Henry finally gets the new photos posted
 
 
A lot to report today; our new mantra, safety updates, several trips to the hardware/lumber stores, the foundation gets hoisted, a feast of BBQ pork ribs, and much more. The next deck will be about 10 feet higher in the tree than the current working deck. Its getting scary. We bought some webbing at Westlakes and Chaz showed us how to make safety harnesses, which we will attach to eye bolts drilled into the tree truck using a carabiner. Which leads me to our new mantra, “Never fall out of the tree.” I finally soaked my clothes in Henry’s special concoction for keeping ticks off. It worked, I did not have a single tick on me today, after having flicked dozens off my body and pulled a half dozen out of my skin in the past several days. Great progress today--Nick and I finished placing the permanent support beams for the working/staging deck--with help from Henry and Chaz on the ground. It is solid as rock now and will easily hold 1,500 to 2,000 lbs. I constructed the foundation today out of 2x8 beams, and Nick, Henry and Chaz got it hoisted into the tree while I almost finished the floor joists frame. We decided to use treated lumber rather than red cedar for several reasons. First, we do not have enough 2x8 and 2x6 red cedar. Second, this part of the structure will be concealed by the “nest like” covering of sticks. Third, treated lumber is strong, easy to work with and lasts a long time because of the treatment. It was a long, productive day and tomorrow we will post photos of our progress. We did get the photos posted from yesterday, so there really are new ones there to look at...the slide show feature is nice if you haven’t used it. Tonight Nick grilled fantastic pork ribs, I made a terrific salad....and Henry burned the baked beans (Lorna, we take back what we said yesterday--he really is incompetent in the kitchen--it’ not an act..except for making the ice cream in the Paco Jet, which is about as difficult as making Instant Oatmeal). We had Joan, Henry’s 84 year old mother, over for dinner. Chaz is reading “In Defense of Globalization”, which led Henry to describe a fascinating documentary produced by the PBS called “COMMANDING HEIGHTS: The Battle for the World Economy”. For our fascinated readers, here is the URL: http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/commandingheights/ Now back to the food. Henry served home made ice cream from the Paco Jet (like he does every night!). This is a kitchen appliance that costs more than most people’s kitchens. We all agreed that the ice cream was JUST AS GOOD as Diary Queen ice cream! Henry insists that it is MUCH, MUCH better....Nick and I noted that there is a Diary Queen in Fulton. Some evening this week we will sneak in the Diary Queen version and do the switcheroo with the $200 per bite Paco Jet version and see if anyone notices. I exaggerate of course....it really is amazingly good ice cream, and its really only $200 per 1/2 cup. Despite being scientist I do have a tendency to stretch the facts. Tomorrow Steve Mays is coming to play with us and make an audio recording or a video recording or something like that at the site. Hopefully we will be able to add his always hilarious interview and commentary to the growing corpus of documentary and images known affectionately as “Grown Men Build a Tree House”. Here is a link to Steve’s blog. Tune in tomorrow for more adventurous reporting and remember, “Never Fall Out of a Tree”. Ok, gotta go to bed. Henry and Nick are already asleep and they claim it is pleasant to wake up really early and go outside, so I have agreed to consider that possibility, which means I need to go and get my beauty rest. ~Bernard~ http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/commandingheights/http://www.pacojet.com/http://www.smays.com/shapeimage_2_link_0shapeimage_2_link_1shapeimage_2_link_2
Friday, June 16, 2006
And on the fifth day.....