When you live a rich life full of challenges and adventures, it is inevitable that as age catches up with you, a different light falls on the surrounding world. I remember my mother in her later years saying that the worst thing about getting old was seeing things that you have done all your life which you can no longer do.
That happens to be a great truth. Aches and pains come and go but there is no denying that I can no longer spend a hot afternoon in the woods cutting brush or spend a whole day on a tractor bailing hay. My wife has said that I am lot like her father who enjoyed nothing more than working all day until there was not a dry thread on his body. Sometimes that meant three showers in a day, no more.
Even long after we left our New Brunswick farm, and we were living in Roanoke, Virginia, and I was working for Apple, some of my best days were clearing a trail on the side of our mountain. Our Labrador, Chester, would watch over me from a shady spot while I used my weed whip, Swedish saw and axe to clear the trail which was over two miles long.
When we moved to the North Carolina coast, there were always projects and a yard that took two hours to mow behind our push mower. There I built a green bean trellis, a garden potting table, and even a desk for my office. I built the desk in our garage, then took it apart and hauled it up to my office three stories above the garage. When we moved to the Piedmont, the desk came with us, and we had a rock wall built. There we created a wonderful garden behind it. For a couple of years I dedicated myself to the garden even as I continued to work a full time job.
Of course these activities all pale compared to some accomplishments that I managed on the farm. We built two huge barns, but there is nothing harder than running a couple of hundred head of cattle through a handling chute to weigh and vaccinate them. I lost five pounds one day doing that. One of the worst things that I ever did was to be on the wrong end of the hay conveyor stacking seventy-five pound bales of straw. I think the biggest load was 535 bales and that day the temperature was minus 28F. When I was finished that day every exposed hair was frosted.
I often think back to when my mother was in her eighties and could not longer plant her beloved winter pansies. My wife and I took over that job and loved giving her the joy of seeing the pansies grow as she did her winter reading. Because of my heart valve replacement this year I have had to cede the job of planting our pansies to my son. My hope is that when spring comes, I might be helping with the planting once again. However, life often throws you curves so only time will tell. The curve balls are harder to hit as you slow down with age.
Our technological infirmity 