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5/8/2008
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| Father and son blacksmiths, Scott Salisbury, who is filing a horse’s hoof, and Ken Salisbury, holding a newly crafted horseshoe, were busy at the Cornerstone Farm. Farm owner Beth Stone holds her horse and, with her pet dog to the right, watches the Salisburys work. Valley Breeze photo by Albert Tavakalov |
FOSTER - Ken and Scott Salisbury run a thriving enterprise that generates business throughout northern Rhode Island and beyond, but success hasn't spoiled them - they still pull their chaps on one leg at a time.
And chaps are always the order of the day for this father and son team, since they're in harness together as farriers - blacksmiths, to the uninitiated.
Unlike the brawny laborer of Longfellow verse, these two don't work under a spreading chestnut tree. Their "smithy" is on wheels, and in the course of a day it meanders from their nine-acre farm on Balcom Road across a territory stretching from here to South County.
The customized truck is a repository of hammers, knives, clippers and files, and even contains a traveling, gas-operated forge.
Ken, 61 and the senior partner in this throwback of a craft, has been at it ever since he was laid off from a construction job in 1971 and decided to turn horseshoeing - which he was already doing for a few friends - into an avocation.
A native of rural western Cranston who was always comfortable around animals, Ken polished his skills at a shoeing school in Oklahoma, and found enough demand when he returned to Rhode Island to keep him busy full-time for the next 37 years.
"I figured it would be a nice little part-time job, but I haven't worked for anyone else since," he said.
Why blacksmithing?
"I like horses - always did. At times they're a lot better than people."
Clad in leather aprons and their omnipresent chaps, the Salisburys shoe, and do hoof trimming, on horses ranging from miniatures hardly bigger than a Great Dane to towering draft animals.
And while he truly believes that horses can be more trustworthy than people, Ken Salisbury has learned to give them the deference they require.
Over the years, he says, "I've been banged up. You get pushed and stomped on."
Not too different from what happens in a corporate office, some might say - but treat a horse properly and it'll respond in kind, says Salisbury.
"Walk slow - talk to them," he advises. "Animals are smarter than people - they can sense things," says Ken, who himself owns two quarter horses.
His son, Scott, 33, is a graduate of Ponaganset High who earned a bachelor's degree in English from the University of Rhode Island on his way to starting a career as a teacher.
It never happened.
Already familiar with his father's trade after having accompanied him on the truck many times in his childhood, Scott says he had second thoughts about "spending all day in a classroom - I always liked being outside."
His father recalls always wanting him to go to college, since the farrier's trade "is so hard, and such bull work. Then he came in one day and said he wanted to learn this."
Married to the former Dena Howard of Glocester and the father of an 11-month-old, Scott says he has no plans to change careers.
A baseball and football player in school, he says of his job, "I like the physicality of it, and I like seeing something fixed. Like when you see what's wrong and the horse walks away better than when he walked in."
Plus, he says, the condition of a horse's hooves are key to its overall health.
Some might see the farrier's trade as an old-fashioned one, he says, but he considers it modern in view of the large number of horse fanciers who depend on seeing the Salisbury truck arrive.
Plus, says Scott, his job is a real conversation starter at parties, where people are prone to ask, "They still do that?"
They do indeed - enough so that the Salisburys need to travel an hour in any direction to satisfy demand - which puts all of Rhode Island and a fair portion of southeastern Massachusetts on their daily trail.
Scott says that he and his father get along "most of the time," but spending every working hour of their days together does lead to some differences of opinion.
The elder Salisbury is quick to blame himself, noting that "There may be more than one way of doing something, but I think my way's the only way."
Says the farrier Ken Salisbury with a chuckle of satisfaction: "I live in my own world."
- Reach Gerry Goldstein at gerry76@cox.net.
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| A whole new meaning to pedicure, or is this a case of ‘peticure?’ Scott Salisbury and his father, Ken Salisbury, are blacksmiths who bring the forge and tools to the horse. Beth Stone, owner of Cornerstone Farm in Foster, holds one of the farm’s horses while Scott files a hoof. A family pet pays close attention. Valley Breeze photo by Albert Tavakalov |
