Between a rock and another rock

There's a strong and biting northwest wind, piling up snow drifts that are inches deep across the path to the wood pile. The temperature has sky-rocketed to 16. This is the winter weather that we missed in January. There's talk of heavy snow tomorrow night.

All of which makes me glad that I don't have to work outside, particularly in granite quarries. This morning's Boston Globe included an article about the difficult times for the Vermont quarries. Imports, it seems, are taking away their markets. Amazing. It's cheap to get granite from China, shipping it halfway around the world, than it is to get locally-mined stone.

Both of my grandfathers worked the New England granite quarries during their early years after arriving from Finland. My mother's father worked in the quarries south of Rutland VT before setting up a dairy farm in Jaffrey NH. My father's father worked in Milford NH, later to move to Gardner to work as cabinet maker in that city's furniture factories.

I guess it turned out that keeping the immigrants at home and buying stuff from across the ponds is much cheaper than having the immigrants come here to do the work. And cheap is what we want.