Jack Waldman, 10, learns some of the basics of the blacksmith trade from John Carter at the Agricultural History Project.

Ping! Ping! Ping!

Ping! Ping! Ping!

The sound of metal striking metal rang out again and again as Jack Waldman, wearing a determined look on his face, pounded a red-hot old horseshoe on an antique anvil. Meanwhile, Taylor Ramer, grinning widely, was turning the crank on a blower, stoking a fire in a portable forge.

The two were working together, along with John Carter, in creating a sculpture of a wiener dog Thursday at the Santa Cruz County Fair. Jack, age 10, and Taylor, 8, were among many to come through Carter’s small blacksmith booth, which he has operated for the past three years. The blacksmith booth is just part of an extensive area at the fair devoted to agriculture history.

Taylor is becoming a bit of an old pro at blacksmithing, a craft that dates back hundreds of years to the Iron Age. He has visited Carter’s booth every year.

“It’s always fun doing this,” Taylor said excitedly. “I go every time.”

While Taylor and Jack were busy with their project, others were inside the Codiga Center & Museum getting a less hands-on experience of local agricultural history.

Deborah Calantropio slowly meandered her way through the museum, saying “oh wow” several times, including when she closely eyed examples of different types of barbed wire and looked over several parts of the museum’s exhibit on the history of apples in the Central Coast.

“I didn’t know much about the history of apples in this area,” she said. “There’s just so much history in this area that I don’t know about, and I’ve been living in this area for 28 years.”

The apple exhibit includes examples of antique apple box makers and nail strippers, as well as an apple quiz and materials on picking, packing and shipping; markets and marketing; pests and diseases; people and apples; and apple products.

The Agricultural History Project’s Pat Johns, the volunteer manager of the Codiga Center, said attendance has been steady, with occasional large groups of kids coming in to fill the museum.

“It’s been probably the heaviest traffic for a fair we’ve had in the last five years,” Johns said. “Tuesday and Wednesday, there were probably 40 or 50 people in here at a time all day.”

One highlight at the Codiga Center is an exhibit of photographs taken between the 1920s and early 1950s by Henry Washburn, the county’s first farm adviser. Many of the people in the photographs are unidentified, and the Agricultural History Project is hoping that some visitors might be able to provide names for the faces.

“We’re just trying to fill in what has become lost history of agriculture of this area,” Johns said. “Hopefully, there are still some people who can fill in those holes and bring the picture back together again.”

Back at the blacksmith shop, as Taylor and Jack — wearing protective eyewear — alternated their jobs cranking the blower and smiting parts of the old horseshoe on the anvil, Carter gave them occasional lessons on blacksmithing. He taught them about “ROY” — an acronym that stands for “red, orange, yellow” — to determine how hot a piece of heated metal is. Red is the least hot, he told the boys, with orange hotter and yellow still hotter, he said.

Carter said he takes time to teach children the names of the tools and the materials. He was careful about safety, making the initial strikes when the metal was orange-hot, cautioning the boys to stand back to avoid any small hot flecks that might fly off.

“If it goes on your feet, you’ll be dancing for half an hour,” he cautioned a smiling Taylor with a laugh prior to smiting the anvil.

But then it was the boys’ turn, as they alternated between smiting the anvil and manning the blower.

In the end, the county’s agricultural heritage is what the fair’s all about, Calantropio said.

“I came for this stuff,” she said. “The rides are secondary. I come for the history and the crafts and the exhibits.”

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The Santa Cruz County Fair continues through Sunday at the Santa Cruz County Fairgrounds.

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*Photos by Tarmo Hannula*

(Published in 9/12/08 edition)

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