Polelathe - Heavy Horses show

This weekend was the Heavy Horses and working animals show at the Weald and Downland museum. It's one of the biggest days in the museum calendar and this year the weather was excellent for a change.




One of the star attractions is the horse drawn steam fire pump which charges around the arena before extinguishing a small thatched structure. In the hot weather the thatch really blazed up and putting it out was a challenge.


Next to me in the smithy Robert and Carol were hard at work on both days of the show. In the summer I don't envy them working in the forge, but in the autumn it will be a different matter entirely.



As well as the horses the museum also works two pairs of oxen which are used for a range of farming tasks.


For most of the day the combination of my shelter and the oak tree I pitch under keep me cool and shady, but in the evening as the sun gets lower it floods my workspace with light.


I almost consigned some alder to the firewood pile having failed to work it before it dried out. But in splitting it I noticed that the grain looked interesting and when I tried turning it I found it had accidentally spalted really well with very interesting grain patterns, here making a pair of door wedges and a door knob. Not surprisingly they sold almost immediately.