an afternoon of fortitude

Our property used to have a road running smack through part of it. A regular old country road, and people still remember driving it, how it wound around through the apple orchard and trees and gave you glimpses of the rushing river and then the woods and back again.

But that was awhile ago, and if you didn't know, you wouldn't know that cars used to vroom through the space where the deer now come out and graze. Wild strawberries and raspberry canes tangle where the old ruts used to be - the grass grows thick over the rest.

There is one, lone sentinel telephone pole left. Unattached to anything, it stands guard over a grove of pine trees and the edge of the watershed.

(Why is there a telephone pole at the edge of the field, all out by its lonesome? Because the power lines followed the roads.)

We had lots of long sticks left from different batches of wood-cutting and tree-thinning and the over-zealous beaver we had visiting us last spring and so this afternoon, after I got home from work and the cries of 'play with me!' started, the kids and I

the kids and I built a teepee.

It's big enough so they can both get in it and stand up.

They're pretty chuffed. Big plans of sleeping out overnight once we're finished (I want to take vines and weave them through, then toss on a couple of old sheets to cover it all.) and games of fort have already started. The doorway is on the other side, in an area shaded by pine branches, so the entrance isn't obvious.

It's much more like a real teepee that way.