Tuesday, April 20, 2010

Bringing down the house!

When my nephew, Johnathon, was a teenager he built a tree house - for his Grandma. That's right he built a treehouse so his grandma could go up and sit to watch the sunsets. He built it very well: spacious, solid floors, no leak roof, nice stairs, wrapped it in green lattice around the lower half of the walls. He did an awesome job. We all called it Grandma's Castle.

Fast forward to last summer, our almost tornado. Winds that ripped down 2 dozen trees on the farm including the main support for the treehouse. We debated several options for the Castle: tear it down, shore it up, just let it fall. ... none were very satifying. Then Brian suggested that we could use 2 tractors and their front end loaders to lower it to the ground. Sounded scary to me!



Well, Sunday my middle brother, Dan, came down with his tractor and he & Brian brought down the house.
Gently, slowly, in perfect coordination. Whew!

Now the Castle is going to get a second chance as our farm store. We'll be moving it over by our driveway, adding screening to the sides to keep bugs out, a screen door,  shelves for produce, a fridge for eggs and a freezer for our farm fresh meats. If all goes as planned the farm store will be open for business around May 15th.

2 comments:

Donna OShaughnessy said...

h Dot this so cool, exactly what I want to do. What will you do with the freezers when it gets cold again ?

Dot said...

We're planning on closing up the farm store when it gets real cold in the fall. We'll bring the freezer and fridge back into the garage for the winter. There will be heat there this year- lord willing and we get a second-hand wood burning furnace within our budget.