Is it deconstruction or navel-gazing?🤔

Deconstructing a barn and rebuilding it to different proportions involves creating new mortises*. I watched my daughter carefully place a large chisel into a squared-off hole in a beam, whack it with a wooden mallet, and flick away the newly released chunk of wood. She did this again and again and again. I was astonished to hear that she had spent the entire day creating only four such holes in the hundred year old beam she was working on. She - more patient than I - is a far better candidate for the tedious process of chiseling these navel-like cavities.