A hike to Schmiedefest @Krenzer Hammer crafts fair

 Last Saturday I met with Natalie and little Jonas to go on a foraging hike to the legendary crafts fair @ Krenzer hammer. (www.krenzer-hammer.de). We had an early start and were greeted by a snail and a bear family...

 ...and another snail.

 We had decided to take the small one foraging and collected a lot of herbs and ´shrooms for dinner. Jonas had a lot of fun climbing crosscountry on trails seldom trodden...

 ...spot the metalhead... ;-) Jonas forged with me on Highland Games Wuppertal and dropped by on Friday for the first time and joined in wit gusto. And it was a joy to have him around... he is a weird, but very intelligent kid that has fun doing things few kids of his age have.

 We came by some rock carvings where I told a dwarf tale... which he did not believe any... or did he? ;-)

 Did I mention this is a metalhead? ;-)

 Also it was really cool to have Natalie around with her bad humour and sarcastic remarks...

 I blurred this pic on purpose... for I don´t like duck faces any ... ;-)

There were a lot of wonders, big and small, by the trailside..

 Fairy rings...

 Oh so green was the moss...

 And trees by the crags standing guard...

 ...

 Along the murky stream we came to the Krenzer ironforge where the fair took place.

 And there it was I met Manfred and Rolf again... which came as no surprise. Manfred had a lot of really cool knife designs on display again...

 Top: Damascus blade with giraffe bone handle,

 the one below stag and a modified Karesuando blade.

 Manfred...

 This one is made from an old HSS saw blade with Micarta handle...

 ..in a somewhat unusual Kydex sheath with leather.

 Rolf was working doing leather designs witrh kids and adults alike...

 ...and Ruben from Ahlhauser Hammer was getting the knifemaking bug...

 We also met with Julia, Nick and Kathrin and had somewhat of a chat, before we went on our merry way to the ironforge. Unfortunately, the three of them did not care to join us. I suspect more than just a bit of scheming and plotting going on on their part, but as is, I am a paranoid bastard, cannot help it any and I refuse to make this my problem. So, off to Ahlhauser Hammer ironforge for the old foodie we went. It was raining hard then. Thiemo, Natalies boyfriend called what he should bring from the grocer´s and we decided to meet at the ironforge.

 There it was that Jonas unwrapped a piece of steel his brother found near the vicinity of a Solingen Burg smithy, and we probed it. Sorry for the bad pics, but there´s a structure in it and spark analysis showed roundabout 0,6-1,00 % carbon-it might as well be a piece of damascus...

Be this as it may ;-), we made a stew from the treasures we had found and some additions from the grocery store...

 Natalie doing some stunted Yoga... ;-)

 Jonas being off his rocker for joy of the steel we probed.. Idaresay we spoiled this kid a bit... he does not like veggies but ate two bowls of stew with no meat whatsoever in it, and I should say that mummy had a hard time convincing him not to take this iron rod to bed with him... ;-) but as his father came to fetch him, I daresay he was not THAT angry with us... ;-) so to say... ;-).

 Thiemo and Jonas. Folks, you´re good company.

 We sat by the fireside, we adults had a beer, and we talked and dreamed and laughed the night away.

Poifecc! ;-D

Lo and behold the wonders of wood and water!

 I am deeply grateful. Yes, people tend to complain a lot these days. It´s the weather, of course. When the sun is shining, they complain it´s too hot and the summers were different in ´em days. When it rains, the weather´s always so foul. There are a lot of other things people rant on and need so desperately they get in a foul mood if they can´t get it.

It´s hot outside, yes. And I cannot understand them, and what bewilders me is that we are moving on altogether different paths. When I talked to an old mountainbiking friend of mine with whom I made reconnaissance only but recently, he was utterly confused why I was content riding my old battered bike. Of course he owns a pedelec, an enduro bike and a lot of fun stuff to have. He is an avid skier, too, and time was when I enjoyed skiing a lot. No, I freely admit, I can´t afford that anymore, as well as all that other stuff, and while I miss the times it is the attitude of thinking THAT a problem. It is with a hint of nostalgia that I look at these times, and talking to him lets me feel a warm memory as well as pity. Pity for a society that needs to heap up commercial things in order to be happy. One might argue that I discuss my needs away. I am legally poor, of course, there is no denying the fact, and the hard and sorry truth is that it is not easy to make a living the way I try to do it. And when I falter, or become sick, my situation as well as my pride will most certainly lead to my demise. But there´s the trap: I have not yet died. And while I am alack of a whole lot of things, I realized that there are things of far higher value just waiting around the corner. But I could not even make myself understood to this friend of mine, and please take note that I have tried long and hard. I have always tried. But what I realize is that we do not talk on even levels, society and I. People blindly run around like chicken in the slaughtering den. They run from manmade problem to manmade problem, entangled in a cunning trap the nocturnal predators, the rulers of the human world, have set for them, and they go into it voluntarily. Getting away would be so easy and yet they cling to being hurt and anxious and live in fear and awe. Lobbyism is said to be dangerous for our democracy, and I daresay it is, but what I see working with politicians and other oligarchs is that they most absurdly and ridiculously entagle themselves in their own traps. Their actions do not make the slightest of sense; it is all but one big mimickry. I see a war in which we all are engaged, but in the end, it is a laughing matter, a conflict that now is fought for decades and centuries even, over a name. I see prophets of doomsday prosper and yell at each other over details in the schedule when exactly mankind will die. It is like a geese den. The geese squeek and squail at each other and hit themselves over one grain of barley, while outside, the fox, breaks into a wicked grin. The geese are fat and immobile... because the farmer wants them that way. The fox is lean and mean and hungry, and he could not care less for all the squailing and the noise they make. And even if the geese are mean to each other-the other world will break into their slaughtering pen mean and wicked. This is what I see, and refuse to take part.   

 This is the other world made flesh. No, no fairy tales abound here, if you cannot see them. There is elf shit at the end of the rainbow, and it looks exactly like shit. The mountain will still be a mountain, and it won´t open to give you access to the dwarven kingdom. But if you don´t insist on the traditional, if you do not remain fixed on the words of a fairy tale alone, chance is, it will happen to you out here. But when you learn to understand the language of these fairy tales...

 ...you have to make a sacrifice. This sacrifice is the words of a world at war with itself. This sacrifice is your longings and needs. Oh, yes, in a tiny part of your mind you will still have them, and they will still be important. You won´t be a hermit all of a sudden, no holy man, and there will be no flash of enlightenment. The sacrifice, to be true, is exactly this expectation. You won´t have any power all of a sudden. You won´t make things happen.

 Things will happen to you. This is frightening and enlightening in one, and yap, this is the reason why I find it hard to commune with a whole lot of people these days.

 So again I went into the woods today and was in for a big surprise..

It is soothing not to talk when talk is not given. It is soothing that the creek  runs like it always did. The flowers and the trails and the reeds and the sun tell a story without words, and no words are needed to understand the language of this fairy tale. Only when you understand this language of silence will the gates to the dwarven kingdom open up for you, and they will provide you with riches far beyond gold.

But elf shit will still be smelly. ;-)