I went on 2nd shift a few weeks back. It’s nice in the summer time to spend the best part of the day with my kids. Unfortunately I’m not around during the early evening to police them. My 11 year old son loves playing in the woods behind the house and I encourage him to enjoy it. As I was walking through today though, I noticed he had been busy working on a standing dead black birch. He said he found my hatchet and didn’t want the tree falling on him so he decided to take it down himself I cut it down the rest of the way just now. He got a stern talking to about what the right thing to do would’ve been. I’m just glad it didn’t come crashing down on him more than anything. BTW it seems the holzhausen piles took that blunt force trauma like a champ
Yeah, that could have gone badly. Glad it turned out OK and safely. Sent from my SM-S536DL using Tapatalk
Glad you saw that before it turned into a bad situation & could turn it into a positive learning experience.
Having a “me do” kid myself… Can only get mad at myself for not teaching them the correct ways sooner. if I ever thought they weren’t ready, they’d always give me a pleasant reminder that I was underestimating them.
He had already given me an ample face cut, so I was kind of committed at that point as to which direction to aim it One quick back cut and down it went. It did do something funny on me when it let go though, and turned a bit to the right, hitting my stacks. No harm no foul though.
Didn’t I get my hide tanned when dad found a couple trees I had gone after with an axe. Not quite as bad as when he found bb’s in the suit feeder tho. Memories.
The tree "falling on him" was a great rationalization (for an 11 year old). I was about that age the first time I axed a tree down. 1/8 of a mile into the woods though. My younger brother and I are only 11 months apart so we probably took turns chopping. We made firewood with it, so it wasn't chopping a tree down just to do it. Dad usually didn't give us grief for using his tools, just when we used the wrong tool for a job.
My first experience dropping trees with a hatchet was at 11 or 12 too. Being the son of a single mom with an absentee father, I was tasked with taking down a row of small(ish) thorny trees which had trunks about 4-7" diameter. I spent a good chunk of the summer doing it, unsupervised minus the constant traffic that buzzed by on our cut-through road.
Looks like a candidate for a future forum member! “Hey guys, don’t tell my dad…” Glad you caught that in time and dropped it safely. Look at it this way, he wasn’t inside, playing video games or being bored.
That's exactly why I encourage his woods time as much as I can. He and the neighbor's kids spend hours out there at a time all year round. They build forts and have all sorts of adventures (usually stealing my tools for their projects) But I'll take that any time over him being vegged out inside staring at a screen.
Now I REALLY like that idea The last thing I want to do is discourage him from being... him, in this case.
Before long, he’ll realize he doesn’t need your tools and just use his own. So many ways to teach him responsibility and pride in ownership there… get him a DVOM and do some trailer lights…. Who’s meter do you think he’s going to want to use.
Reminds me of when the grandkids were little. They used to “help” me process firewood. Their axes were croquet mallets and the would beat the heck out of the rounds trying to split them. One day they decided they were going to chop down the Fir tree in the yard with their “axes” croquet mallets. I told them to go for it but when I checked on them in a bit I had to stop them as they were taking off all of the bark.
Reminds me of when the grandkids were little. They used to “help” me process firewood. Their axes were croquet mallets and the would beat the heck out of the rounds trying to split them. One day they decided they were going to chop down the Fir tree in the yard with their “axes” croquet mallets. I told them to go for it but when I checked on them in a bit I had to stop them as they were taking off all of the bark.
After getting over the shock of what could have happened I gotta hand it to those kids. That's some stick-to-it-ness right there.
