tree fort - stage 3

Meanwhile, the older cherubs had been working away on the tree fort, adding a 'stage 3'.  I had been aware of much activity - cedar boards being milled (by Norbert), special bolts being fetched from Silverton Building Supply - and various inhabitants escaping for some relative peace, perhaps to Rowan's and then Thomson's birthday hammocks - but I hadn't seen the fort with 'stage 3'.  On their next-to-last evening at New Denver, perhaps it was time I did.  Colin and Douglas both said, "Not sure that's a good idea, mum", but I went anyway.  I saw what they meant!

This is my "before" photo.  Ellen prancing from stage 1, third-cousin Samuel observing from stage 2, Griffin spanning the gap between stages 2 and 3, Thomson on stage 3, hoping Griffin makes it, and Teagan watching it all from the comfort of the Thomson-hammock below.  I couldn't stand to watch so left before the "after".  But I guess Griffin made it because they all arrived back intact for supper, and the final day they bolted on a stage 2-to-3 connector pole - a bit slim, but something.

August 18th

……………………………………………………..

The photos of the fort, below, taken today, Sept 4th, are as the crew left it on Aug 20th.  A lovely quiet place to sit (on the ground) and listen to the forest.  No bears appeared.  Only drunken robins (rowan berries) and squirrels hurling down cedar comes for their winter stash.

North view - approaching from above - stages 1, 2 and 3

East view - 

South view - rope ladder to stage 2 and stage 2-3 connector pole

West view - from below

Last (or first) view - from the trail down

Doco and Devon's table

Doco has been itching to make this table all summer.  Too much going on until these last ten days.  Turned out that Devon was keen and available to work with Doco, so they set to.  Several hours a day working away in the squirrel-barn workshop, and here it is.  Finished!  Modified from a bench to a table (lower and wider) to be a replacement for Thomas Wright's table that has lived outside in the weather on the ranch house porch for 40+ years - MUCH used and now wobbly.  

the original 'Fine Woodworking' plan

almost done - the finishing touches

DONE - with its two very pleased creators

… still lovely after its first night in the rain

… and PEARS.  What better place to show off this year's marvellous crop.  Three fruit boxes in total, picked by Devon and Doco, ahead of the bear.  Not the huge crop of 2015 and 2014, but beauties.  I see now why painters use them in 'still-life' paintings.  

Morel bell for old ranch house

Now I can really ring a bell for lunch.  It even brings Doco (usually) from the squirrel barn workshop.  And it sounds beautiful (if a bit loud right in your ear).

Carl Schlichting bell and Rabi'a banner

a swing in the willow

Just before suppertime on her last day of almost two months at New Denver, with the help of assorted parents and third cousin Samuel, and last-minute drilling of rope-holes with Doco, Ellen had a swing in the willow tree.  Lovely!  Alice and Lily had left three weeks ago - it'll be waiting for you next summer.

With a newly-cut cedar plank as the bridge across the brook, with many armloads of dead twiggy willow branches hauled to the burning pile by Ellen and Alice earlier in the summer, and with the continuing rapid growth of a happy willow with its feet in the marsh, the 'secret place' gets more and more inviting.  On this special occasion, we grownups were given fern-frond tickets to enter to view the swing and even try it - but, alas, the space between the ropes favours those less broad of beam.

woodpecker workings

For the last many springs we have arrived to find signs that a flicker had taken refuge for a time on the rafters of the cathedral.  A certain predictable spring-cleaning.  Ever since one or two of the 52 elderly Japanese men who were spending WWII in the old ranch house made a chilly but presumably more private home in the cathedral loft, there has been a round hole in the east-side wall for their wood-stove pipe.  An easy doorway for the flicker.

However, for the first time, this spring when we opened the door we found the floor strewn with shards of wood ...

... and way up at the top of the west-side wall, a good-sized new hole had been carved (where the light's shining in).  Rumour has it that a large(!) pileated woodpecker was in residence this winter - and must have made himself a front door opposite his stove-pipe-hole back door.

Hardly a problem for us summer residents, as there are already lots of other places that the air gets in!

Fifty-two years!

Two idyllic settings (and one historic site) on opposite corners of our 'new' land.  First a Meo-and-Doco wedding anniversary walk up to the dam and beyond to the cedar swamp - damaged by the logging, but not ruined.  This part of the stream (Harris Creek) is my small-childhood ideal of a creek running through.  A lot of clear water rushing between the low mossy banks.

The 'historic site' is on the ridge above the cedar swamp to the south.  A 20-foot cedar snag, seriously burnt.  Cole figures it is one of the few remains of a spotty forest fire that must have burned through the ranch in about 1850-1860.

Then, idyll #2, at the eastern end of the Bosun Lake, the north-eastern tip of parcel 2411, the Fidelity Mine property that came to us in our ranch-land purchase last September.  At 4pm on a sunny June afternoon, after rain, it couldn't have been lovelier.  Doco and I have had some good 52nd anniversary explores.

P.S. As Teagan said at about age 7, "Doco, what's it like being married to Meo for all these years?"

Ready

Well, not totally.  Haven't swept the pileated woodpecker's wall-shavings out of the cathedral, nor assembled the bedding in the clay house, but doing better on the outside ...

Slocan Lake from Doco's 'orchard'

the 'Old Ranch House'

the hay barn, 'clay house', 'squirrel barn', chicken coop

the 'cathedral' and 'the secret place'

Doco's wee strawberry patch.  Can you spot the initial row?  Blueberries and grape-vines are surrounded. 

The weeding - a mammoth task.   Making place for transplanting some dozens of Chris' young lettuces.

My main garden task - Dianne Carter's raspberry jungle.  Doing well!  I am to try to tame them so that we can pick them.  Photo taken in the rain through the fence, but with a bit of a squint I think you can see red.  Quite delicious.  And one chicken looking for playmates (or maybe raspberries!).