If a tree fell in the woods...?

My family was all set to go camping in the Ozarks with five or six other families from our CiC group. We were all very much looking forward to it but God had other plans. So, we cancelled the trip.

Our youngest daughter was going to bring a friend along and since they both had a hankering to spend some time in the woods, they quickly developed Plan B. They went down into our bottoms and set up camp there all by themselves. Not many teenaged girls today would just go off and camp in the woods alone like that.

The pictured tent has been our daughters’ tent since they moved out of ours at about 4 years of age. We bought it for $10 at a garage sale. I didn’t like the colors (tan fly over maroon tent) so you can see we modified it. Krylon is your friend. We also painted the tarp with deck stain to add a super-waterproofing. We taught our girls how to set up the tent when they first started sleeping in it, lo these many years ago, and we helped them several times but they eventually figured it out and have been setting up that tent all by themselves for years.

The girls had to cross pastures and slide under two very hot electric fences and continue the hike down a large hill to get to where they wanted to camp. After they had been gone awhile, I went down to see how things were going and told them not to burn the place down with their campfire (which they had not started yet). My daughter said, “Please, Dad – we’re not Boy Scouts!” Well, I took that as my cue that they had everything well in hand and hiked back home. The weather was beautiful and calm and I knew they’d have fun.

We left one of the house doors unlocked for them “in case they had to come in for something” but they took toilet paper and shovel with them so I doubted they would be back that night. About four in the morning I awoke to the sound of my sliding glass door opening (all of our doors are loud) and heard the girls voices. I heard the toilet flush twice and I will admit I was a bit disappointed. Then I heard continued talking and decided to go down and see how they were.

My daughter’s friend was sitting in the kitchen with a pack of frozen venison on her knee. “What happened?” I asked.

“A huge tree fell on our tent and landed on Sarah’s knee!” my daughter explained.

I looked at her knee and it was okay. My daughter apologized to me and said she thought one of the tent poles may be broken. Well, Plan C became a sleep over in our daughter’s room and I went back to bed.

This morning I went to investigate and you have already seen what I saw. Wow.
Praise God! That puppy could have crushed them both. It was a standing dead tree that just decided it was time to fall. Good news is I have firewood. Bad news is, neither I nor my daughter looked for it. We did look up for “widow maker” branches in the limbs of the above trees but not for dead trees themselves. And this tree was a fair piece away.
All’s well that ends well. According to my daughter and her friend, YES, you can hear a tree falling in the woods – especially when it falls on you.

I’ll see ya out there.

And as he lay and slept under a juniper tree, behold, then an angel touched him, and said unto him, Arise and eat. – 1 Kings 19:5
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