Rope Bridge

Well, time to do an update on the happenings at our house. With the warm and dry weather finally coming, the children have been outside most of the time. Our neighbors, Ben and Danny, have a little pond and the children have been having a grand time playing and floating. So far, the only problems are the bright red skin and now Landon has a hard time figuring out why his skin is coming off.

Michone and Ashley are getting their lambs ready for 4H (in August). Kalli had her first rabbit 4H meeting this last week. And I noticed tonight that Ashley and Kalli had three chickens seperated into a cage - some of the same ones that were prize winners from last year's 4H. Their names are Pecker, Crowy, and Angel. Speaking of chickens, our 20 Easter chicks are about grown and we are excited for the extra egg production. However, our free range loving chickens have become the favorite night time snack for something. The last two weeks we have went from 16 down to 6! We put them in with the big chickens but they are not getting along and the younger ones take off as soon as possible.

We got our raft out and floated down the river yesterday. Lots of fun, but Ashley about had a mini heart attack when she asked Tara if that was a snail on her leg. Tara said no, it was a leach and Ashley needed to pull it off. When she tried and it would not come off, she started to get very concerned. When Tara pulled it off there was a blood spot on her leg and Ashley was quite worried about dire consequences.

Finally, we tried putting up our rope bridge last Saturday. It had taken a lot of time to get the rope pulled through all the boards and then get the side/hand rails on. To make a long story short, I think I want a refund from the architect who modified the design from the treehouse book.......

attaching the south end of the bridge to the tree.

view from the ground. As you can see, I put a rope in and out of each floor plank on each side of the plank. We then attached support ropes up to a rail rope about 42 inches above the planks.

we attached a chain to the north end of the bridge and used a tractor to pull it up. With over 70 18 inch wide 2x6 or 2x8s, this was very heavy.

About here we realize I put way too many planks in and so we take out about 10 feet. The guy in the picture is my neighbor - Ben.

Going up.

I'm in the tree pulling up the bridge (with the help of the tractor!). This is seconds before snap crackle pop and the engineering modifactions flaws I added become apparent.

Here is what it looks like up. As you can see, there are a few holes in the floor. These happened because the floor ropes which were weaved in and out of each plank were being pulled so tight that when they straightened out, it caused the plank to buckle upward in the middle. I think about 8-10 boards popped from the pressure. I was ready to take the whole thing down, but Ben said after spending so much time getting it up, he was going to do an Indiana Jones accross it no matter what.....

This does not give credit for the precarious angle Ben is at. The first five boards were very steep. In other words, every muscle is tensed!

Here I am with a no hands two thumbs up pose for this picture. Seconds before another board had "popped" while I was out here. Everyone had a good laugh except for me!

Here is Ashley. This one is for you Grandma and Grandpa. By the way, who is ready to bring their children for a visit?