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Sunday, June 26, 2016

Old pump and bellows



On the old farm we visited yesterday, these remnants of a bygone era caught my eye. The bellows work perfectly, when you pull on the long lever, and the air blown by them hisses encouragingly, from a blacksmith's point of view (I imagine). The pump hung on the exterior wall and I've no reason to think it wouldn't work also, once reconnected and primed. There were rusting horseshoes arranged along a section of frame inside of the smithy, and straw-stuffed horse collars hanging from pegs, in need of dubbining or neat's-foot oiling or what ever treatment was used to keep them soft and supple. The roof, however, was not full-filling its role, nor were sections of the walls. I liked it the way we found it and wouldn't like to see the gear moved to a museum for storage, as is the usual cry. It's the kind of building I'd have liked to spend a day in, finding and keeping stuff from previous times, but my interests have changed now and unless it's a living plant, I'm happy to leave it in situ for someone else to enjoy. 

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