DOING IT RIGHT OR DOING IT TWICE?
Often I say that I don’t care if people learn the hard way, as long as they learn.
Perhaps this is partially because that is the way that I feel about myself. I’ve learned a lot of lessons in this life, and far too many of them were the hard way. Thankfully I have made it out alive, but still.
In this life, we all have limited time. We only get 24 hours each day, and during most of those days we sleep. Each minute that we waste is one that we will never get back, and every time we have to redo something, we wasted some time.
Though this truth applies to all of us, sometimes it is most noticeable on the homestead. Since a lot of what gets done you’re going to have to do yourself, your time is extremely precious. Today I spent a bit of time redoing something, because I did not do it right the first time.
DOING IT ALL OVER AGAIN
When @grandpa-pepper and I were first cutting down trees to make a path for our driveway and a clearing for our house site, I made quite a few piles of logs. I had some long pieces of metal from some grain bins that I had purchased, and planned on using them to help keep my firewood off of the ground. At the time though, I did not make the effort to go grab them. Instead, I just stacked the logs on the ground.
Just so you know, a log laying on the ground is going to rot. Now I sure do have some uses for rotting logs, since I can use them in hugel mounds and such, but there are plenty of rotten logs out in the woods already. These trees that we cut down will be much more valuable to us as firewood for heating our home.
Ideally, stacks of wood for firewood should be stored in a way that keeps them off of the ground. This will help the wood to be able to dry without rotting. My lame attempt at taking a shortcut was not going to work.
Here you can see that after just a few months the wood at the bottom of the pile was already starting to deteriorate. Time to do it all over again.
NOW I’LL TRY THE RIGHT WAY
Though I’ve still got a few more piles to go, I combined three of my stacks into one earlier today. This time, I put down my metal runners first to keep the wood off of the ground.
I even used some T-posts at the end of the pile so that I could stack it higher without making it longer. It sure gives the stack a nicer look when it is finished too.
In the end, it did not take me that long to complete this part of the project, but I still had to do it twice. Also, I’m still not finished. I still have three big piles to restack. Also, I’ll never get back any of the time that it takes me to redo all of this work. All of the other things that I could have been doing will now have to wait.
Guys, I’m sure that you may have heard this before, but please take the time to do it right the first time. If you need to, even ask how to do it right. If you guess wrong, you’ll just be wasting your time. I’ve got some more work to do on this restacking project, but I can guarantee that I’ll be doing every new one right the first time.
Live and learn… but please do learn!
As always, I'm @papa-pepper and here's the proof:
proof-of-not-doing-it-right-the-first-time
Until next time…
Don’t waste your time online, invest it with steemit.com
Doing it the right way , seems to make so much sense !! Yet for various reasons we take short cuts . I am attempting to SLOW down and make a effort instead of just RUSHING through things to get it done . Thanks for the post!
Very good attitude, and comment! Have a full power upvote from Papa!
learning is the power
Now that is some good old-fashioned hard work! Glad you worked through and got it done right.
Good lesson. 👍
I also think it is always worth doing work in front of you. It is much more productive and allows you to save time on other things.
I've been stacking wood all my life, Dad had a firewood business and taught me young!
We used wood pallets to stack wood on. Lay down a couple of well placed bricks, line up the pallets and your wood is safely off the ground with a little airflow to boot!
I've learned many lessons the hard way. That's OK, sometimes that's the way it goes. But not seeking out wisdom from more experienced people is the true mistake.
LOL - Is that where you got your username from?
In my younger days, I stacked wood. Now I stack silver bullion along with the rest of the gang over at #steemsilvergold
Good lesson @papa-pepper
Welcome to Steemit @dufflepud.
Old boss told me. "We have time to do it right, we don't have time to do it again!" I try and take that in everything I do.
@papa-pepper first I want to extend my warm greetins to you and @papa-pepper tribe..second, I like this your cow boy hat..looks great. To your post, I thnk that doing it right is great and yes some learn the hard way ...In my case, I mostly learn the hardway by doing things late especially buying festival gifts for othere - which is not all that great however its just me...haha. I however learn to be a great wild man from you @papa-pepper
Wow... Always the main hard worker... @papa-pepper very correct...better to do it right than doing it again but good to doing it again than never doing it!😎 Nice one aand keep it up...my regards to all the @peppers