Tree Cutting Forest – 2014

When we first moved into our house, our neighbour started demolishing theirs for a rebuild.  One morning, my son woke up to find a man hanging off our neighbours tree that hung over his bedroom.  The man had spikes in his boots, a chainsaw hanging from a belt and he was just dangling from the large branches, sawing huge chunks off the tree.  That experience must have frightened my son and ever since that day, he’s been obsessed with chainsaws and tree cutting.  That following Halloween, he requested to be a lumberjack with his own axe, and having started playing with Lego, we would build Lego trees and cut them down with Lego tree cutting machines (inspired by his favourite film at the time, Ferngully, where a fairy’s forest is essentially destroyed by loggers and a tree demon).  We continued to fuel his interest by helping my Dad cut down some large trees in his backyard a few summers later.  Given this fascination (and fear), I built him this wooden toy forest.  I created some simple trees with branches and inserted powerful magnets in the stumps which were secured to a wood platform.  The magnets held the upper portion of the trees and they could easily be “cut down”.  Some trees had angular cuts already made to simulate proper cutting techniques.  The trees were then dyed with all natural ingredients (tea and soy sauce) to provide some variety of species.  This forest was a pretty easy build where my son could help me insert the magnets and sand the pieces.  I thought it looked pretty nice.  Unfortunately, as a practical toy, it didn’t work out so well.  It was more of a bowling pin simulator where one falling log would easily take out the whole forest.  Regardless, it was a fun build for my son and I.