On Tuesday the Tree Came Down

I had a full day of school planned--no calendared interruptions.

But then the tree guys came.

Our gorgeous, huge, very old tree in the center of our back yard--the one that shaded our deck and the chicken coop and held the rope swing--died.

We don't know why.

We grieved.

But it was such a big tree, so close to our house that we knew it had to come down under supervision before it came down in a storm.

(Which would crush our upstairs bedrooms . . . and their precious occupants!)

The tree guys showed up during morning meeting.

"You may watch the workers if you finish your breakfast and if you listen to the scriptures.  If you cannot finish eating, and you choose not to listen, you may not watch the workers."

They tried.

We closed the blinds.

Then they succeeded.

I put away my school goals for the day, and we watched the tree guys at work.

The rule was they must stay on the deck or the deck stairs . . . here they are watching the tree guys back a truck up our hill.

Good bye, sand pit.  Took us a month to make; took the tree guy 3 minutes to destroy.  But it was the only way to get the articulated boom lift to the tree.

Leveling the articulated boom lift took a long time in our hilly, uneven yard.

Then the tree guys got to work cutting down limbs.


They had no problem letting us watch, but they did warn us to back up just in case as they worked on a few of the trickier limbs that swung close to the house as they fell.

Half gone!
The teens filmed the final fall, but I'd put my phone down earlier, so I failed to capture the incredible moment of hearing, feeling, and watching the trunk finally give way.

The crash was incredible!

It took the tree guys all of 15 minutes to gather up their equipment and leave, by which time all of the kids had sturdy shoes and socks on and were waiting at the deck gate for permission to explore the detritus.

(We got a discount on the tree felling by not having them clean up or cart anything away.)

We counted the rings as best we could . . . something harder to do that you'd think.  Our best guess is that our tree was about 100 years old.  Not old enough to have witnessed the pioneers walking past (we live on part of the Santa Fe/California/Oregon Trail--literally--there's a pioneer marker on our block showing a preserved wagon swale, and the trail went right around the bottom of our back yard long before it was our back yard) but old enough to have been a witness to history.

The first explorations

Triumphant explorers!

And the fairy house entrance.  Welcome!
Nature Angel discovered that a downed limb formed a perfect frame for building a fairy house--which the kids proceeded to do for the next 2 hours. (In spite of the 90 degree heat)

I had to practically drag them in the house for lunch!

Shhh!  Sleeping fairies!

I'm not sure where their wings went, but wings or no these fairies were undaunted about getting up to their "look out spots."



From left to right we can see Twig, Pumpkin, Sprout, and Lily.  Hazelnut (aka Brother) is inside the fairy house.  These fairies are on the look out for any danger or potential adventure!

We didn't do our usual school, but this particular Plan B was a really joyful day of learning and exploration!

Comments

  1. JenniferOctober 2, 2019 at 1:48 PM

    Sounds like a great day! I did not respond this way when they were putting in a gas line in front of our house last year and boy did I learn my lesson!

    ReplyDelete
  2. JudyOctober 2, 2019 at 5:02 PM

    What an experience!

    ReplyDelete
  3. DawnOctober 3, 2019 at 5:23 AM

    What an awesome day and learning experience. They even got to work on their emotional IQ's so they could make it out the door in the first place. Wonderful.
    Blessings, Dawn

    ReplyDelete
  4. grtlyblesdDecember 2, 2019 at 10:01 AM

    Oh, that looks like fun! I remember when we watched the concrete guys pour the widened section of our driveway. The poured out a little patch in the dirt for us to play in. The kids carved their initials, and we sprinkled it with glitter. It might not have been "school" in the traditional sense, but they learn about the world around them on these special days.

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Anne's Day in the Life: 17, 16, 12, 10, 9, 8, 8, 7, 5, & 5

Image
This is my crew last summer--the day we said goodbye to Pixie as she headed off to college. I actually have all 12 of my children home right now. Rose Red is nearly 20, graduated from our homeschool a year and a half ago, lives at home, and is working as a server at Applebee's as she tries to understand what it means to be an adult. Pixie is newly 18, graduated from our homeschool almost a year ago, is a dance major at BYUI, and is spending her off-track semester working full-time in the 1-year-old room at a daycare. These two still are part of our family days, and their schedules directly impact the rest of us, but I am no longer responsible for their day-to-day educational needs. The remaining 10 are still under my educational supervision.  Among these 10 children we are schooling while we cope with anxiety, depression, FASD, ADHD, DMDD, ODD, ASD, PTSD, and Intellectual Disability. Here is a February Wednesday in our lives. 5:04 am :  Sir Walter Scott's a...
Read more

A Week, Briefly (Summer is not over)

Image
Last August I was not ready for school to start, but I did it anyway because I thought I should. And in September I had mental health crisis of the most serious kind. This August I am not ready for school to start. And I'm honoring that. However, I am ready to document brief moments of the beautiful learning that my kids engage in when I'm not running school. This week Rose Red is in Florida at a surfing camp.  She's with a sweet friend.  I could not be happier for her to have this experience away from home, at the beach, out-of-doors, physically active, and just plain cool. As far as I'm concerned, this is a quarter of a credit of P.E. The rest of us are at home.  My teens are reveling in their last days of bizarre teen sleeping schedules before early morning seminary begins next week. Pixie has been working on memorizing the dances she's choreographed for our dance team.  She'll be teaching the 10-12 year olds and dancing with the 12-17 year o...
Read more

I Had a Birthday

Image
 I am now 52 years old. My children are ages 9, 9, 11, 12, 12, 13, 14, 17, 20, 21, 22, 24. I have been homeschooling for over 20 years. Prior to that, I was a public school teacher (middle school English, K-3 special ed, and K-12 substitute). I find myself feeling very reflective about self, family, home, spiritual growth, marriage, goals, wishes, dreams, etc. Rather than try to put my mental ramblings into reasonable, readable sentences, I'll say this:  It's been a wild ride, and I'm grateful for the life I've lived thus far. I feel very aware of how few homeschooling years remain to me. Oh!  How I want to make them count! This week I did a rather good job at making memories with my children. The teens and I continued The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin and our American Literature text.  The best moment of the week was reading The Declaration of Independence from beginning to end.  I cried. (Just a little) The kids (I read it aloud while the younger kids w...
Read more