Curtis Buchanan called last week. We talked of our class schedules, springpole lathes (we are both building one) and the book Curtis is reading Craeft: An Inquiry into the Origins and True Meaning of Traditional Crafts. Curtis is persuasive; I have bought the book and am now on the third chapter about haymaking.
Seems we would all still be hunter-gatherers if it weren’t for hay and we all know you can’t have hay without a scythe and a pitch fork. Pitchforks! I love making pitchforks.
The author mentions visiting a region of France that has been making pitchforks since the twelfth century. I found this video of the Conservatory of the Fork, where they still make coppice-grown French pitch forks, steam bent over a fire and dried over the same fire. Tell him to sharpen his drawknife!
Thanks for sharing the video. Very interesting how they grow the pitch forks. My only regret was not learning more French from my grandfather.
I wish I spoke French! 🙂
Hey, “TraditionallySpeaking”, any chance you remember that blog? I’d love to read it and would appreciate if you shared the name of that other book.
My local library has a copy of the book, so I’ve requested it and am looking forward to reading it.
Thanks for sharing, Elia.
I read about this book on a blog last week and purchased it straight away. I haven’t yet started to read it because another older book was mentioned to read first so I ordered that one used and it won’t be in from the UK for a couple of weeks maybe. I am very excited now to read about pitchforks of all things!