After the Atlanta knife show

We just spent 4 days with friends in Cedar Hill.  It's always several days of fantastic fellowship and fine food with friends from far and wide, including the Netherlands, State of Washington, Illinois, and more. 

There isn't a more beautiful setting than Bonita's place. 

 

 

 

Hank's shop is equipped with some very neat antique tools, including this fly press. 

This is a Nazel 2B that was going to be repaired.

  

Son Kurt now has Hank's shop. Kurt picked up this beautiful Buffalo forge in St Louis, Mo.

Hank passed away 2 years ago from cancer. #CANCERSUCKS

Time to put the new part in the big hammer.  Howard Clark from Iowa is guiding from the top. Bob is directing the chain.

Test run. It worked!

Bernie and Kurt working on a hog splitter.

The Nazel is back in working order. Thanks to several blacksmiths.

The start of hog splitter.

Paul E. Krautmann brought his hand made cherry bowls. They are beautiful. 

 

 

Nathan, Bernie and Pat are just part of the Bradley Hammer crew!

Otto, who is 8 years old, and Jonathan, who is 5 years old, enjoy the creek so much. Here's Otto holding a crawdad. 

Did you know salamanders and toads are both born from tadpoles? Otto filled me in on them, in detail. 

Near the house is this bridge where the kids spend a lot of time. This day they first did sidewalk chalk, then went fishing. I had so much fun all week with Jonathon trying to remember my name. Success was made by day 3! 

The party is not short of craftspeople. Here Colleen gets a spinning lesson from Sharon. 

Beverley started with crocheting and finished with pot holder weaving.

This can only be titled it's a dog's life!

Eileen, John, and Bernie visit, as if we didn't have visiting time last week at the blacksmith gathering. You never get enough of visiting with blacksmith friends. They are like family!

Colleen and Ed catch up, after all its a once a year event!

We all passed many hours just socializing. 

Beverly visits with Sharon and Cindy who live nearby. 

It's pizza night. The fire is started early morning to make the oven work properly.

There's always plenty of food. Everyone brings so much. On Monday night it was roast beef, Tuesday was making your own pizza, 

Ed smoked ribs all day Wednesday. They were mouthwatering.

Our last night there, Thursday, Nathan fried catfish and tuna. His grilled vegetables and French bread were mouthwatering!

The Dutch guys went on a guided fishing trip Thursday, thanks to Bonita's grandson, Augie who owns Missouri Fly Life Guide Company Toni never caught a fish. So, when he returned, 8-year-old Otto was instructed to show him how to do it. 

Success!!!!

Once again, our hearts of full of good time and great memories and oh so much good food! We Thank you Bonita, Kurt, Sharon, Augy, Laura, Dutch, Cindy and Otto, and Jonathon for some of the best times ever . . . . until next year.

Hank will always be close to us.

What do you get on an 11 day trip?

 An overload of pictures!

The first week we went to Dittmer Missouri for a 4-day gathering. 

This is a panoramic picture I took of the Knickmeyer’s beautiful estate.

My friend Peg’s husband, Stuart took this night picture.

We all pitch in at mealtimes.

So much time to visit with friends, some from other states and even countries.

There were many pizzas made and Hank and Bonita's son Dutch, baked them in the outdoor pizza oven his dad had constructed. It was heated to about 1000 degrees. It only took 3-4 minutes, and the pizza was finished. 

The weather was perfect. 

These two playmates shared the dough to each make their own 1/2 of a pizza. Can you say pepperoni over load?

I’m always up for hugs from long time friends, here is Stanley, a friend from decades ago.

Bernie visits with Doc Price who hails from England. He’s a master knife maker and a tattoo artist from England, who is 92 years young.

Grace Horn, a master at so many thing, scissors, shoes, corsets and comes from Sheffield England.

Here is one of her many works of art. 

Colleen grinds for hours, or so it sounded like. She is a tool engineer at Boeing.

A beautiful gift from my friend Eileen, that she purchased in Florida and got it home in perfect condition in her luggage.

One day, okay two days, I taught Beverly( who is from Minnesota) how to weave a pro size potholder.

There was usually always a dog with the group, who was needing some attention.

