streaks. This full-bloom tigerlily is surrounded by so many new blooms, but there is a single dried out blossom on the bottom as a reminder of the inevitable end of beauty.

Orange tigerlily at Ringwood Manor

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Frogs have such marvelous eyes. This little dude is another pond denizen. This was one of the only times in my life I’ve ever seen a frog, honestly. I think the threat of mosquitoes keeps me away from wild swampy areas. I love how his body blends in the brown water when he’s underneath it, but he’s so strikingly green once he extends into the air.

A frog chilling in the pond.

I believe this flower is echinacea. This bee is raiding its goodies. Where’d that chunk of its leaf go? Did some bunny or other animal nibble it but not like the taste?

Bee on a flower.

Ringwood Manor is an estate in northern New Jersey with history reaching back to the 1700s. There is a grand Victorian home, gardens with statues and columns, a pretty neat pond, and a blacksmith hut that still has forging demonstrations. George Washington visited the Manor several times because his very own mapmaker lived there during the Revolutionary War. They have photography exhibits, tours, and reenactments there — this May, they’ll do a baseball game in the old uniforms, by the old rules. It is a super cool place to visit. (Bonus: it’s near Skyland Manor, another awesome place.)

After the flurry of animal pictures, I thought I’d change it up with some architectural ones. This is a grungy brick wall of the Blacksmith hut. It’s an old, one-room cottage with old tools in it. It’s really quite small and short — you wonder how men worked in it. I guess they were shorter back then. This photo’s strength lies in contrast; the mustard yellow with the maroon red, the textural differences of stone, brick, and earth. The brick patch provides a focal point, and the dirtiness of the wall is mirrored in the tangle of foliage below it.

Grungy brick wall

Again, the old and rough qualities of the wall compliment the wheel, with its cobwebs and peeling paint. It reminds me of the radial, sun-like backgrounds often seen in web designs these days.

Old wheel

More buildings after the jump.

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