Squirrel Pie
It never pays to rush into things- well almost never- the outhouse during sweet corn season being one notable exception. Proper planning is essential. It’s simply amazing how long you can postpone an investment in cash and elbow grease, if you properly plan and then- only then- execute most any project, particularly one proposed by your spouse.
For example, my wife, the Pearl of the Orient, has been proposing to me for several years, that I reorganize and clean up my office. So far this project is, in my estimation, less than half way through the planning process. I am currently waiting on a government grant to carry out the necessary feasibility study. From there a plan of action may become clear. Sorry, Dear.
My approach to this issue was not my own inspiration, but rather the expert way Drizzle Creek’s own planning sage, Pickle repeatedly demonstrates how to stretch a project out. Take shingling his roof for example. Normally this is a day, day and half, proposition. Pickle managed to extend it over, spring, summer, and into the fall- just for one side of the roof.
In all fairness though, he was interrupted by repeated visits to the coffee klatch at the Bakery, and the necessity of heading off to the road to play with his trains. He did receive substantial supervisory advice, not from his wife (she’s given up on him) but from his neighbour Dot. Pickle had made the mistake of pointing out the smoking health risks Dot was taking puffing away out on her porch. Dot figured tit-for-tat, making a point of emerging out the side door every time Pickle mounted the ladder to tackle another row.
“You know if you were any good, you’d have that job finished long ago. Foolishness, all that time you spend at the coffee shop. You just plain lazy? Bet you don’t even leave a tip!” was the general gist of her comments.
The end result was the project took even longer as Pickle refused to step on the ladder if Dot was around, and his usual thirty-minute coffee breaks extended to well over the hour mark.
“Well at least you have an excuse, you’re not retired yet,” commented Dave. Recently pensioned-off, Dave has been noted out in his yard leaning on a spade wistfully watching the trains roll by. Seems he now has no excuse for putting off items on his ‘honey do list’.
A strange look crossed Pickle’s face as he realized in just a few short years he would face the same problem. Turning to Moose, he asked, “ How do you get away with it. You never do anything?”
“I hide. That shack out in the country, and some part-time guiding are the perfect escape,” counseled Moose wisely, quickly glancing around the Bakery to insure there were no spies about.
“It works for Rene too,” he added holding out his cup for his fourth ‘free’ refill.
“Bet you don’t see him in from the Owl Ranch more than once or twice during the summer. Seems to agree with both him and his wife,” Moose advised sagely.
So there you have it. ‘If you fail to plan, you plan to fail’. Let’s not rush into any of those spring projects, after all it’s only July.
