Last month we lost three pine trees in our yard during an intense wind storm. These trees were each about 40 feet tall with rather large trunks. I’ve spent the past few weeks with my chain saw cutting the branches and hauling away the mess. I’ve finally gotten down to just the big logs from the trunks. Each of these are so large and heavy that I need to use a steel wedge to split them in order to lift them and load them into my truck. I had forgotten how much I enjoy swinging a sledge hammer – and how productive I feel smashing the head of the sledge into a target.
When I was a 95 pound 13 year old boy I spent a large amount of time doing just that with a huge pile of logs in our in our back yard. It took me nearly the entire summer to get through that pile – but the experience taught me how to keep working/pushing through. It seemed as if I would never get to the end…But I did. In the culture of physical ease that I live in now, I often struggle with how to teach my children the lessons I learned during that summer.
Todd Rivetti 