Measure Twice, Cut Once
The Turning Feral Journal - Day 30
Day 30: They say complacency kills… but in my case, it did the opposite. For the past few years as I have learned to trap beaver on my water line, I have grown accustomed to having success with a certain variety of sets and this year was going to be no different. Once November hit I packed up all of my things, grabbed my gung-ho daughter, and headed out the door.
When we got to the area that I had scouted all summer, everything was perfect. The right signs were there and I went to make the same sets I had in previous years. It all went exactly as planned except for one little thing. On one of my dam-break sets I did not drive my anchor in as deep as I usually would… why you may ask? Well, my daughter was sitting right beside me and if I had driven the anchor to its usual depth, I would have splashed her with a significant amount of cold river water… Feeling empathetic to her comfort I thought to myself, what is one inch going to really do? I figured it was secure enough, wrapped up the set placement, and my dry daughter and I moved on.
Hello complacency my old friend!
Fast forward to the next day. I arrive on scene and immediately notice disturbances, which elevated my heart rate. However, it didn’t take long for that excitement to wane when I realized my trap had been sprung… but there was no beaver in it. Worse yet, upon further investigation, the beaver who I ‘caught’ had managed to wrap the trap around that exposed one inch piece of rebar stake and escape by twisting his own foot off. Heart ache.
Not only had my complacency in making the set resulted in a non-catch, but it also led to the creation of a trap-wise 3-legged beaver swimming around. Feeling horrible, I pulled my sets and took a week off to re-evaluate my motives. I wanted to make sure that the same complacency which resulted in this mishap wouldn’t be replicated at my other locations when I started back up again.
This was a strong and consequential reminder about the negative power of complacency. What happened in this trapping scenario can happen in regular life, too. Not paying attention to little details and zombie-ing through work, marriage, or the relationship with your kids can shock you when you show up one day only to realize that you missed something small that you shouldn’t have and are now left to deal with unexpected carnage.
Stay vigilant and treat every day and situation with the attention it deserves.
Daily Prompt: Where are you being complacent? If you don’t address that now, what could the consequences be?:
Motivational Passage:
Success breeds complacency. Complacency breeds failure. Only the paranoid survive.
-Andy Grove (Intel)
Rewilding Action: Knives. There are so many great companies out there today that make solid knives for hunting, skinning, cooking, etc. I have tried them all from Outdoor Edge, Havalon, Benchmade, all the way to Montana Knife Co. Truth be told, they are all great these days and it really depends on your budget and your ability to learn how to sharpen. If you don’t want to get into sharpening, I would definitely push folks to get replaceable blade sets from Havalon. They keep their edge long enough to do good work and once they are dull you can just toss them.