“I used to hit the iron two hundred times for one pair of bat wings. Now I can do ten.” — Why a 70-year-old New Mexico blacksmith is letting his final 286 hand-hammered bat lanterns go cheap, before he hangs up his hammer.

Every summer evening in Taos, New Mexico, a 70-year-old man walks out of his workshop, lights two small candles inside an iron bat above the door, and sits down on an upturned bucket. Ten minutes later, the real bats come out of the cottonwood trees by the river.

He has done this for twenty-eight years. This fall, for the first time, he is not sure how many more evenings there will be in that workshop.

Four hundred thousand bats, and not one person said a word

Tomás Arriaga was born in 1956 in Carlsbad, New Mexico. His father worked in the potash mines. Every summer Friday, he drove the family up the hill to Carlsbad Caverns and sat them on the stone benches in front of the cave.

Then, at sundown, the bats came out. Up to four hundred thousand of them, pouring out of the dark in one long, black spiral.

“Nobody talked. Not one person. You could hear their wings. Then my father would stand up and say: ‘Okay. Ice cream.’”

Tomás laughs when he tells it. He was six the first time. He has never stopped looking up at dusk since.

Two men wore the middle of this anvil shiny

In 1979 Tomás moved north to Taos and went to work for an old blacksmith named Fidel Romero. Fidel made gate hinges and door latches for the adobe houses around the plaza. In 1985, Fidel retired and handed Tomás the keys.

The shop is still the same. A low adobe building behind his house. A coal forge in the corner. Eleven hammers on the wall, the handles dark where the hands go. And Fidel’s anvil, worn smooth and shiny in the middle by two men over seventy years.

In 1998 Tomás cut a bat out of a scrap of iron, just for his own porch. Wings folded around its body. Hanging upside down. A candle in each wing. A neighbor asked for one. Then a gallery in town asked for twenty. Since then he has made a little over 6,000 of them.

Why his bats hang in the rain for six weeks

• Hangs like a real bat: Each bat hangs head-down from one hook, wings wrapped around its body, just like a bat sleeping in a barn. “That is how they rest,” Tomás says. “Right side up looks wrong.”
• Two candles inside the wings: The wings curl into two little cups. A tea light sits in each one, out of the wind. At night the light glows out through the open wings and onto the little face in the middle.
• The rain makes the color: The rust is not paint. Every bat hangs on his fence for six weeks in rain and sun. “I can make the shape. Only weather makes that color.” And it keeps getting richer every year it hangs outside.
• Hammered by hand: Every wing is shaped with a hammer, hit by hit. The little dents catch the candlelight, so the whole bat seems to flicker, not just the flames.

The bat over the door is the ugliest one he ever made

The very first bat still hangs over the workshop door. It is darker than all the others now. The edges of the wings are worn thin. Tomás calls it the ugliest bat he ever made.

He also calls it his favorite. Every evening from May to October he lights the two candles in it and sits underneath with a cup of coffee. The moths come to the light. Then the bats come for the moths.

“My father had his bench at the cave. This is my bench.”

Two hundred hits for one pair of wings. He can do ten.

Forty-one years of swinging a hammer over his head have worn out his right shoulder. He tore it once in 2019 and kept working. He tore it again this February.

The surgeon in Albuquerque told him plainly: keep hammering, and one day you will not be able to lift your arm to comb your hair.

“One pair of wings is about two hundred hard hits,” Tomás says. “I can do ten now. Then I have to sit down.” He does not say it sadly. He says it the way he tells you the anvil weighs 180 pounds.

He finished one last batch before the second tear. 286 bats are left, hanging on the fence and wrapped in newspaper in the shed. When they are gone, there will be no more.

Why Tomás won’t take the gallery’s $120

The gallery in Taos sold his bats for $120 each. Tomás is letting the last 286 go for a fraction of that.

“I don’t want them in a box in somebody’s garage. I want them on a porch, where somebody sits at night and looks up.”

That is all he asks. Light the two candles. Sit outside for ten minutes. “There are bats everywhere in this country,” he says. “Most people never see them, because they never sit outside long enough.”

His granddaughter Marisol, a nurse in Albuquerque, set up the online shop for him in one weekend. “He still asks me how many people came to the store today,” she says. “I told him two thousand. He asked where they all parked.”

What porch-sitters say about Tomás’s bats

• ★★★★★

  “It hangs from the beam on our back porch. The first night I lit it, my husband and I sat out until almost ten. We saw three bats. Haven’t done that in years.”

  – Carol H., 68, Asheville, North Carolina
• ★★★★★

  “Heavier than I expected and the rust color is beautiful. You can see the hammer marks on the wings. Nothing like the plastic bats at the store.”

  – Gary P., 72, Boise, Idaho
• ★★★★★

  “Bought one for Halloween and one for my sister. Hers is in her garden, mine is by the front door. Every trick-or-treater stopped to look at it.”

  – Donna R., 65, Fort Wayne, Indiana

Your questions about Tomás’s bats

Where can I buy Tomás’s bats?

Only through Cedar & Tin, where Marisol runs his little corner of the shop. You will not find his hand-hammered bats on Amazon or Temu.

How long will they be available?

Only while the last batch lasts. Right now Tomás has 286 bats left. When they are gone, there will be no more.

Can I try one risk-free?

Yes. You have 30 days. If the bat doesn’t make you want to sit outside in the evening, send a short email and you get your money back. No long forms, no hassle.

Readers are sending in their photos

• ★★★★★

  “I grew up near Carlsbad and watched the bat flight as a kid, just like he did. When I read his story I ordered two on the spot.”

  – Linda M., 70, Las Cruces, New Mexico
• ★★★★★

  “Mine has been outside through two months of rain now and the color only got deeper. He was right about the weather.”

  – Ron T., 74, Portland, Oregon
• ★★★★★

  “My grandkids call it ‘Grandpa’s bat.’ We light it every time they visit and count the real ones. Our record is seven.”

  – Walter K., 76, Madison, Wisconsin