Cutting down a tree- life lesson

This morning we stopped all 'formal' book school to watch what for me was a real life lesson, and I hope it was for our kids, also. As I type, each of us are sitting in our own space re-telling the story with pictures and in our own words.

Here is my version of the story...later I'll post their stories :)

We were finishing up breakfast and we heard something going on outside so we went out to see what it was. There was a small group of guys gathered around the old dead tree in front of our house. One man had already climbed up the tree and was being passed a chain saw as we began to watch this drama unfold.

I went to grab the camera, and breakfast now forgotten, we all pulled out chairs and sat down to watch. the kids ran to grab their nature notebooks (I love my kids :] ) and started drawing pictures.

I tried to capture everything in pictures.

So, one baefoot man in the tree, makeshift rope pulley to raise and lower chainsaw to man in tree. Wooden 7 rung ladder to get up in tree, extra rope to use as needed to help hold chainsaw in tree and four or five guys down below to catch falling parts of tree and assist in pulling down limbs as they break loose.

I'll let the pictures tell the story for a few minutes. What a fascinating site!





























































Now, I know many of you might say, "Brooke, how can you possibly make a lesson out of watching a tree being cut down?"

Well, the truth is this plain and simple...We let too much of ordinary life pass by without allowing the time to talk about what we saw, to process the event, to look at it through the eyes of our Creator. Too much time is wasted on our personal entertainment (ie: watching tv, playing ,
video games, etc) and we simply have forgotten to take time to watch the birds, talk to our neighbors, learn about the simple things, like how do you cut down a tree. I believe firmly in giving my kids the opportunity to grow and learn from every day experiences. I love that in homeschooling I can do that. I have decided that school is not and should not be all about preparing for a test, taking the test and then moving on to something else. I believe much more is learned from watching, processing, listening, writing down (taking notes), and re-telling what happened. I also believe much can be learned and processed through historical fiction books. We read so much in our school days, some fun things and some more serious things. But all of it we write down notes, talk it through, and then re-tell either through drawings, copywork or re-telling through narration or story telling through writing.

I'll be 32 years old in a few weeks and I have never seen anyone cut down a tree like this before. I think I've only seen a tree being cut once or twice before actually, but it was the city cutting the tree down. It was a really cool experience to watch. How easy it would have been to say, "Nope, gotta forge through this lesson." and miss the whole experience. Or to say, "This is wasted time. Come on kids let's go." I truly believe they learned something and it gave us the opportunity to have a memory together that I've never had before.

Both Ethan and Isabelle have documented the event by writing the story in their own words and drawing a picture, which I will share in separate posts following this one.

What we all found fascinating was how the man cutting stopped and pondered each cut before he made it. He moved around the tree as if he was walking on the ground. He was very graceful and had amazing balance. We all commented on how he had to think through each cut in order to ensure a space to lean on or to use for footing for the next cut. It was really interesting.

After he had cut all the large branches and only the trunk remained, he sat for a moment to rest on the trunk. I am sure he must have been exhausted. Our neighbor, Elvita hollered over that he needed a picture to remember the moment. Then, she saw all of us sitting on our porch and told me I should take a picture. So, I walked to the gate and told him to give me his best smile and snapped a photo.
Then, I came inside and printed off a couple sheets of pictures and we all walked over and gave them to him and met the group of men.

The man's name that cut down the tree is Sirvio (Sear-vee-oh) and another man thee helping to drag the logs away was named Elias (El- ee-us). We stood and talked with him for a few minutes and gave him the pictures. I am not sure he's ever had a picture like that before. He had a huge smile on his face! We asked him why he was cutting the tree down. He said that it was a dead tree and it was dangerous for it to remain there because it could fall on a child or a woman or any person for that matter. He did not want anything like that to happen, so they made the decision to cut it down. He's been sutting trees down since he was very young he said.