fort god dropped

"Help me down Uncle Karl," he asked.

His flip flop had caught in the crux of the tree where he was standing. I pulled free the pinched sandal and slipped it on his extended foot. Once on the ground and free from my arms, he already had the redbud sized up. His young hands tight around the narrow limbs, muscles tugged and hoisted up legs and feet as he had before. He appealed and I lifted him down a second time to the ground. Flip flops were stuck in the crux.

His aunt Jan Jan suggested he try a young maple in the backyard. Our great-nephew found more room this time and was able to lean his back against the ascending trunk. 

When I was in grade school, my parents had let me climb the oak tree in our yard. I discovered back then there was nothing like being up in a tree, confident, knowing how to go up and down the ladder-like branches. To feel the drift and sway of branches in the breeze. I felt this boy lacked that joy, a cautious parent kept him indoor too much, he was not given free reign to make forts for himself. 

In contrast, I thought of the boyhood activities two brothers did in a Carl Sandburg story:

"They went barefooted and got stickers in their hair and teased cats and killed snakes and climbed apple trees and threw clubs up walnut trees and chewed slippery ellum. They stubbed their toes and cut their feet on broken bottles and went swimming in brickyard ponds and came home with their backs sunburnt so the skin peeled off."  from How Googler and Gaggler Came Home with Monkey Wrenches, Carl Sandburg


THAT NIGHT, after the nephew returned home, the WILD WINDS took down three trees in our side yard. Double click to see images bigger.

The redbud where he had stood earlier that afternoon split under the weight of the bigger tree.

The next morning, I surveyed the mess. Protected by the long sleeves and jeans, work boots, gloves and face mask, I cleared limbs with my hand saw. Out of curiosity I waded head down past the leaves and into the middle of it all. More limbs came down. I cleared a space between the two trunks. It reminded me of forts I had built. That feeling of being hidden from view. That was when THE  IDEA came to me.

Three minutes. Horizontal trunks to climb on. God had dropped these trees in our yard to become an outdoor fort.

 

Over the next few days I loaded the truck, and hauled debris out to the city burn pile. I carried short stump trunks into the fort space. I climbed up on the lower branches to see if they would support my weight and support his weight. They did. When a week had passed, the boy was able to be with us again all day. Instead of flimsy flip flops, he had strong sneakers on his feet.

The morning started cold. He and I played the matching color matching number game UNO and the Aggravation marble board game until it had warmed up outside. What would he think about the fort? How would he respond? 

He made my day!!!!

"There's the window, there's the back door, there's a room," when he first saw it. He wanted to make walls. Hoped to knock down a broken limb, he whacked it with a stick. He walked on top of the trunk to the uprooted end and peered over the pond water and the duckweed. "There is water below me. I see two frogs," he said. He told me he was a gorilla.

 

One minute. His souvenirs. 

He was a fort builder after all. "I built this fortress," he said when he was all finished. He called it "The Fortress of the Egyptian Gorilla."

Him, arms clasping a stump trunk to his chest, waddling away. Returning for the next stump. All four ending up where he wanted them to be. "Go find them Uncle Karl."

He selected a wiggly shaped log with spike knobs, where the branches used to jut out. Talked his uncle into helping move the back end of the wonky dead trunk as he managed the front end. I called the log "the prehistoric petrified eel." He made the "pretend eel" a bridge he walked on up to a higher branch.

Beforehand I had made a wide north entrance for him to use. That day he took liberty to hide the entrance with branches from the debris pile. To reach the inner room, he explained... "you had to go in the back door and open the front door. Because the front was hidden to outsiders. Camouflage."

 

The boy delighted. Singing to himself.

Three minutes. Him fitting branches in place.

Working up a sweat. Making it work.

I was so proud of him.

Thank you god for the fort you

dropped in our yard !!!!!!!

Two minutes. Parting shot. Stump trunks revealed.

tornado surprise

"I will instruct you and teach you in the way you should go; I will counsel and watch over you. Do not be like the horse or the mule, which have no understanding but must be controlled by bit and bridle or they will not come to you. Many are the woes of the wicked, but the LORD's unfailing love surrounds the man who trusts in him." Psalms 32:8-10

 

On Thursday morning my new writng experiment had mixed results with my first two students. Students lay on their back on the floor under a desk, reach up with pencil in hand, look up, and complete a TALL  AND  SHORT writing exercise on the paper taped underneath the desk (see above). The reaching up with the writing hand strengthens the muscles and grip of the writer's hand.

The larger of the two students did fine. The tall letters were tall and the short letters were short.  The shorter of the two students struggled. When I asked for their feedback on this invented task, it came out. For one it was too hard. It took two hands to do it. She was erasing her efforts, quite mindful of her mistakes. Hmm. I want my students to have a measure of success. As her teacher it would be up to me to find I a better solution.

Another new challenge called X2O was received by my next two students, after all our regular exercises were carried out. In X to O, lumps of modeling clay were stuck to the bottom of the desk, in either the pattern of the letter X or of the letter O. Students lay on the floor under the desk, look up, pluck off lumps of clay with their writer hand, and reposition the lumps. This activity strengthens the muscles and grip of the writer's hand.

Throughout the rest of the day I considered which activity I would use to replace the failed TALL AND SHORT under the table. Would I do the TALL AND SHORT on top of the desk, as it is properly done, or introduce the X2O instead? I weighed the pros and cons.

A decision beyond my control redirected me Friday morning. The teacher whose room I use for our exercises had closed it down for a meeting. She offered another room, but I chose to have our group out in the nearby hallway. We have done it that way other times. It is a wide hallway.

