I live right near the center of the city, across from the local College. My garden is fairly wide, so I keep right in the center, under the deck. I am kinda paranoid about smoke, because my neighbors are the crabby sort, and called the cops on us for our chickens when I was in the 3rd grade. Now we don't talk to them, and I make sure to start my fires with charcoal, which is far less smoky (but can still make smoke) and once it is going and I am forging, I pack small pieces of wood or dried spheres of chicken manure around the edge to "coke". Their smoke is burned up by the charcoal, and I can push the resulting charcoal into the fire as needed.
My anvil is a 2.5 foot tall railroad joiner (which has more evenly distributed mass in cross-section than rail) sunk vertically into a 30 gallon bucket filled half way with heavy rock/ smashed concrete scrap and dirt, and in the top half with concrete. It doesn't ring at all, just goes "thunk! thunk!"
Come to think of it, I ought to forge a little something for the neighbors on all sides, my family hasn't been very neighborly for a good 9 years. :-o
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