“There’s always something you can do.” We used to teach it to the kids when I helped with my son’s Pee Wee ball team going on twenty years back. It was also part of an advertising course I took recently. The point is this: coaches want everyone on a baseball team to be moving when the other team gets a hit. And in ads, it pertains to consistently looking at the performance metrics and learning. Whether the ads are earning or costing money… there’s always something you can do. It’s the same with preparedness.
So often, we get our heads wrapped around a zillion excuses. Trust me—I know them all. “Not enough money…” “Not enough time…” “Spouse thinks it’s dumb…” and my personal favorite, “Just didn’t get around to it.” On Monday this week, I was reminded by nature that we dodged a bullet.
My son called from the bottom of our lengthy, country driveway when he got home from work. “Uhhhh….there’s a tree in the driveway. I’ll just park by the shop.” Well… rat farts. We had heavy winds on Monday, the result of some record-breaking tropical storm…yada-yada-yada. Where I live, that’s the story every fall and winter. I had even told myself a few days before, “Go fire up the chainsaw, make sure it works…” Did I? “Just didn’t get around to it.”
In the sideways rain, I went to one shed to fetch gas. And even though it has Pri-G in it, it is still old gas, and this chainsaw is older than my two of my kids (though I did rebuild the carburetor about ten years back.) I went to the shop, fetched the riding lawnmower/cart, chainsaw, and wood buck. We grabbed a heavy line that is an effective tow line out of the truck. We easily managed to drag the standing broken fir top (about thirty feet long, not a big piece; about 10-12” diameter at the snap) down to flat on the sloped driveway. I fired up the tiny old Poulan and it ran fine—for about three minutes. After that it just wouldn’t stay running. Probably bad gas, maybe a dirty plug… The point is that I should’ve already had this discovered and addressed before the wind and rain storm. And that’s the real lesson here. I have a couple of pretty big preparedness projects I’ve been shelving simply because I’m putting about 50 to 60 hours a week into the writing and business sides of my next book series. Excuses, excuses.
Fortunately, we got the thing limbed in that three minutes. It was small enough to toss to the side of the driveway for the time being. Will I clean and fix that little 1994 Poulon? Sure. Will I first go get the big Stihl I’ve been wanting for 25 years? The one my wife had agreed we should buy months ago? In the words of that one Alaskan governor who quit her job mid-term for a reality TV show, “You Betcha!” You know… When I get around to it.