Semi-Political semi-thoughts

I do not usually stray far from my usual blog- pictures of the family and minute details of life. However, my uncle sent this in an email and I thought it was both amusing and worth thinking about. Add to that that I really am not a fan of Al Gore, and I quite enjoyed this:


John was in the fertilized egg business. He had several hundred young layers (hens), called 'pullets,' and ten roosters to fertilize the eggs.

He kept records, and any rooster not performing went into the soup pot and was replaced.

This took a lot of time, so he bought some tiny bells and attached them to his roosters.

Each bell had a different tone, so he could tell from a distance, which rooster was performing.

Now, he could sit on the porch And fill out an efficiency report by just listening to the bells.

John's favorite rooster, old Butch, was a very fine specimen, but this morning he noticed old Butch's bell hadn't rung at all!

When he went to investigate, he saw the other roosters were busy chasing pullets, bells-a-ringing, but the pullets, hearing the roosters coming, could run for cover.

To John's amazement, old Butch had his bell in his beak, so it couldn't ring.

He'd sneak up on a pullet, do his job and walk on to the next one.

John was so proud of old Butch, he entered him in the Renfrew County Fair and he became an overnight sensation among the judges.

The result was the judges not only awarded old Butch the No Bell Piece Prize but they also awarded him the Pulletsurprise as well.

Clearly old Butch was a politician in the making.

Who else but a politician could figure out how to win two of the most highly coveted awards on our planet by being the best at sneaking up on the populace and screwing them when they weren't paying attention.

Vote carefully this year,
the bells are not always ringing.

The Eternal Tree House

Well, I thought I'd start with something different today! Today was the end of Summer Reading Program day at the library. So I dragged all 4 kids out there. Joshua and Marian had done the program, so they got a ton of free books. Callie wanted me to hold her the entire time and Delaney roamed around. Since Marian and Joshua got to go select their books off tables, sometimes they needed help choosing. That's when Delaney would suddenly decide she wanted to be right next to me and Callie would get concerned. After the first round of book selecting, I had it solved. Delaney and Callie read the books and were content. Towards the end, All 3 of my girls were sitting there "reading" the new books. Too cute!


And on to the ever-lasting tree house. The sad thing is that I worked on it from 1pm till 7pm tonight and I looks very similar to when we began. Sigh. Let me mention that it was 87 degrees at 8:30 this morning when I got home from my run. And that doesn't take into account the humidity. Ug. I drenched my clothes today. I am a sweaty girl anyway, but today was exceptional! I seriously could have wrung out my clothes after working on this tree house. I had drops of sweat rolling off my elbows, eyebrows.... well, everywhere!

Here I am with Joshua. We are hammering in the logs to make the ramp. It was a great idea, that looks cute, but isn't as user-friendly as I had hoped. And it was time consuming to do. Yes it was!

Here is the finished product though. The kids LOVE it! Delaney can scramble up it, but not down. It takes all of them a little while to go up and down, and they did it over and over once it was up! It is a little steeper than I envisioned, and not as textured as I expected. I mean, its a little more slick. I thought it would be more ramp-like, but its more like climbing a steep wall- you really do need the rope.

Sooooo, we got the entry done. We got the facia up and then started on the roof. I mean my dad and I. He did all the work and I handed him nails and stuff. We got the main body of the roof done before I headed in at 7 to put kids to bed. Roof means we put up plywood and put metal roofing over it. What fun. 15 feet up in the air.... how do you do it!?! Well, it helped to have the tractor. Dad stood in the bucket and I raised him and the plywood up. Hee hee hee. It was fun!

Especially for Dan Mc

Here is the treehouse with the walls up. There is a doorway there on the left. We'd talked about a doggie door on the right, but we didn't have one, so it got boarded up. still, we can always go back and put one in. Same thing with windows. We'd like windows so it won't be dark inside, but we haven't got any. We need to aquire some small windows, and we don't want to pay a fortune for them, so we're stuck on that right now. The brown seemed like a good choice, but its a little boring looking now. I hope the door and windows will liven it up.... Well, wait till you see the railing; that's pretty lively.

