Thought you were talking about the weather out here in Southern California (USA). Actually, this is a very well-written and heartfelt tribute to what seems to be a difficult enterprise to keep going these days. Do we (USA) still actually have any Ironworks production plants still in operation? Must be...somewhere...but I dont' know where. Maybe someone will fill in the blanks for me today. 5's ~ ~ ~

Yup, even if Betlehem Steel went over, the US Steel still thrives. There are several ironworks plants still operational in Great Lakes area. But the blast furnaces are, sadly, disappearing heritage everywhere in the Western world. In 1970, there were 136 blast furnaces in West Germany alone; in 2005 there were mere sixteen in the whole Germany. Most of the steel industry today in western world is based on recycling scrap rather than smelting ore. It is a formidable and beautiful sight to see the blast furnace being tapped and virginal molten iron running as a stream into converter.

Unique and timely...I live in Ohio, near Youngstown. This is an area, that only decades ago, was one of the largest steel producers in the country...Today, only the old corrugated metal mill buildings, weed filled parking lots, and a few rusted blast furnaces remain, like motionless dinosaurs in a Jurassic Park of a lost and forgotten iron age...very good parody, fives

You have a tremendous knowledge base. 5's

AFW - that's truly a gloomy picture...at one time places like Youngstown and other's in Ohio and Pennsylvania were a main part of the life-blood of this country. Now just "remnants" of a time when this country used to produce useful products right within it's own shores. What DO we make anymore, outside of paper Financial Instruments of sometimes dubious worth? Sometimes I wonder just how much of our economy is based just on the churning of "virtual" assets from one hand to the other and then another...with no real "product" involved in our supposed "productivity"...Case in point, the very over-heated, over-hyped and over-priced cost of a personal residence. A few months after my Father died last we sold his house for $600,000. It actually might have been worth up to $690,000, but we decided to sell quickly and without a broker...and without doing whatever repairs and such would be needed to get it worth the full price. It was appraised at $315,000 when my Step-Mother died in May, 2001. I pushed to sell quickly for anything around $600,000 because I was afraid we might still be holding it when the bubble actually burst...it could easily drop back down to near that $315,000, I believe, if that were to occur...and there was no way I could see it going any higher than the $690,000 top price was. Too much potential downside and very little remaining upside as far as I could determine. Now, it was a NICE house, in a NICE neighborhood...but it's patently NUTS to think that it was really worth $600,000. But that's what people are willing to pay now...at least until the next bubble bursts...uh...what was I talking about here, anyway? lol...

good to see you back Susanna with your unique and personal parodies - this is as esoteric as it gets - I don't think I know anyone who feels for blast furnaces quite as much as you do, but it was a lovely read, esp. "Molten iron you no more produce... Iron ore you no more will reduce" - 555

I'm putting this parody in my 555 furnace!