We live in a world where try, try again and then quit, don't be a damn fool about it (can't remember which famous person said that) has become our mantra. If it is too difficult, we quit. There are so many options we don't have to keep failing.

I saw this quote today:
"Character consists of what you do on the third and fourth tries." -- James A. Michener
Maybe doing the hard things really does produce better results.

They told him the job just couldn't be done.
He smiled, and he set down to it.
He tackled that job that couldn't be done -
and he couldn't fucking do it.

Sadly, sometimes, this is true.

But sometimes it just can't be done by you, on that particular day, with those particular tools.

The damned channel tunnel could probably have never been built using old fashioned pick, shovel, and blasting technology.  But those vast 'boring machines' made it a viable proposition.

Giving up quickly doesn't really give one the results one might hope for. Working towards a reasonable goal might just get you where you were hoping to go.

They say a bad workman always blames his tools, and to some extent this is true.

But having decent tools makes a lot of difference.

Having appropriate tools makes even more of a difference.  You can't cut down a large tree with a pen-knife.

Although two friends of mine once cut down down a twelve inch thick tree with an eight inch bladed bowie knife.  Took a ridiculous amount of effort and much re-sharpening.  (But sometimes boys will take on a challenge and then simply can't let it go until it's completed.

They were fined for it, and the one who was the nominal owner of the knife sold it to me to pay his share of the fine.  they got their names in the local newspaper, and I got a bargain.

I still have it, fifty plus years later, and it will cut a one inch thick branch with a single swipe if you get the angle right.  But I prefer a longer but thinner bladed machete for that kind of cutting.  You can get a decent swing with the longer blade.  Overall I'd prefer a decent saw.

Gyppo

When my sister moved into her house over 30 years ago, there was a deadish tree in the front yard. She had a Sawzall thing and I whacked it off about six inches up from the ground and Steve was going to remove the rest. But Steve didn't. The tree is beautiful today. I have no idea what was wrong with it when the moved in, but getting cut down made it shape up nicely.

Sometimes a tree gets 'beyond itself and roots can't properly feed all the stuff above ground.  But when it's cut back to a short stump and a decent sized root system it starts growing all over again, and the new growth is healthy.

That's  one of the things I like about a good Hazel coppice.  If it's cut back every seven years or so it stays healthy.  Some of them have a root system 700 years old or more.

If you just leave it to fend for itself it will sometimes sicken and die.

Gyppo

I put a flowering cherry into my back garden at my old cottage.  It never really thrived.  It put out a few leaves every year, no flowers, no obvious growth - and after about three years of this I'd had enough and went to get it out.  I thought I could just pull it out by hand, it was still so weak and weedy.  So I pulled.  And pulled.  Nothing happened, so I pulled some more.  Because they were underground I couldn't actually see its roots hanging on for all they were worth, but that's what they were doing.  Defeated, I went and made a cup of tea while I planned my next move.

Turns out the tree was - give or take the cup of tea - doing the same thing.  Pretty well from that moment on it grew like there was no tomorrow.  By the time I was leaving the cottage, it was fifteen feet high and flowered prodigiously every spring.

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Like it, Chick!

Lots of choppers zooming to and fro

One of the perks of highrises is that pilots flying vfr use my building as a sort of guide 😊

Lots of great spotting to be had

The dog tolerates the chopper better than the whoosh of jet engines

Frank got a like, too. And he is on this side of the Atlantic. Do you see me getting likes? Do you see yourself getting likes? This is very odd. But life is also very odd, so there is that.

I found out, it is a way for me to LIKE YOUR POSTS. It is a link.

Did I now

Yes, that's what the hell these damn things are. That's a mystery solved!!!!