CLIPS ON THE CHAIR came to mind. Perfect. All my students were familiar with it. A stack of three chairs and five clothes pins were all I needed. In one of my groups I have a new student. It was great. A regular student showed the new student how to sit on her bottom facing the back of the stacked chairs, pick clothes pins up with her writing hand one-at-a-time, and clip each pin on any flat ridge on the back of the chair. It could be up high, or on the side, and down low underneath. There were many possibilities to choose from. What a delightful re-direct!! Taken out of my hands.

With my last morning student came a surprise. After finishing all six of the required exercises, he was pushing himself on his back on the floor with his feet. TORNADO flashed into my mind. Of course!! TORNADO was created by a sixth grader of mine at the Carrollton middle school.

 

You lay on your side on the floor, pull yourself in circles in a clockwise manner, three rounds. Rest. Turn over to the other side, pull yourself in circles counter clockwise. The dizzy spin calmed nervous bodies. This last student was a bouncy student to begin with. Holding muscles still during the Hook Up, the Cross Crawl, Toe Touches, Superman, and Popcorn made the exercises boring to be sure, and a challenge, of course. Guess what? My bouncy student LOVED the Tornado. He burned up energy doing it. It was work. And it calmed him down. He WANTED  MORE  OF  IT!!!

WOW. I did not see this coming. My morning devotion had spoken of HIS  DIRECTION. As I drove in my car to my next building, to more students and more of my day job, I MARVELED---
YOU led me in this, Jesus. YOU LEAD me. YOU SURPRISE me. Thank you!! Thank you!! Thank you!!

school skills

O Lord, you are my strength and my shield. You bring me joy in pleasant ways. I sing your praise.

There is a delight when a student thinks for himself and formulates an answer, a guess, a hunch. The thinking through and voicing of her thought. This came Friday morning with my third graders. We had completed our six brain gym exercises, and time remained for a motion puzzle. I held out a large rectangular chunky looking tray to each in the group. What did they suppose was the tray was made of? Was is wood? No. Was it metal? No. One guessed, paper. Was it heavy? They held it with both hands. No, it was light. Then I continued, I had found this Styrofoam packing material left out for the janitor to discard. It had once been around a computer unit. I thought maybe it could be used here in our room. (I brought out the plastic golf ball from my jacket pocket, and placed it in the inside the tray.) I wondered whether you could figure it out. (Taking hold off the tray on both ends with my hands, I tilted the tray so that the ball would roll down one side and across the side closest to me. Just enough to plant the idea. We had been trying various forms of ball rolling back and forth on a cardboard track. See http://motionpuzzles.blogspot.com/2011/10/back-and-forth.html)

Each student took three minutes to try their skill at making the ball run down all four sides of the tray in a circular fashion. In the middle of the tray there were two large preformed holes. Every student experienced the ball falling through the tray to the floor, bouncing under a table to retrieve on hands and knees. It was not as easy as it appeared. Two students chose to sit down instead of standing to complete the two loops. I thanked each for trying this exercise out for me. Some began coming up with names for the puzzle. The joy of the Lord enveloped my heart.

Friday afternoon at BMP I listened to a third grader read. Sounding out words you do not know is WORK and takes much COURAGE. Following the story with my eyes as he read, I could interject the right pronunciation of a word after he tried it himself first. The sentences came together in a halting fashion. Start stop start stop. Instead of gibberish, the story actually meant something and could be understood by both of us. After he finished the chapter we looked at the book illustrations and talked about the silk weaver woman, what an ox looked like, what the wooden cart looked like, and the pointed to the major characters by name. After completing the assignment, the student was delighted and in a pleasant mood. The joy of the Lord snuck into my heart and made my spirit soar.

You make my path straight. You bring me your joy in unexpected ways. How sweet you are. How gentle and kind.

june thoughts

      in this third week of june the "ease of blogging" has been disrupted. the fred geary presentation, the completion of the six color reductive linocut, photos stuck in a hard drive of a dead computer, all of it disconnected.XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX   joys come inspite of this circumstance. ~~~Thank you for protecting me from snakes as I move down the levee into the wild areas. You keep my truck safe. You watch over my tires. You give insight and keep me from getting stuck. You lead me to a pleasant grove with mulberries juicy and ready to pluck and enjoy. This is your abundance, this is your joy over me, a hidden delight  with you, your hands involved--I am not forgotten. Trees tall going up up up, sand, and shade,  just what I was hoping for, you lay it at my feet. You keep me safe, Jesus. Thank you for your constant attention.---
       This day I paint the surface of the river, the wind roars around me like a dragon, do I run now? No harm comes near, I remain and paint with my ears on alert for danger.---
       Before I fall asleep, you hear me. "Wake me up at 6 in the morning. Make me wide awake." Six o'clock comes and my eyes are open, ready to go out to paint. You answer. You enable. You travel.--
      With us, we work, we paint the donut window with dancing donuts, Jan's logo, her blue cup and brown donut and rising sun rays, yes, you make this pair, this team, click and work cooperatively, enjoying her, getting the work done, going forward, we help, we laugh, window colors in enamel, your YES glistens in our eyes---
     Surprised by a friend who remembers me, recalling our early days of service at the local newspaper. Your joy sweeps across my face, laughter, your YES, your happiness, welcome here.--
     Saturday morning I meet the one you picked out, the man from Texas, who will lead us forward into tomorrow's technology. You arranged for the agreement to take place, Jesus. One month later this comes forth, from the unseeable future, HERE HE IS, your gift to the Print Society, wow, look at that, wow.---
     Father, you hear. In the unevenness and uncertainty, among my garbage, inspite of my gripes and whines, you bring your surprises right now. Savior, Near, my Vast Intensity Joy Undivided.