Question: What do rusty, protruding nails, precipitous heights, standing water, weathered boards, polygamist land and reclaimed garbage all have in common? Answer: my children. It sounds dangerous, right? Why yes, it is dangerous. In fact, when I went out there to rescue Tizzy, at Ptolemy's insistence, (She refused to be rescued, BTW) I slipped in the fresh mud. "Don't do that, Mom, or you'll be at the BOTTOM of the gully," cautioned Tolly.
Grown-ups have to be careful out there. It's a kid's world, which is why I hadn't been there since Ari, Freestone and some of the DeBry cousins had turned it into a veritable wonderland of repurposed garbage, courtesy of "the bottom of the gully."
To be honest, I didn't remember about "The Fort" until I was shooing Tolly and Tizzy out the door to eat candy while I finished a violin repair. (This, despite the glowing blue light that emanates from it at night. Evidently, it is rigged with solar lights.)
"We're going to eat these Mentos in The Fort!"
"OK great, yes, do that, and then stay there! Fun!" (Door closes as I mumble, "Whatever THAT is!")
When I went out a little while later with Ptolemy for the big rescue, I found Tizzy happily perched on a rickety sheet of plywood overhanging a steep 50-foot slide into the ravine. She was dipping shards of broken plastic in the fetid water of a bin that Ptolemy referred to as "The Beach." And just like at the real beach, there is a comfy chair to sit in, except this one is infested with fire bugs, a feature the kids seem oblivious to. Another hair-raising feature of The Fort is the dead tree, whose branches you can climb, almost straight out, to a crow's nest where you feel like you're in the rainforest. It was from this outpost that I noticed the narrow 2x4 with the protruding nails, which the kids use to access the treetops. I told Ptolemy and Tziporah the cautionary tale of the time I got a rusty nail stuck in the bottom of my foot. When the doctor yanked it out, I told them solemnly, people could hear me screaming from the parking lot.
There was a pause, and then Tizzy squealed, "Can I do that!?" So much for cautionary tales. I didn't get the nail in my foot in the gully, anyway. In all the time I spent as a kid trying to claw my way out of the steep, muddy - or snowy, or dusty - ravine, I never once got hurt. I never had to be rescued, either. I never even got shot at by the polygamists who own the land, and it's not because they're real nice. The reality is, nothing we were doing was that dangerous, and the same goes for this new batch of daredevil babies. Technically, a kid could get hurt falling over the edge of a soggy piece of leftover building material from the 1970's, but the fact is, they probably won't. Ditto for the slide that is anchored to nothing and shoots the rider straight down the hill through dense foliage. Big deal. The poison ivy isn't even close to the slide.
The delicious irony is that, when Tziporah was good and ready, she came out of The Fort herself. I don't know how, because I was in the house. I do know that she came in and immediately and inexplicably tried to open the oven door, losing her balance and hitting her head on the floor, right there in front of me. And this after she came away unscathed from the "dangers" of the dead-wooded, nail-studded, mud-coated, garbage-strewn, bug-infested, perilously steep gully.
Go figure.
How fortuitous that this slab of concrete was already there to serve as a foundation for The Fort!
The ladder. It's how you get in and out.
I have to admit, Ptolemy did get an unwelcome shock when one leg went in that bucket at the bottom of the slide, and the other leg didn't. Owie! He was just going down there to pick me a purple flower, too. He probably felt sorry for me because I'm a grown-up.
Grown-ups have to be careful out there. It's a kid's world, which is why I hadn't been there since Ari, Freestone and some of the DeBry cousins had turned it into a veritable wonderland of repurposed garbage, courtesy of "the bottom of the gully."
To be honest, I didn't remember about "The Fort" until I was shooing Tolly and Tizzy out the door to eat candy while I finished a violin repair. (This, despite the glowing blue light that emanates from it at night. Evidently, it is rigged with solar lights.)
"We're going to eat these Mentos in The Fort!"
"OK great, yes, do that, and then stay there! Fun!" (Door closes as I mumble, "Whatever THAT is!")
When I went out a little while later with Ptolemy for the big rescue, I found Tizzy happily perched on a rickety sheet of plywood overhanging a steep 50-foot slide into the ravine. She was dipping shards of broken plastic in the fetid water of a bin that Ptolemy referred to as "The Beach." And just like at the real beach, there is a comfy chair to sit in, except this one is infested with fire bugs, a feature the kids seem oblivious to. Another hair-raising feature of The Fort is the dead tree, whose branches you can climb, almost straight out, to a crow's nest where you feel like you're in the rainforest. It was from this outpost that I noticed the narrow 2x4 with the protruding nails, which the kids use to access the treetops. I told Ptolemy and Tziporah the cautionary tale of the time I got a rusty nail stuck in the bottom of my foot. When the doctor yanked it out, I told them solemnly, people could hear me screaming from the parking lot.
There was a pause, and then Tizzy squealed, "Can I do that!?" So much for cautionary tales. I didn't get the nail in my foot in the gully, anyway. In all the time I spent as a kid trying to claw my way out of the steep, muddy - or snowy, or dusty - ravine, I never once got hurt. I never had to be rescued, either. I never even got shot at by the polygamists who own the land, and it's not because they're real nice. The reality is, nothing we were doing was that dangerous, and the same goes for this new batch of daredevil babies. Technically, a kid could get hurt falling over the edge of a soggy piece of leftover building material from the 1970's, but the fact is, they probably won't. Ditto for the slide that is anchored to nothing and shoots the rider straight down the hill through dense foliage. Big deal. The poison ivy isn't even close to the slide.
The delicious irony is that, when Tziporah was good and ready, she came out of The Fort herself. I don't know how, because I was in the house. I do know that she came in and immediately and inexplicably tried to open the oven door, losing her balance and hitting her head on the floor, right there in front of me. And this after she came away unscathed from the "dangers" of the dead-wooded, nail-studded, mud-coated, garbage-strewn, bug-infested, perilously steep gully.
Go figure.
2 comments:
Growing up in the foothills of Farmington, I can relate. We had a rickety old tree house in the middle of the goat pen. We spent hours exploring the hillside and playing in the yard. Your kids (and mine) are lucky to have such beautiful surroundings. My house might be a lot of work (remodeling), but this post is one of the main reasons we moved up here. I wanted them to have what we had growing up. BTW, Thanks so much for dinner. The kids loved the bagels. Yum!
This post brings back memories when all of you, you, Traj, Josh and Sarah, roamed the "forest" and had such fun! Memories! Looks like your kids are following in your footsteps, hoping they get a sense of what it is like to grow up in the woods and among nature's treasures! xo Tricia
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