Progress!

The treehouse is underway. It's not as I had envisioned, but nevertheless things are moving along.

I've tried to design the thing twelve ways from Sunday by using tree bolts and having the design be completely within the tree. I think that would be SO cool. BUT. I want a larger platform and I'm working around 4 trees, so it's been challenging. Plus, I'm not a builder so there's that. I was worried about my house not having enough support to handle my kids plus their friends, so plans ended up changing. I'm a little irked, but in the end my kids won't care - it's still a treehouse to them. For me, it was a personal challenge that I didn't win. Oh well.

I consulted my dad on the supports, etc. and he suggested that I build the treehouse with 4 stilts - basically a deck surrounding the trees. It's the exact opposite of my vision, but I'm moving forward. Got the stilts set today and my dad came and helped get it squared - a difficult thing to do when you can't use your diagonal (the tree is in the way!).

An interesting thing about my tree is that it has a barbed wire fence that runs through it. There was a fence running near the tree WAY before I was born and the tree grew over one of the wires and eventually absorbed it. The fence has been gone for more than 30 years, but there's still a spot hung in the tree. I'll be trimming it soon, but I don't have the proper tool yet. This tree has obviously been through some stuff, so maybe it's a good thing I'm not drilling into it.


My building inspector came by today, just to make sure everything was going well. And to take a pee on a pile of fresh dirt. Can you believe how big my kitten is!!?? She walked along every piece of wood today, walked the entire square like it was her own personal balance beam.

It looks like lots of boards, but all the angled boards are just there to keep the posts leveled while they set - I made concrete today - yeah baby! I'm also all splintered up.

Tomorrow the floor frame is going up! That will be it for a while since next week is holiday week and we have a lot of plans.

Hermit

So......does a feed reader drop you if you fail to post, for like, a month! I can't believe it! Time is just flying by and I wonder if I will end up in anyone's feed after such an absence. Hey, anyone, can I get a shout out?

We just arrived home from the beach for our Thanksgiving holiday. It was great, low 70 temperatures and sunny all but one day. The kids even got in the ocean, but I'll admit that the water was freezing. They didn't seem to care.

We built a sand snowman - which is a lot harder than one might think. I don't know what else I could do, but he turned out to look like total crap. Kind of a sad, melting sand snowman.....a bit freaky, too. I had a snowman kit and the eyes are so big, kind of possessed looking.

We came home and decorated the house and are now ready for Christmas. We even have a mischeivous elf visiting our home this month. He tends to go nuts at night a make messes - what fun. I wonder what genius came up with this idea.

We also came home with two hermit crabs. Yipee, they do absolutely nothing and the whole set up cost $25. They stay in their shell unless it is the middle of the night. The only way I know that they are not dead is because I poke the little prick and he reaches out and pinches the crap out of my finger.

That's the latest from this hood......and we are trying to decide whether or not to get the kids a kitten for Christmas. Anyone want to weigh in on it? We've got two really old ass cats, I think a kitten would totally rock the house, and would really piss off los gatos en la casa.......might be kind of fun. Hunk thinks we should wait until one of the others dies - you know, nothing like planning someone's death. Harsh!