Expected horseshoes. Got knives.

While my expectations were false–I really thought there would be blacksmiths (farriers) who re-shoed horses as well as horses at this Carnival of Fire–this event was definitely over-hyped. It certainly didn’t seem like a carnival to me.

Instead, inside the Desert Metal Craft building, there were blacksmithing demos with only a small space for spectators and along a long hallway, handmade knives for sale. Celebrity blacksmith Rich Goodman, shown at top of this post, gave a demonstration of creating a knife. Rich gained his fame on the first season of the History Channel show “Forged in Fire”. He is also going to be on the current season of the show and teaches blacksmithing at the DMC school.

Outside the building where the street had been blocked off, there was a DJ, of course, and some big, hand-made, beautifully designed lanterns that probably looked awesome after dark. But not much else.

Wild and trained horses, burros

So on to the next topic. On March 1 and 2, 2025 the BLM (Bureau of Land Management) is holding a wild burro and horse sale at the Marana Heritage Center. I went to this sale a few years ago and posted about it on this site. Here is the info from BLM about the sale . Riding demos will be given by Arizona State prisoners/trainers. I’ll bet that is a desirable job!

New mascots

And topic three: I’ve created new mascots for this blog, “I Saw It In Tucson” using Adobe’s Firefly A.I. I explain how they came about — and will continue being created–on this page. As I write this, “Javelina Blooms,” my homage to Mexican artist Frida Khalo is up in the right hand corner of this page.

These two mascots will probably be used infrequently, so here is their chance to shine! One is for Valentine’s Day, the other for President’s Day. Making them is fun!