I love, Love, LOVE this one from Crystal. Forts were a big part of growing up Juniper style. Where else would kids be allowed to exercise such creativity?
From Crystal:
I think we should give mention to the many clubs and
clubhouses/forts that accounted for so many of our days. I particularly remember being a small child
and being excluded from the “big” kid’s club house. Where if I remember right Jami was queen and
Aaron was king ….dang they were cool.
But I do believe that when we became the “big” kids (Doug,
Brad, Laura, Jerica, Myself and occasionally the younger boys Jason, Forest and
Levi) is when the real fort building took place. The “old house” or old church farm grain bin
was really a carpentry experience training facility. We were not shy about stealing old slabs of
wood and less old buckets of nails and hammers to turn our “old house” into a
three story mansion.
Of course accomplishing
this feat did not come without some painful learning experiences. For example: If you slip while standing on
the bar which stretches across the rooms (the only way to reach the third floor
area with your hammer) you should make sure to gracefully fall in front of or
behind said bar and not take it up the center.
When building a swing use enough twine.
When building a floor use enough support boards and nails.
The best feature of our fort was the trampoline swing. We found the frame of an old one man jumper;
you know the kind the little trampolines that are about two feet wide and 8 in
off the ground. The frame had only two
legs remaining. Simply by hanging the legs
on the bar that ran through the center of the house we had the best swing man
has ever built (we just had to remember not to swing to high or the entire
thing would jump of the bars….which happened many a time).
Second best feature was probably the toilet
in the corner …don’t know what that was ….Doug?
Does anyone have a picture of the “old house?” Remember the lean on that thing? …haha, and yet we had no qualms about
standing on the roof.
The “old house” was not our only fort, just the most
popular. We also had “the valley,” and
old pig pen …the one where we lost the hammers and made Dad and Ross not too
happy, we had forts in the mountains and forts in the straw stacks (remember
picking buckets of carrots, who knew that 10 gallons of carrots was not a
feasible lunch for 5 kids).
P.S. If any of you do have a pic of said house send it my way and we will get it attached to this post. jami_c_hurst@hotmail.com