Here's me and Delaney! We (as in me, Dad and Callie) went traipsing through the woods yesterday, looking for proper sized branches and small trees to lop down to make our ramp. Dad had a grand time with the chainsaw and Callie helped me toss the cut logs into this wheelbarrow. After we were done, Delaney went for a ride. She is cross in this picture because I had stopped moving! She wanted to keep going. Oh, and the ramp is not constructed, although we have all the materials now.

Isn't my dad the greatest?! Look at this railing?!! Is that not the cutest thing yet?! Now that it's up we feel a little better about all the kids roaming around up there while he's working. You can see where the ladder is- that's where the future ramp will be installed. There is an opening there for entry.

This is my favorite picture. Joshua said they all had to wear paper hats to be in the tree house. So my mom made them all hats. They are too cute!

Today Dad had some help from a ward member and they put in the rafters for the roof. It involved an incredible amount of time cutting precisely and measuring exactly. It is very exciting to see so much progress and to have it nearly done. And did I mention that Delaney scales the ladder all by herself and climbs into the tree house?! Monkeys, all of them are monkeys! (And why is that not spelled monkies?)

For those of you who are construction minded, here's a shot of the rafters from inside. The roof will slant back from the tree and then off to the 2 sides. Yeah, that was descriptive! You'll see it when its all done. We've got metal roofing ready to go, but we're running out of time today and its stinking HOT out there!

This is how much fun the tree house is already! Just imagine what Callie will look like when its all done!

It's Getting There!

Okay, Dan and Miranda were complaining that they saw no treehouse progress. Here it is, picture by picture. And let me tell you, it took a LOT more time, energy and work than any of us expected!

We got all the supports up. There was a minor issue with the one that didn't take well to torque and needed some repairs. Once the support beams were done, a spiderweb of other supports was put up inside the spokes, and the floor laid down. The floor is like decking.

Once the floor/decking was down, the wall structure was put together and put up. Hard work! And taking pictures in the evening makes for bad lighting! Sorry.

Half the 6 sides will be enclosed, and here you can see that the wall structures are all up. Joshua is making faces at me. Last night we painted all the siding and its being installed right now. More pix of that later.

Here is Marian's self portrait. I think she's so cute and funny!

Tree House update and Marian

The treehouse is coming along nicely. There was an uncomfortable moment when one of the support beams failed miserably and broke, but once that was taken care of, things have continued to progress. As I mentioned, it is 6 sided, and 3 of those sides will be enclosed. 2 of those 3 walls currently are up, although I have no picture of that. The 3 front sides will be deck and still need a fence. Or do I mean a railing?

As it is, the 3 oldest kids climb up the ladder and "help" Grandpa on the floor of the treehouse. So far we are lacking a plan for the roof, although we intend to put in a doggie door and a regular door. Did I mention that we went 6 feet up and the walls are also 6 feet high!??! Its like a mini-house! My dad is doing an amazing job. Much better than I could have even imagined! I've even been up in it. I had to help lift the side frames up, and it was a little scary. I do not like heights. Aparently my children do not have that problem! They are such good helpers.... and thirsty ones!

And now I must mention another non-fear my children possess.... or don't possess. Marian is a famed lizard hunter. She loves bugs of all kinds and goes after anything. Today she found a salamander with a blue tail. I thought that was pretty cool. A few minutes later, my mom came busting through, looking for her camera. Marian had found a snake in the garden and brought it to the porch. It was a little baby snake and he was not happy. He coiled up and opened his mouth and even struck at some toes. The kids thought it was a hoot. Mom and I were a tad concerned till we had the chance to google it and decided it was a garder snake. The little guy managed to squeeze through the deck and got away, much to Marian's disappointment. Here he is before his great escape: