Tools for the Colonial Bake Oven

With a covering of mud, clay, sand, lime and dung over the bricks (and plans to put another layer of the same materials, plus some straw, on top of the 1st layer), the oven is pretty much finished....just in time for this weekend's Market Fair where it will be put to work baking bread.  It looks pretty amazing.

Final details still remain, though, and I have been hustling to forge some tools for the baking process using colonial-era drawings and photos.  I made a "scuffle" (which I keep calling a "kerfluffle" for some strange reason), which seems to be basically a colonial-style mop - a rag will go through the iron hole and a wooden handle will go on the other end.  We have some doubts about how well it will work.

I've also made a sort of a hoe to rake ashes out of the oven:

And, now I am headed into the forge to make a "rooker", which is similar to a fire poker.  Other folks are fashioning the wooden handles, building a peal, and various other implements.  In the meantime, a fire has been lit in the oven and the mud covering is drying out. 

There are still two days before Market Fair....plenty of time!