I recently had a little incident which proves you can never be complacent or quit flying your tail-dragger until you have it in the hangar. I had just landed on a friend's private grass strip on his christmas tree farm. Its kind of short and narrow and a little rutted and rough but not too bad. Made a good landing and was rolling out. It was drifting a little to the right, maybe due to ruts or roughness, but I was very slow by then-probably less than 10 mph. In hindsight I should have reacted sooner, but finally decided I need to correct to the left. Way to slow for any help from the rudder, so used my left brake. Well the grass was long and slick so the wheel just skidded rather than turning the plane to the left. So I just kept going kind of slow motion to the right where the trees were planted alongside the runway. My right wingtip caught the top of a christmas tree which was so flexible that the treetop just bent and slid under the wing doing no damage whatsoever to the wing; no dent or even a scratch. However it hit the front edge of the right flaperon and creased it good. This swung the plane around in a 180 and the trailing edge of my left elevator then contacted another christmas tree lower down (where it is sturdier) and made a small bow in the trailing edge tube, cracking two of the wooden ribs inside. I was going so slow at this time I was surprised that any damage at all had occurred. After a thorough inspection, it looked airworthy so I flew it home (not very far) without further incident or any noticeable change in flying characteristics.

I am now in the process of replacing the flaperon (it couldn't be straightened) and have removed the fabric from the left elevator half to replace the two wood ribs and straighten the trailing edge tube. Fortunately that tube was only gently bowed and was easily straightened. Still there are many steps to take to repair just this minor damage and repaint. Hope to be ready to paint in a week or so.

Bottom line is: don't get complacent and wait too long; keep flying that plane to a stop. They say the 300-500 hour pilot (that's me at 370 hours) is the most likely to get complacent and have an incident. I'm just glad it was only minor damage and not life threatening at all. No prop strike thank goodness.

Fly safe.