The task that faced me this morning is in the photo above. Last fall a powerful wind storm passed through our county dropping trees everywhere. It passed directly over our Highland valley cottage farm, bringing down this particular cluster of sassafras, wild cherry, and locust, all entangled with spice bushes, multiflora rose, and grape vines. The intimidating pile fell across our perimeter fence, blocking the path that runs beside it, which you can barely see.

Over the years, this suburban city-slicker, lately-turned wanna-be-farmer, has learned many needed rural skills, as well as the necessary cautions, whenever faced with such a challenge. Pictured to the right were my arsenal. The leather gloves, eye and ear protection, and the two clippers are all new versions of old-school techniques, but the chained saw was an acquired skill. It seems easy enough, maybe too easy, because anyone accustomed to using one knows there’s never a moment when one dare’s take the monster for granted–I have the scars of fifteen stitches above both knees to remind me to always stay cautiously focused!

It was a beautiful, unseasonably warm day in south-eastern Ohio. I loaded up my Kawasaki Mule, and drove up to the highest back point of our land. I love the view from this piece of Marilyn’s family’s 150+-year-old farm. To the right you can see the 100+ year old sheep barn Marilyn’s grandfather built on the site of the first homestead cabin, built by the first settlers in the early 1820s. The field running up the slope in the middle was where the earlier settlers had their orchard and garden, and grazed their sheep.

I tore into the task, yet taking my time, conserving my limited old man energy. I was in no hurry. There was nothing ahead forcing me to get this chore done quickly. And as I worked, clipping limbs, briars, and vines, stacking in a pile off the beaten path, and using the chainsaw to cut the trunks and large limbs into lengths for firewood, it struck me that I was also using another critically important, long-forgotten skill that I had learned more than seventy years ago as a child. It’s a skill almost all of you reading this post also have, but have also likely forgotten, and part of the reason we’ve forgotten is because it came from a long-forgotten game most off us played as kids: Pick-up-Sticks!

Do you remember? The game began as a random pile of sticks, as each player very, very carefully removed each stick, one at a time, analyzing, gauging each move by weight, placement, and angles. If you accidentally just barely moved another piece, you lost your turn.

Whenever I face a large pile of interconnected trees and briars, I unconsciously use the skills you and I learned ages ago, playing a game we never imagined might be teaching us something very valuable–skills used not just in clearing brush, but in organizing and managing a life full of tasks. I think many of the classic old games, which were passed on from generation to generation, culture to culture, were passed along and cherished for just this reason. The parents and grandparents remembered with melancholy, yet they had also come to realize these simple, seemingly mindless games were far more valuable, dare I say important even essential, than they realized as children.

After three or so hours, the task was mostly done. There is still one large “stick” to be removed from the fallen wild cherry tree on the right, but my chainsaw threw its chain in protest, telling me it was time to stop, at least until I could get my youngest son to come over and help. (It struck me funny that there is at least one major difference between clearing this tangle of trees and brush and playing Pick-up-Sticks: there are no grape vines to contend with in Pick-up-Sticks. There are no sticks fighting back at you, holding tightly entangled to all the adjacent sticks. The main skills needed here are poverty of spirit and patience.) In the photo, you can now see ahead the mostly clear path. I drove my ATV down it, for the first time in nearly a year, to see whether there might be any more surprises, and sure enough …

… about a hundred yards in, a large ash had fallen, blocking the path for some future day of “pick up sticks”. I’m concerned that few of our digital generation children ever play the classic traditional games like Pick-up-Sticks. It’s really hard to resist the temptation of turning quickly to video games and tic-tac videos rather than the non-digital, non-adventure, non-electronic games of our forefathers. I wonder how many skills learned from videos games prepare them to tackle the fallen ash tree in the photo–or for that matter, any of the major tasks of life? But then again, most of them probably won’t have to worry about clearing away a mess like in the photo, since most of them are aiming for lives and careers in cities, away from rural America. I pray for them.