whoohoo! we were closer to (safely) camping in the trees a few weeks ago, but travel and vacations delayed our first camping adventure.
it’s a perfect night for reading “the lightning thief” and camping in the trees.
update: turns out, at the last minute we checked the weather and there was a chance of thunderstorms in the early morning. we didn’t want to be scrambling down the ladder in a storm so decided to go inside and camp tomorrow night!
with treehouse deck now mostly secure i realized that inviting local musicians to record “the treehouse sessions” is a thing i can do now!
just realized that inviting local musicians to record "the treehouse sessions" is a thing i can do now.
— Eric C. Snowdeal III (@snowdeal) August 7, 2013
think twilight, late evening with lights twinkling and a mood similar to this stray birds video.
The Stray Birds – Loretta from Beehive Productions on Vimeo.
i played for a bit up the trees and it’s excellent. i think this is a thing that has to happen and already have a few locals roped in!.
it has been a little over a month since we thought we were (close to) camping in the trees and now we’re pretty much at a place where we can do it safely and not worry about anyone falling off the deck 🙂
the decking is all screwed down, the ends of the deck boards are trimmed, the guard rail posts are in place and bolted down with two beefy carriage bolts, the provisional guard rails are up ( i say provisional because eventually i’m going to wrap the posts in black locust and build better looking guard rails ) and a few temporary hand rails are in place ( a process that taught me a lot about how freakishly dense black locust lumber is )!
being able to safely hang out on a 14×16 foot deck up in the trees is a big milestone two years after odin first asked if we could build The World’s Most Awesome Treehouse(s)!
i think we definitely need a table to go with the chairs.
on the ground you can see my other crazy construction project – the sauna ( built in 2009 ) and the chicken coop ( built in 2010 ) which were both great treehouse training projects.
if you’re keeping score, the amazingly dense black locust has broken jigsaw blades and a drill bit and today while trimming the ends off the treehouse deck boards it wore my circular saw blade down until it was totally smooth and about as effective at cutting as a butter knife.
granted it was an old blade – the lesson learned, if you’re ever working with black locust be prepared to invest in new blades and drills bits!
yes, we know the black locust is dense enough to break new jigsaw blades.
and tonight it caused my 5/16th inch drill bit to get so hot from friction that it snapped!
i can’t imagine working with it without power tools like some of the amish builders in the area.
i’m trying to cut out holes for the railing posts in the black locust decking for the treehouse so, you know, nobody falls over the edge.
the black locust is so dense it’s breaking the jigsaw blades!
just drilling the holes in the corners of the area to be cut out quickly drains the cordless drill battery.
it’s amazingly tough stuff.
standing 15 feet up on the outer corner of the treehouse, pre-drilling holes for screws in the black locust decking ( which is so dense that i think it’s going to heat the drill bit so hot it’ll melt ) and it suddenly occurs to me when the wind is swaying the trees that i have a lot of faith in the structural stability of my design O_o
i mean, i feel pretty confident, but still, without the railings up the slights sense of vertigo and swaying in the wind can give you a little pause.