Pioneer Fort

During the spring and summer the girls worked on putting together a pioneer fort.  You can see a picture of this fort on this blog post.   They had built the fort in the barn loft and had spent a fair amount of time up there.  Unfortunately in the spring when we had our major wind storm (see here) it did damage to the barn, shifting the roof of the barn.  This was not realized until sometime later when the kids commented that ever since the storm they were able to throw things down from the loft through the whole between the roof and the walls.  A closer inspection showed the roof had shifted during the storm and it meant the kids were not allowed in there if it was windy outdoors (as was the case on Marietta’s birthday).  Finally the girls decided one day that they did not feel safe there anymore and they threw everything out of the loft (through the hole between the roof and the walls) and determined that they would have to build a new fort in a safer spot.

After some arguing a new fort was finally built.  It was a last minute change of location from their original argument and it came about while Rebecca was gone for a weekend and Marietta had two friends over for a sleepover.  When Rebecca arrived home she was in for a big surprise as the girls had worked very hard and accomplished alot.  The girls arrived off the bus and besides meals and sleeping I pretty much didn’t seem them the whole time.  The weather was relatively cold and once or twice they came in to thaw out before they headed back outside.  There was lots of talk about what they were working on and finally Rob went out to see what they had accomplished.  He came back very impressed and surprised at what they had managed to put together.  Rebecca also arrived home to a big surprise.

Rebecca goes to see the fort

 

The girls chose to put the fort in a corner of the barn.  Previously this part of the barn had hay bales in it (see here for pictures) but the bales slowly disappeared over the summer and the girls decided to use this corner (we rent the property – and technically just the house, but the barn is no longer used, except for storage and junk - so fingers crossed they don’t decide they want to use that part of the barn again as the girls will be extremely disappointed, but by time we seen what they had done they were so far along it didn’t seem worth it to tell them to remove it at this point).

Rob guesses each of the walls of the fort weigh a couple hundred pounds and these three eleven year old girls managed to move them across the barn and get them up and in place.  They had braced them into place, but when Rob came to see the fort he helped make it more solid for them.  He came back to the house shaking his head and wondering how they managed to do it.

The girls also found the door and managed to get it up and functioning with the hinges that were attached to it.  Since their wall are not extremely sturdy it is actually more for looks then use as they do not want it to take their wall down.

Since the fort was put up Marietta and Rebecca have fine-tuned the inner decorations with old things that they have gathered over time.  The bed is Rob’s old bed from his younger years that was used temporarily until the girls both had their own new beds this fall.  Rob helped them make the table for their old fort and the desk (a freecyle find) was used until recently in the girls room to hold Thumper’s cage (which is now on the floor so Thumper can roam more freely)

This shelf (you guessed it, a freecyle find) came out of Matthew’s room when we found a new freecyle offer that was a little nicer looking.  My mom gave the girls some of her old camping pans and the other dishes were things I was throwing out.

The girls recently found this at the thrift store, it’s neat to see them get excited about a project that they have worked on all on their own.

It’s rusty enough to look like it came from the pioneer days

  

Hmmmm … I don’t think they had these during the pioneer days

 

I was trying to figure out what this was suppose to be and I guessed a light, but Marietta advised me that it is their fan.

Drying out corn for food.

Ready to catch that wild animal for supper … or fight off those Indians that may attack  :)

    

It’s been a fun activity for the girls and it neat to seem the working and using their imagination, hopefully they get lots of use out of it this coming summer.