Roses and Aspens

It's low 80s, today, and so clear you get skin cancer just looking out the window. Perfect day to crank up the zydeco music and work in the yard, yeah?

The spot in the yard where I'd like to place the fort was home to two very large rose bushes. I'm not overly fond of roses. My mom and grandma doted over theirs, pruning and fertilizing and picking off the aphids. I ignore mine. Don't even water them. That's probably why mine are threatening to take over the yard and theirs always looked so anemic.

A friend in town does like roses. She recently extended their paver patio and had just the perfect spot for them--where lack of water and over-abundance of dog had killed the grass anyway. She's been talking about coming and getting them for a year, but today was finally the day.



As you can see, they're ginormous. JT and I started by pruning them back. One had a lot of dead branches, the other had a lot of live ones that wouldn't fit in my friend's SUV. I haven't touched the things in the three years we've lived here, and I really know nothing about the care and survival of roses. Hope I didn't kill them.



In the end, we had a respectable pile of thorny sticks that rebelled against any confinement into Hefty bags.

The other day, whilst surveying the terrain, I noticed that our neighbor's little aspen grove had born babies.



I'm all about free trees, so before we dug up the roses, we dug up another part of the yard to transplant the trees. Our soil in CSprings is a thin layer of sod over clay. The type of clay you make bricks out of. So after we scraped away the sod, we had to steal mulch from a currently unused garden and dig it in. It was nasty. But hopefully, in a few years, the trees will block the lights that shine in the living room window from the car dealerships half a mile away.



Lessons learned: JT learned that yard work is hard. Especially when you're in a grouchy mood, anyway. But friends and zydeco music make it better. He also learned what knuckle-busters are.

As for me...I was flipping through a photo album a friend made for us when we left CSprings the last time. She lived behind us and included pictures of our yard. I'd forgotten how much work we'd done to that yard and how it actually turned out pretty nice. I have a tendency to only see (and remember) the mistakes I made, but her album gave me hope. Maybe this will turn out well.

Now our yard is ready for post holes.

Or is it?

Of Stories and Lowe's

datatroll gave a delightful list of what JT should have for his fort. My favorite is the drive-through McDonalds in case he gets hungry driving around in his tank. JT, on the other hand, can't understand why he can't have a tunnel from his room to the fort. Or, for that matter, electricity to power his own kitchen.

After my post yesterday, he did indeed write down his list. Here it is:
1. A carpet.
2. A TV with an X-box. (Yes, troll, great minds think alike.)
3. Game Bords and Puzzles.
4. Desk.
5. sleeping bags.
6. kitchin for small and big kids.
7. A slide that can go under the for [sic] an emergency excit for: er!er!er!er!...[That's the sound of an alarm.]
8. Stairs for an Entrance.
9. some chairs.
10. A coat-hanger.
11. Pictures of me and other pictures.
12. Balls and bats for hiting outside.
13. auto planes and cars.
14. 2 windows.
15. A Door. [That's my boy! The practical one!]
16. Blinds.
17. clock.
18. Plant.
19. computer.
20. Books.
21. Tissus.
22. End of List!

Although, then he added a trascan [sic] and movies.

Today he drew a picture of the inside of the fort. Then I had him write a story about what he would do in the fort. He hates writing stories. Usually he'll just copy the plot of a Clone Wars episode. This story was priceless, though.

One day a kid named JT had a friend that day and the friends name was Jordan. That day he helped with my fort and when the fort was done I took a tour by my self and then Jordan paid me one dollar to have a tour also. The rest of the day we played for fourteen ours [hours] intill Jordan had to go. So when Jordan had to go we both cleaned up properly and cleaned up everything except for the X-box 360. That was one of my exciting, fun, extraordinary, exsplosive day of my life with Jordan. (Some other days I may play with other friend in my fort: on Sundays for Bible studys or sleepovers or playdates or for some pets like: fish, frogs, little dogs, small birds like that. Or it can be for some projects for school witch if you ask me it is probably the best place to be on a school day or two.)

I'm indecisive on whether I'll help him correct his spelling. He gets very angry when he has to erase and rewrite something. Then I over-react, he gets sent to his room, and I retreat to the bath.

Later today, we went to B&N to look through some books written by people who actually know how to build forts. One book had four different plans: a pirate ship, a cottage with a porch, a hobbit house, and a fort that sat on top of a storage shed (I so want that one!). Obviously, these people are crazy and have far too much time on their hands.

We did find some good information as to spans for floorboards and floor joists. Looks like we can use 2x4s for the joists, easily.

After sitting at The Green Two-Tailed Mermaid and working out some design options (he liked the idea of benches that can fold up to the wall, but he also wants a hole in the center of the table right over a hole in the floor so he can just scoop the crumbs to the ground) we went to Lowe's and priced out some of the lumber. He also picked out colors for his flames and said he wanted the interior support beams painted in his favorite colors--red and blacked striped. Ugh! I wish his Godmother was here. She could make that look pretty!



Flames? Seriously?



The floorplan of the interior. We actually found a rug similar to his design at Lowe's.

A New Project

I have been remiss in keeping this blog in any state of updatedness. Hopefully, that is about to change.

It is summer. And in the midst of editing stories and schlepping them around to people who might want to read them, I have taken on a Herculean task. I have one boy, 8 1/2, (No, we're not planning on having any more, thank you. If you knew him, you'd know why.) who we'll call JT. He is very bright, but young for his grade, and consistently falls shy of school district standards. (No, I do not homeschool, thank you. If you knew me, you'd know why!) So he benefits greatly by the blessing that is summer school. Sadly, budget restrictions have put the kibosh on summer school this year, so it's up to me.

Poor kid.

In the past, I've half-heartedly relied on Summer Bridge workbooks. I would have loved these books at his age. I thought workbooks were a treat right up there with foot-high ice cream cones from Zo's. But alas, the child is not terribly interested.

What he is, is terribly mechanical. Ridiculously mechanical. How mechanical? Mechanical enough to go from this:



to this:



in about five hours with no help.

So in an effort to have him work on math, writing, reading, and general organizational skills in a way that will bless his heart and keep his excitement up, we are attempting something new. We're going to build a fort. But we're not just going to build a fort. He's going to plan the fort, write a list of things he wants to do in it, write a story about it, plot it in the yard, draw it (using basic drafting skills), and construct it.

I just hope I can keep up. I have a terrible habit of starting these things (guitar lessons?) and getting distracted.

So today I give our first report.

Today we went to Target and Office Max to get planning supplies--paper, mechanical pencils, colored pencils, a 3-ringed binder, basic drafting supplies (man that tape is still stinkin' expensive!), and so forth.

Tally:
Target: $17.57
Office Max: $18.74

We recorded the expenses and organized the supplies. Now he's drawing a picture of what he wants the outside of the fort to look like. Apparently, flames will be required.