Sadly, the last couple of years it has been slowly dying, with fewer and fewer limbs showing those beautiful blooms. And this year, it didn't bloom at all. It was finally dead.
However, out of the sadness came an opportunity. We have been studying Ancient Egypt all year and one of the things we learned about was the various tools they used to make life easier along the Nile. One of these is the shadoof, a tool used to raise water out of the flooded canals and into the fields to irrigate them.
Since the Dogwood had a nice split on it, we took the longest limb and made one for the kids to try out. Now, a real shadoof is much loonger and has a significanly bigger weight at the end, but this worked well enough for them to get the idea.
No question, we're going to miss our beloved Dogwood, but the kids got to experience a valuable history lesson we might not have otherwise had the opportunity to.
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