What an interesting weekend!

On Saturday morning I woke up with quite a little list to get through, including chook feed, lights for my tent at festival, sewing scissors, ruler and set square (see boss, I was paying attention, although recent research enlightens me that I might have left the instructions at your house...) and carpets for the festival tent.

I got the chook feed and lights OK, then I drove out to the lov.. errmm tidy? town of Burnie.

Below you can see the view across the beach at Burnie, the light brown patch in the background, is where Gunns ships off the chips from old growth forest. In a classically Australian piece of ridiculousness, 150m the other side of the chip piles is where the paper mills ship in their pulp, to make the paper from. The incoming pulp is from Brazil or Chile, and is the result of the South Americans cashing in on their rainforest and making farmland for Monsanto and Mcdonalds, Yay! for globalisation! Seem a little odd? Good, you've just passed business mis-management 101.

I drove right through Burnie, allowing myself time to stop at spotlight for the sewing essentialson the way back. Twenty minutes later I was in the gorgeous town on Wynyard, which sits at the foot of Table Cape (Sorry, no photo of this spectacular formation, but the lucky ones might see it for real!). In this little town, which also is the centre for a number of north-west potatoe and cropping areas, is a shop called save-a-buck, where I found the carpet I was looking for, as well as a surround sound system for the PC (which is rocking right now).

I was cruising through save-a-buck when I noticed an older chap I had met at a clearing sae about 6 months earlier. Roger is a largely self-taught blacksmith, with one of those classic perfectionist attitudes to his art, and time to make it right. He invited me up to see his forge, and I thought why not, so I did (note the lack of planning!).

His workshop is amazing.

Below is a pic of a form he has made for a logging shoe, which is a plate which goes on the front of a felled log in the old style of forest work. The shoe stops the log catching on the dirt and stalling as the bullocks pull it along. "Why is he making forestry equipment?" I asked myself.

Here is the blank for the shoe in the form. The blank is 1/4' steel plate.
Here is the Power Hammer Roger has built himself, including shaping and re-tempering the leaf springs (tempering spring steel is a VERY fine art). You can also see roger and a bit of his forge.

The axes on the wall are not for show. Roger can clean a log down for use, using the broad-axe at the top. I know of one other person who can do that and it turns out he's the one who taught Roger.

Here is Rogers forge, and his makers mark, a horse head, which he also made himself.
Here is Rogers adjustable wrench collection, and all his forge tools, which are... you guessed it.... all made by Roger.

This is an extremely early adjustable wrench he has restored, having dug it out of a driveway. Note the lack of a screw to move the jaw, instead the pin on the left is sprung and releases the jaw to slide back and forth.

Having blown my mind a little, I was looking round his workshop, and also noticed that he had churned out a heap of log hooks, and bars to operate them. And had also made a heap of bullocking yokes. "Who's the Bullocky" I asked, somewhat foolishly, in hindsight. The answer "I am, have a look in this stall here, the boys are a bit tired, they've been working all morning". I look out the stall in question, and sure enough, there's a pair of bullocks sitting beside their yoke, which Roger has draw-knifed out of blackwood.

Roger gave me a demonstration of what they're capable of. He has gone out and found all the old (and in a lot of cases, dying) bullocky's in the state, and found out how to do their work. He has Claude and Toby trained to do all the work of a tractor, on voice command only. He carries a Bullocky whip (nothing like a stock whip) which he largely uses to keep the flies off himself.

He has them trained to;
Pull logs
Drag logs into a wagon
Turn logs (V. difficult)
Pull a wagon
Pull a plough
Drag a saw

A-freaking-mazing!

This state is full of little gems like these guys who overcome the most awful situations, find themselves a focus, and devote themselves to it. They really are the heart of the barter lifestyle we enjoy and they're an inspiration to those of us who've really had a pretty cushy life.

I love my home.

That was the most interesting part of the weekend, and didn't it hit the spot!

And of course, the ever necessary pic of the ducks. They've moved house, to somewhere bigger and greener. You can see them in the back, hiding from the camera. They're not very fluffy ATM, more in the space between down and feathers, kind of icky.