Get well, Jessie Ward!

It's hard to keep a good farrier down, as the staff at a Tennessee hospital are learning.

We interrupt this blog to send out a heartfelt and hearty "Get Well!" wish to our friend Jessie Ward of Martinsville, Virginia. Jessie needs no introduction in the farrier world, but others might like to know that she's a creative dynamo--a veteran farrier, a blacksmithing instructor and an extremely talented artist who works in any medium you can think of.

Jessie Ward on a better day

Jessie and her famous Smart Car were hit on an interstate highway by a truck and she's in a hospital in Tennessee, far from home. Her brother Danny said today that she'd be able to come home soon and he'll go get her. He said she could stretch out in the back of his truck for the ride home and I'm hoping that he has a crew cab, and not that he's going to put Jessie in the back with his forge and tools.

This is my favorite picture of Jessie. She was not your typical bride but then she'd never been your typical anything. And that's a compliment!

If you know Jessie, or even if you don't, I hope you'll give thanks that she's still with us. The world needs people like Jessie right now. She's a national treasure of the farrier world, and if you've never met her and seen her artwork, put Jessie on your to-do list.

"She may not be trimming any horses for a while," Danny said today in his understated way. And I know she'd rather be clogging at the festival in Floyd, Virginia this weekend than sitting in a hospital but I'm looking forward to what sort of artistic embellishment she'll give her leg cast.

Click here to read the newspaper article about Jessie's accident and condition.

Bed bunny artwork thanks to ©glowinthedarkpictures.com. Used with permission.

 © Fran Jurga and Hoofcare Publishing; Fran Jurga's Hoof Blog is a between-issues news service for subscribers to Hoofcare and Lameness Journal. Please, no use without permission. You only need to ask. This blog may be read online at the blog page, checked via RSS feed, or received via a digest-type email (requires signup in box at top right of blog page). To subscribe to Hoofcare and Lameness (the journal), please visit the main site, www.hoofcare.com, where many educational products and media related to equine lameness and hoof science can be found. Questions or problems with this blog? Send email to blog@hoofcare.com.  

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Danny Ward Teaches Horseshoeing as a Sound Survival Skill for a Lame Economy

16 December 2009 | Fran Jurga's Hoof Blog at Hoofcare.com

Danny Ward's Horseshoeing School is featured on Blue Ridge Public Television this month.

Virginia's Blue Ridge Public Television made a field trip recently to a place many of us know very well: Danny Ward's Horseshoeing School in Martinsville, Virginia. But this time the reason wasn't the huge gathering of the farrier clan held there every November, or the visit of a horseshoeing guru from abroad, but an economic sidebar on the value of becoming a farrier as a second career in the stressed economy that is making finding a job difficult for many people who want to work.

Danny's school has been there since 1964, when his father, Smoky Ward, began teaching his skills, and it has weathered all sorts of economic boom and lean times in those 45 years. Danny just keeps on doing what he does. The world keeps beating a path to his iconic forge's door. It's kind of comforting to know he's there.

It's amazing to hear the optimism in his students' voices. I hope there is plenty of work for them out there. And I hope they are listening to every word Danny says, and staying up late practicing because they will need that sort of dedication to make it in the real world, no matter what shape the economy is in.

Thanks to Blue Ridge Public Television, JobQuest, and Carol Jennings for sharing this video.

© Fran Jurga and Hoofcare Publishing. Please, no use without permission. You only need to ask.

Fran Jurga's Hoof Blog is a between-issues news service for subscribers to Hoofcare and Lameness Journal. This blog may be read online at the blog page, checked via RSS feed, or received via a digest-type email (requires signup in box at top right of blog page).

To subscribe to Hoofcare and Lameness (the journal), please visit the main site, www.hoofcare.com, where many educational products and media related to equine lameness and hoof science can be found.

Questions or problems with this blog? Send email to blog@hoofcare.com.

Best of 2009: Mini-Documentary Records a Farrier's Reflection on His Career Choice

29 December 2009 | Fran Jurga's Hoof Blog at Hoofcare.com Note: get ready for a "Best of 2009" blog-a-thon over the next few days! Some special stories and media will be posted to celebrate the end of a great year and a landmark for The Hoof Blog and Hoofcare & Lameness! It's the end of the year, and the end of a decade. The urge to put an end on things, and to wrap them up in tidy packages, is irresistible. To reflect, to rebuild, to re-evaluate. Today I'd like to share a video that I've been saving for the end of the year, because it does all those things. You might want to watch it more than once. The first time I watched it, I was distracted by the horses, the tools, the hoof, the truck, and especially the dogs. I missed a lot of what Joel said, and that's the important part of this video. Joel Sheiman is a farrier, and glad of it. You can tell he's thought it over, and in this short documentary-style film, the California farrier thinks it over again, out loud. Many, many videos about farriers pass through this office. Almost all are third-person accounts, presenting the contemporary farrier as an interesting anomaly, a blast from the past, a man (or woman) of steel, or a whisperer to horses. We get to see videos of the oldest, the youngest, the shoers of famous horses or the farriers at famous farms. Rarely do the farriers in those videos get to say more than a few disjointed sentences edited from a longer interview. The videos pump up the audio of hammers hitting steel, sizzling shoes, neighing horses. You are there! but you never really got to know the star of the show. How different, then, is this video, where the farrier does all the talking. If he seems relaxed in front of the camera, it may be because the videographer was his son, Danny, who made this little documentary during his classwork as a film major at the University of California at Santa Cruz. What are you reflecting on during these last days of 2009? Was the year all you expected? What (or whom) did you lose and what (or whom) did you gain? What choices did you make, and would you make them again? You have a chance to start fresh on Saturday; what are your plans and dreams for 2010? What would you say if someone switched on the microphone in front of you now, the way Danny did to Joel? Joel Sheiman lives in Orinda, (outside Berkeley) California, and shoes everyday with his assistant of eight years, Alvaro Pelayo. Since this video was made, Joel's dog Nora was injured; sadly, the dogs aren't traveling with him to shoe horses while she recovers. If you click on the "YouTube" logo on the video screen, you can watch this video in "high quality" mode, and in a larger format. (Thanks, Danny and Joel!) © Fran Jurga and Hoofcare Publishing. Please, no use without permission. You only need to ask. Fran Jurga's Hoof Blog is a between-issues news service for subscribers to Hoofcare and Lameness Journal. This blog may be read online at the blog page, checked via RSS feed, or received via a digest-type email (requires signup in box at top right of blog page). To subscribe to Hoofcare and Lameness (the journal), please visit the main site, www.hoofcare.com, where many educational products and media related to equine lameness and hoof science can be found. Questions or problems with this blog? Send email to blog@hoofcare.com.