It’s all over but the shouting

I think, and I could very well be wrong, but I think I am done with the main structure for the fort.

The painter showed up bright and early this morning. She was sober this time, which was a plus. She stained the gangplank, then knocked out the unpainted half of the front wall, then got started on the light blue of the inside. I think she said that she was just about out of the light blue by the time she finished one side wall and the back wall, and I may have heard negotiations taking place with the owner about having a different color for the other two walls because we already have the paint on hand, so no additional cost. That would become a theme during the day.

While she was doing all this painting stuff, I couldn’t do the remaining saw work that I had to do, so I knocked out a biggie on the Honey Do list, which was address the pile of cut-up mung wood behind the shed. I’ve tried to hide this in the photos, but you can see it at the left, under the canoe, in this picture.

We inherited that former picnic table from the previous owner. For all I know, he may have inherited it from the people he bought the house from. Our town does not offer any kind of “recycling” for or pick-up of this kind of crap, so there it has sat. Until today.

I went through each piece of lumber and removed any screws or bolts that I could find. I then laid each board flat on the ground in order for Mother Nature to do her thing with the stuff. We originally thought that this was pressure treated wood, but after getting such a good, close look at it, I am no longer convinced out that…but not enough to burn it. I then placed a couple of cut-off 4×4 stumps down next to the shed, and dragged the two sheets of 3/4″ exterior plywood, which is entirely not light, up there to rest on the 4×4 stumps. Now it is no longer around the fort platform, or leaning up against the chain-link fence. Continuing on with the “no additional cost” theme, I managed to recover two galvanized 3/16″ carriage bolts with washers and nuts. There are now securing the slide to the deck!

In that picture, most of the fill in there, which is just north of 2′ deep now, is shredded leaves from last autumn, covered in sticks to make it possible for me to walk back there, then covered by about a dozen wheelbarrow loads of compost dirt that our neighbors gave us on the first day of the fort build, topped with sods that are taking root, and then lawn clippings when there there is no room on the compost bin, all on top of my old dead cat. Not quite stable enough for plopping a bigger shed on top of yet, but it is getting there. The boards that I laid down actually made a nice walkway. We had a fire in the late afternoon as the temperature was in the 70s today with a south-east wind blowing. I used the “boardwalk” to get at the back of the burn pile, which, really seriously, is out of control.

And herself wants me to take down some additional weedy maples. Burn, baby, burn! Which is actually good news, as I am more and more convinced that the reason that I am having such awesome compost results this year is because I am putting a couple shovel-loads of charcoal in the bin in lieu of other “brown” material. The compost bin is either full of greens and topped with charcoal, or half-full a few days later as Mama Nature does her thing in there. It always fogs up my glasses when I turn it. So today’s burn was more about replenishing my charcoal stock than reducing the burn pile, but I can’t have the one without the other, so it all works out. Rather than douse the fire, as I usually do, I am letting it die down on its own. I am going to collect the white ash tomorrow and put it in the garden to see if it provides any kind of potassium kick to the veggies.

But, yeah, it was a really good day in the backyard. I need to get a railing up next, as I took an unexpected drop off of the deck, and then it is just banging out screens and windows and a door. Accessories, in my view, after all of the work that’s gone into the fort so far.