It's so cold in the shop right now the marble feels different under the chisel. Stiff. Holds the cut too long and then lets go all at once. I've worked stone in this kind of cold plenty of times, you just go slower or you bust it.

But my hands are 61. They don't warm up like they used to. Twenty minutes in and the fingers are telling me things I don't want to hear.

Dragged a propane heater out this morning and it's doing just about nothing against a concrete floor and a tin roof. I keep my good chisels in the house this week like they're houseplants.

Nobody warns you that the cold part of the work gets harder than the heavy part. I can still move a two hundred pound block around, but I can't keep my own hands above fifty degrees. That's the trade, I guess. The strength stays longer than the circulation.