This is the coolest bunkhouse, that slept many.

More food, grilled skibobs. 

Grilled corn.

The two enjoyed fishing and playing in the ponds.

Grilled Japanese quail by Nathan. Delicious!

Pasta salad by Sharon.

After 3 days at the knife makers and friends party we moved to Houston Missouri to continue visiting and eating!

 

Steve and Lori always fry the best fish. This year included Spoonbill, that Aaron and brother Nathan caught.

Eileen who also moved on to the event with us made her delicious gumbo. It had some of the last shrimp sold at our friend Bob’s seafood market that was in downtown St. Louis. Very sadly, emnient domain took it. 

My contribution was Amish macaroni salad an to deliver Aaron a squirrel pie! 

This event really had purpose, it was to rebuild a new base for Vern, a 100 lb. Murray trip hammer.

Then we had a demonstration by knife maker Charlie Carpenter, aka Hollywood. He got that name by competing on Forge in Fire. 

He was making a leather knife sheath.

 

I never knew there was so much slicing and tooling of the leather.

 

Steve filled in as a vise.

The basket weave tooling really fascinated me.

We left Houston Missouri early Sunday morning and headed to Friendship, Indiana.

There we met up with our longtime friend Bob, his son in law Steve and 5 of Bob's grandchildren. These kids kept us entertained for the 4 or 5 days we were there.

All new benches and awnings since last year.

Watching our friend's grandkids shoot.  Every day was a blast. Pun tended.

Bob beat Bernie to this table, and bought a shot gun right out from under him, or so the teasing went.

Bob’s grandsons constructed this air conditioner using a frame from an upside down table. The heat and humidity was terrible every day. These boys stayed cool! 

Bernie admires this guys gun on the front porch of the log cabin gun shop. When BT opened the patch box, I saw something written on the lid. It was a date. The owner said I never knew that was there. He wondered how old it was and now he knows.

At one of the flea markets, this guy was heavily promoting his wears.

Fun flea market finds.

Lanterns, wondering if my friend Jim McCarty has these?

Entrance to the basket tent.

Lots of backpacks.

Dixie gun works. They’ve been around since 1954.

The blacksmith shop where we first met Daryl Meier and Stanley (who hugged me earlier in this blog.)

The dinner shack, served food all day long. We visited it several times for ice cream to cool off.

Sam and Alex cleaning their guns. These are the boys that engineered the AC unit for the pop up.

Steve brought his blackstone, as it was great cooking for 5 teenagers, himself and Bob. He was kind enough to grill our burgers and brats at the same time.

 

Watching the kids shoot.

The family that brushes together, stays together. Or something like that.

All 3 girls, loading up.

I saw this lady, who was sporting a show me game t shirt. I went and talked to her; Linda was from Macon. We had many friends in common, Preston, Tammy, Gena, Juanita, and Guy.

 

We would take our chairs to avoid the hard benches.

Day 10, Bob, Steve and the kids left for home.

We decided to road trip near buy. We found a tent sale next door to a  3 story old home. It was full of beautiful things old and new to buy.

Notice the silver claw feet? 

This mirror wasn't for sale, but I admired it for a long time.

This wardrobe would be fun to get down the staircase.

I did purchase this mirror, well really the blacksmith did, I left my purse in the truck. That worked pretty good, I might try that again. 

We also found this nice 10 inch spider skillet with lid. It was a very reasonably priced at $45. 

Google tells me this company was started in 1828 and was Marietta's first foundry. It was located at the confluence of the Ohio and Muskingum Rivers.

We had shopped the sheep market sheds at the black powder range on a dialy basics, sometimes several times a day. 

On Monday I found this beautiful amethyst, my birth stone. Tuesday Bernie saw me again look at it. Wednesday he told me to go buy it. When we got there, they were closed. Closed!

Thursday morning, we were up early to leave. Bernie told me he was walking to the Wi-Fi area to check his mail. The lady jeweler was open, however he forgot his cash. He came back, we loaded up and head toward the gate. He stopped at the gate and said, she is open and holding your amethyst.

It is a beautiful gift!!!! I love it!

Home, we went. Eleven days of good friends, good food, and mostly good weather. 

Life is good.