COLONY — Mother Nature smiled on Colony Saturday, providing cloud cover from the outer edge of tropical storm Isaac to keep summertime temperatures at bay much of the day.
Festivities included a 30-minute parade, volleyball and inflatable toys.
Vendors offered funnel cakes, curly fries and a variety of sandwiches. Two luncheon specials drew crowds to downtown’s Colony Diner.
Smoke swirled in the breeze from Gary Garretson’s forge, prompting the Coffeyville blacksmith to urge spectators to “stand back a bit, you don’t want a nose full of smoke.”
Garretson heated ends of a small horseshoe to cherry red and then changed its configuration with a small sledge on an anvil.
Someone had asked him to make a card holder.
In self-deprecating humor, Garretson referred to the piece of curled iron as “more of a mistake.”
He was one of several artisans who took advantage of the event to show off their skills.
Garretson, a welder by trade, got his start in blacksmithing with Sam Shaw, the “last real blacksmith to work in Coffeyville.”
“I spent 1982-85 working with Sam as an apprentice,” he said, who allowed he got a taste of the process as a kid pounding iron on his dad’s anvil.
In a demonstration, Garretson noted “the more you hammer on a horseshoe, the harder it gets.”
