While the Most Awesome Fort Ever (treehouse) isn’t fully completed (the finishing roof cap, sanding, staining, etc. still need to be done), it really looks like a fort (or maybe a lovely teahouse). The roof was raised (while I bit my nails nervously) and the rest project proceeded without incident until Husband injured himself (twice) on the last day of the build. This is something we’ll be able to remind Charlie of later when we feel he isn’t being properly appreciative of us (and Husband will have the scar to prove it) -- the sacrifices we go through as parents. Ha!

It’s good living in the trees. I wonder if he’ll be able to fit a refrigerator up there..?

Monday, August 10, 2009 • “The Most Awesome Fort Ever”

Those were George's words when he (after being led out, hands over his eyes) saw Charlie's backyard fort (a.k.a. self-standing treehouse) and the progress that has been made in the last two days.  Our endless summer is coming to an end.  It's actually not been very endless, eight weeks to be exact, and this is our last week.  The big hurrah.  So it's become incumbent, quite imperative, and absolutely necessary, to finish the fort.

Conceived several years ago and begun sometime last year, Charlie’s backyard treehouse hasn’t been worked on since January. But yesterday, Husband and Charlie (along with our friend Eric, who was quite indispensible with his big tools, big truck and big hands -- oh, my) braced up the structure and installed the second story floor.  

The piece-de-resistance? The cut 30-foot ash tree with a forked end that is currently the fort's flagpole. Eric attached a giant Jolly Roger flag (that he just happened to have lying around the house; his house is like that, you'll never see the same thing twice).

This morning, I sat on the newly-installed second story floor and read the morning paper while Charlie counted the bumblebees making their way to the Angel Trumpets. The breeze was cool and lovely.  Charlie told me about the falcon he'd spotted a few minutes before sitting on top of the flagpole. Yesterday while building, he came across a brownish-red praying mantis and also a species of beetle (a wood-boring longhorn beetle) we'd never seen before.  It's incredible just how much nature we come across in our own suburban backyard.

Today: More measuring.  (Measure at least three times, cut once.) Tomorrow hopefully the roof will go up and the indoor/outdoor carpet will go over the floor.  There are plans for water cannons and rooftop-mounted squirt guns, a dumbwaiter, and who knows what else.  It's going to be the most awesome fort ever.

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