Most of us can’t remember a year like the one we’ve had. Over our lives we’ve been blessed to live through relatively peaceful times, with economic growth and great choice and mobility in how we spend our spare time.
CoVid has turned most of our worlds upside down and forced us to re-evaluate so many basic aspects of our lives, many of which were easy to take for granted.
The simple joy of spending time with the people closest to us, many of whom we’ve been unable to see, the luxury of grocery stores and the people who work in them and keep our homes supplied with life’s essentials, and the absolute luxury of eating a meal in a restaurant.
Sure Flow Equipment has a strong connection and respect for the front-line workers, whether they be a healthcare professional, or a truck driver delivering food, we have all gained a new respect and admiration for the vital work they do in our society.
We were also proud to be deemed an essential business with many of our products being integral to the industrial processes that provide us such a high standard of living. Whether in the petroleum industry which keeps us warm and the trucks moving, or in straining something as critical as water in a municipal treatment plant, preventing downtime has never seemed so important.
It’s hard to not have been worn down by this year’s events but Sure Flow President Penni Boxall was inspired recently at the end of the workday. She arrived home to see a huge snapping turtle crawling across her lawn.
After she got a photo of it for the grandkids, and the dog was finished investigating the stranger, she watched as the turtle moved along at its methodical pace, undisturbed by dog or human. After dinner the turtle was gone. Despite a broad search, that slow and steady reptile was nowhere to be found.
One would hope we’ll all be able to take a lesson from her encounter.
Turtles first appeared in the fossil record 220 million years ago in the Jurassic period.
Somehow they managed to outlive the dinosaurs that died out 65 million years ago. They survived ice ages and exceptional climate deviations and just kept moving forward, slowly and steadily. A female turtle doesn’t start breeding until she is close to 20 years old, so she has to survive a couple of decades before she can even start to contribute to maintaining the species.
A turtle lumbering across a lawn isn’t like a cheetah sprinting across the savannah, but its movement has a real grace, and a determination that says I may not move like a white-tailed deer bounding through the woods, but I’ve been doing this for 200 million years, so clearly, ‘it works!’
We grew up with the fable of the tortoise and hare. The hare clearly seems to outclass the lowly tortoise, but somehow the slow and steady determination of the tortoise ultimately wins the race.
At this point in the pandemic the turtle clearly has a message for us all. We’re making progress. The end is in sight. Vaccination rates are climbing steadily. People remain committed to safe behaviours to help us reach the goal.
The economy has weathered an incredible hit and is still resilient. It shows signs of a strong return as people start spending the money that they haven’t been able to during lockdown. Companies are making investments to deal with the expected rebound.
As we all take another deep breath, we need to keep our eye on the final prize of a return to normalcy. We’re getting close. It seems like slow progress, but slow and steady wins the race.
We know Sure Flow team members are all ready for a return to business as usual, including visiting our customers on site to help with their varied projects. In the meantime we’re here following responsible protocols to ensure we can keep our essential infrastructure customers supplied with critical products. We appreciate your continued support, your patience, and look forward to celebrating the return to normal which we hope that the turtle’s emergence from its winter hibernation heralds.