Get Your Welding On

If you were to ask me one thing I would wish upon my kid(s), my answer would be this… I would wish upon them the kind of childhood I had growing up.  Yes, my parents and I butted heads a few times, that will happen when you have different/similar personalities together, but I had a great childhood.  I only hope that I can bring some of the things that my parents did for me or taught me to my kids.

Now, as most of you know, Tbug is my {step}daughter, but I don’t like that word step.  She’s just as much a part of me as if I would have carried her for 9 months, I just got mine walking talking & potty trained.

One thing that I did at an early age is help my dad, mom, grandparents, whomever out in the hayfield or while they were fixing equipment.  Late last fall we got one more round of hay for the season to feed our critters, but in the process the mower conditioner broke down and has been sitting in my mother-in-laws shop waiting to be fixed.

A couple weekends ago while Tbug was over, we headed to my MIL’s house to fix the mower and her daddy gave her lessons on welding.

Now normally, here is where I would remind you about safety, i.e. making sure the mower is turned off, making sure the tractor is turned off, making sure everything is raised up, not being in water if you’re welding, etc.  but we were in a shop on a “clean”, dry, concrete floor.  The mower wasn’t even hooked up to the tractor, therefore nothing to worry about there.

After hubby crawled around and investigated what he needed to do to the mower,

It was time to give Tbug lessons on what to do while welding.

• Wear a welding helmet
• Don’t look at the welding arch with your bare eyes (ie wear the helmet)
• I’ll give you the signal on when to pull the helmet down
• Pull your hair up (ie Nicole pulls hers down so Tbug has a ponytail)
• Turn your hat backwards (out of the way and helps protect your hair)
• I’ll give you my coat to put on for extra protection
• etc etc

And then they were off.

She didn’t actually do any welding, she stayed back and watched from a very close, safe distance.

When they fired up the welder I turned my back to them to shield my eyes and this is what the wall looked like.  That’s how bright the welder is…. and I know it doesn’t look bright in this photo, but the big overhead door was open too so we had outside light in there as well.

When we were done we asked her what she thought and she said she had fun.  That’s my girl!