Smithing season usually starts in the fall, when the humidity drops and western Kentucky stops feeling like the Amazon.
That does not mean I never forge in the summer. Sometimes I get myself into a commission or another project that has to be finished, and I have to head out to the workshop and sweat. When it is like that, I usually work at night. Forging is hot work in any season. When the air is already hot and the humidity is all the way up, there is no escaping it. That usually means a bad day in the workshop.
The corn adds its own contribution. “Corn sweat” drives the humidity up even higher. Around that time of year, I migrate indoors to escape the heat like a snowbird.
That is when I paint more.
Watercolor is my preferred painting medium for practical reasons first. It is portable. When I travel for the military, I can pack a small tray, a few brushes and some paper without adding much weight. Oil painting is a different operation. It calls for tubes of paint, an easel, solvents and canvases. Watercolor lets me take the work with me and set up almost anywhere.
I learned not to fight the seasons while working at the Homeplace in Land Between the Lakes. Every task has its time. Our ancestors understood that laboring through the worst heat of the day would eventually defeat you.
I learned that lesson while hoeing corn. I had not been paying enough attention to the heat. When I finally stopped for a minute, I nearly took a header into the ground. I was close to overheating.
There was a disconnect between the reality of manual labor and the expectations of entertainment. A farm does not operate from nine to five, but the Homeplace did. During the hours when a wise farmer might take a break and sit in the breezeway, I could still be out in the field because that was what visitors had come to see.
They were not wrong. I would probably be angry too if I paid to see traditional skills demonstrated and found everyone sitting on break trying not to die.
It was rough, but I understood why I was there: to educate and entertain. Edutainment.
Tobacco season brought another signal. After the tobacco was brought in, it had to be fired—a practice modern farmers in this area still use. When I smelled the woodsmoke, I knew the worst heat of summer was on its way out. The killer humidity would begin to leave. The wind would shift, and a cool, smoky breeze would bring some relief to an overheated farmhand.
That rhythm was the foundation of farm life. Comfort was often overridden by necessity, but necessity did not mean taking on a task that would surely put you in the hospital.
My workshop follows a version of that same rhythm. Sometimes a commission means forging when it is hot and uncomfortable. But, when I have a choice, summer pushes me toward watercolor and fall calls me back to the forge.