Tuesday, June 14, 2011

Tree Wranglin’

Around our house, there are no pesky Child Labor Laws in place to protect our delightsome, delicate daughter from performing toilsome and tedious tasks. And since Nathan moved away to college four years ago, her toilsome and tedious task list has grown a bit since she is the only Smith sibling remaining on active duty.

Last week, when Steve was clearing out some small trees from behind our house and needed a little help, he stopped for a moment to contemplate his helper options.

Snowy? No.

Becky? Naw.

Sarah? You guessed it.

And since this was a chore beyond her usual weekly household jobs, Steve told her he would pay her $7.50 for each hour she worked. Visions of iTune cards and thrift stores danced through her head and she said, “I’m your man! I mean . . . um . . . gal!” (It’s not quite so hard to replace a big brother when big bucks are on the line.)

We renamed her Sarah Bunyan and the work began.

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Sarah learned that you have to be very firm with trees. You have to show them that you are the boss of them.

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You have to swing your ponytail authoritatively and wrangle those rebellious branches until they unequivocally opt to obey. Sarah was a natural at it. She never had a younger sibling to boss around so she had plenty of pent up bossiness to unload on those unruly, unsuspecting limbs.

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The two of them made a great team.

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In the midst of all the work, there was one moment of great drama and excitement when Sarah had to step back from her wrangling duties and exam her hand for signs of grievous injury. Or at least a broken fingernail.

Thankfully, all was well.

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Of course, whenever anything even remotely interesting happens at the Smith house, I have to be there to photograph it and so I was hangin’ out with the tree wranglers for a few minutes with my camera. At one point I wanted a posed shot so I asked Steve and Sarah to stand together at the back of the pick up. My goal was to try and get a shot from a little lower down but since my ancient knees no longer bend in any sort of a supportive manner, I usually have to lean sorta sideways in order to get my “low down” pictures. (It’s a very attractive look, I might add.)

Steve liked the look so much, he mirrored it. Sarah just looked confused.

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Then when I bent a little further, Steve did too. Sarah was asking herself, “Do these have to be my parents?”
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She finally decided that unless she humored said goofy parents and joined in their parental goofiness, the day’s work would never get done. And hence, this photo.**

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As you can tell, the whole “Becky Bending Over” incident brought immense merriment to Paul Bunyan and Daughter Bunyan.

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At long last, after the photos and the smiles and the wrangling, the first of three loads was ready to be taken to the dump. (Happily, someone from church loaned Steve a pick up while his car was being repaired.)

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As they left, I waved a fond farewell and then wandered around taking a few pictures of a nearby flower.

I really loved this flower because unlike the trees, it not require wrangling . . .

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. . . and unlike my family, it did not make fun of me when I leaned over sidewise to snap the photo.

However, it also did not break out into gales of merry laughter as I took my pictures. Which I sort of missed.

So all in all? I think I prefer my family over the flower.

Just thought you’d like to know.

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** You may remember that I posted the "leaning sideways" photo a couple days ago and asked if anyone had any guesses as to why Sarah and Steve were behaving that way. I received the following two guesses:

Random said, "My guess is that Sarah and Steve have noticed that the world is tilting a little bit off its axis, and they're attempting to remedy its spin. Tell them to lean really hard and maybe we'll get an extra-long summer!"

Jodi said, "Anything is possible with those two! Perhaps, the photographer is doing something odd, thus, causing them to react the way they are."

Random wins the award for being randomly entertaining and Jodi wins the award for being right!

3 Had Something To Say (Just click here!):

Anonymous said...

Hey Becky,

Did you happen to check out my comment under the post "What Are Those Crazy People Doing?"

I think I got the answer right (but I will let you be the judge of that).

Jodi

Lisa from Georgia said...

I couldn't help but get an extra chuckle out of Steve's shirt. Well adjusted?? If you say so! teehee

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