ARIZONA!!!

I did NOT take these photos while driving.  I stopped...on the interstate....  But there wasn't much traffic.  And I'm closing in on my destination....TUCSON!!!!

Don't think I was driving 75.  I pretty much maxed out at 70.

Even though I was a slowpoke, those 248 miles just rolled by, and soon, enough, I was at the bottom of the state known for "The Big Hole in the Ground." 

 

A Nail, not a golf tee

No, it isn't a weird golf tee.  It's a handmade nail.

Sorry I don't have a better photo, but just think of this as "art."

The New Mexico Farm and Heritage Museum in Las Cruces looked like an interesting place and the day was sufficiently cool that I could incarcerate the canines in the car while I ambled through this indoor/outdoor museum. 

I like living history, perhaps as a residual memory of going to Williamsburg as a kidlet and seeing glassblowers and horse shoers.  This codger was making nails, mostly in a traditional fashion, though with the aid of modern tubing running to his fire pit.

Here he's cutting off a piece of hot metal, the length of the four-sided nail he'll be crafting.

Nail head.

Finished product.

 

 

I've given much thought to this simple nail, which took him about 5 minutes to make, though part of that time was talking with me and holding up his work for me to photograph.  I go to a big box store where I'm forced to buy a bag of 50 nails, or an assortment of 10 types of nails, when all I really want is two.  If I were forced to make my own nails -- or buy them from the person making them -- I would use the carefully, rather than wantonly, as I'm apt to do.  Don't get me wrong.  I don't wish to return to the days of handmade nails, but I do with we could learn the lesson of carefully shepherding our resources a bit better.