construction day 4

Well, I guess I lied. We put in another full day's work yesterday, yet our playscape is not done. Partly because our wonderful new babysitter wasn't available today so we didn't get that several hours of uninterupted work time. Partly because our farrier came to trim the ponies feet so we had to take a break then. Partly because we had to quit at 5:00 when storms started moving through. But mostly because I just was being overly optomistic when I said we only had one more day. But, we're getting closer! In this first photo, The Map Man works on framing the roof on the clubhouse porch.

And here's a picture to prove that I actually WAS involved with the whole process too. In this photo I'm attaching the "rocks" for the climbing wall/ladder (seen closer up in the next photo). Unfortunately it was a brutally hot and humid day. But we got really lucky with the weather -- things got bad storm-wise all around us a good two hours before anything actually hit here, so we got in a couple more hours of work than we would have otherwise.

Zoo Boy peeks around the support beam as I work. We'd filled the kiddy pool and the kids were in and out of it all afternoon. Here, Zoo Boy is sporting his new hooded "duck" towel. J got one that looks like a dinosaur. We got these towels from Company Kids -- they were a little pricey (for a towel), but the kids have been playing in them ever since they came, and we're going to spend a lot of time at the local lake this summer, so they're going to come in handy.

The Map Man works on the planks that make up the walk way that run through the tunnel. This was about the last thing that got accomplished yesterday, right after I took this photo I ran inside to check the radar and saw some bad storms approaching, so we started wrapping things up about an hour after I took this shot, and it began raining soon after that.

And here's where things stood last night (taken during a lull in the rain). We're getting really close! We still need to put the roof boards on the framing, install the tunnel (the supports are in, so that should go somewhat quickly), build the crow's nest, and hang the swings. Hopefully we'll get it all done this morning before we need to leave for my sister's house, where we're celebrating Father's Day with my family and helping my brother-in-law work on his deck. Because, you know, you can never do enough carpentry work....

But even if we don't get it completely finished, we should be to a point where we could finish up the details during the week. The goal has always been to have it done by the time our out-of-town guests come next weekend. I'm happy to say, it looks like we'll reach that goal! And then we can move on to the next project....