This is my first aqusition from the steelyard this year. It is a beautiful piece of 3/8 steel plate with some lovely compound curves,  rents and tears to die for!

My yard is clear of ice and snow and away I go,,sort of. 

This year , well today , I recalled the old farmers I worked for as a teenager on the prairies, they were starting to slow down, seize up a little, they hurt from years of hard labour, being thrown by the odd horse, jostled by the odd steer, a rock falling on the odd foot.

So they would hire me to be an extra pair of hands to pick up the slack.

I would watch them move slow , economically, surely, tying the knots right in the right place, putting the tractor in the right spot, being in the right position behind the herd of cattle, backing up the truck exactly right , leaning into the barbed wire gate exactly right so the wire hoop would fall over the post.

They knew how to do it but their body was often too slow to be in the right place at the right time thus I was the hired hand. 

There I was , burning my clutch, in the wrong place at the wrong time but I got there quickly by golly. 

I could feel the old farmers eyes upon me savouring the agility of my young body.

Now I understand that.

Then I was impatient and I thought I knew a lot.

Now I know I don't.

And now my body is slow and it hurts.

Just like theirs back then.

Funny eh?

So today I am moving some steel around, getting ready to make my crane six or seven foot higher so I can comfortably work on something twenty foot tall, comfortably pick up a ton at the end of the arm.

And it is spring.