Don't shoot your own foot

One saying I've heard probably all my life is, "Don't shoot yourself in the foot!" We may have the best of intentions and the purest motives, yet we end up hurting ourselves and at times, the ones we love.

Back when we lived in Bartlesville, I was needing a pickup to provide a way to haul my carpentry tools from job to job. I had been using a Honda CB360 motorcycle, but it had limitations. So we went to looking for an old pickup we could afford, which meant it had to be ancient. Found an old picku,p and it drove pretty decent for an old timer. It had a three on the column and a six cylinder, so I figured it would be decent on gas. We went ahead and bought the old pickup and got it home. Pumped up the tires and found out the steering was as loose as a goose. One slightly low tire will tighten up steering on an old pickup. I tightened up the screw deal on the steering, and it ended up OK. Then, we found out the three-speed shifter was kind of loose and would stick between gears.

I learned a lot from that old pickup. I should have asked for help from some friends of ours, but I thought I could take care of it. Ended up OK, but it cost our family resources we didn't have. I didn't mean to, but in that case, I kind of shot myself in the foot.

Back through the years, quite a few of the people I know ended up having to get married. And in a matter of a few months they were blessed with a brand new baby. And if I had to guess, most of them had no intention of getting pregnant. A couple of kids get carried away, and things go too far, and low and behold there's a little one on the way. Their lives are changed in a matter of months. Many times, their future plans have to be laid aside to get jobs and support the new family. Many find the new baby a real joy and a blessing, but at the same time, they might even wish they could go back and change things. If we only had been more careful or simply said "no."

We are doing OK financially and meeting our bills and able to put aside a little for emergencies. But one day we wake up, and we have a real hankering for a new vehicle. So we go look around and end up driving some brand new ride, or a good used one. Man, we are smitten and now we have the new-ride bug. Then, we find out the new one is something like $9,000 off the normal price, and we are pushed to make a decision right then, and we stammer out we'll take it. In a matter of minutes, we have signed the papers and we are driving away in a new ride.

But a few days later or maybe a few weeks, and we come to realize this new ride is costing us more than we had planned. Tags and taxes are more than we had planned. We find out that sexy new ride has to have special insurance and, man, it's expensive. We enjoy the new ride, but we wish we hadn't bought it. If we had only waited and saved more, we could have afforded it. We kind of shot ourselves in the foot.

I've done this many times as I've gardened through the years. Maybe waited too long before getting something planted, and it ends up not having enough time to mature. Or maybe simply forgot to water it, and it died from lack of moisture. Or maybe watered it too much, and it must have drowned.

This fall, I started about 40 Tasty Jade cucumber plants, and I'll be darned if every one of them died. If they had lived, I'd be eating cucumbers right now; instead I'm wishing I had one. I've pondered what was the problem, and I still don't know. I've had this happen before, so not new. What I should have done was plant a few one day and then a few the next until they were all planted.

I built a muzzle loader back probably 30 years ago from a kit I bought down in Union City, Tennessee. Gun was really neat. It was a 54-caliber percussion Hawken style muzzle loader. I'd never used a muzzle loader very much so I started to practice with it. I'd shoot it almost every evening. Got to where I could shoot it pretty darn good.

Deer season came along, and since I was hunting muzzle season, it was the end of December. Man, was it cold. I put on my coveralls and a fairly heavy coat and went hunting. I couldn't even shoot that old muzzle loader. I had practiced using it during hot weather, so I didn't have a coat on. Now, I had on layers of heavy clothing. The stock was over an inch too long. It had never occurred to me. I did a lot of talking to myself and then decided to shorten the stock. Didn't look like much, but it was shorter and it worked.

Learned some things back through the years. One thing for sure is I've make a lot of mistakes. Some were tiny ones but some were decent sized, and I have no doubt I'm going to make mistakes in the future. Seems like the more I do, the more mistakes I make. The safest way to quit making mistakes is to simply quit. Not going to happen. I think I'll keep plugging away and hopefully make less mistakes and not repeat them too often. I've heard it said "mistakes and failures are just stepping stones to success."

Marge and I were sitting at the picnic table the other day sampling some tomatoes that had bug spots or blemishes or spoiled spots. Some were yellow and some pink and some red and some kind of orange. I cut the top off one nicely sized pale red tomato that had cracks and was showing signs it was going to spoil. But after cutting the top off the tomato, I noticed it had almost no seeds, and it was almost all pulp. It wasn't a Roma but was a perfectly round tomato that weighed probably 4 to 6 ounces. It didn't have the Roma taste but tasted like a sweet Big Beef.

I think I know which plant it came from. This one plant kind of has stood out and has been different. So now I need to check out this one plant among all the others. It would be really neat to be able to grow an almost seedless tomato for those who can't tolerate seeds. So far this year, we have collected seed from three different tomatoes that have some unique characteristics.

Watch your feet.