A Sunday on the ranch.

[CattleArmy]

Growing up as a kid my Mom's family spent a ton of time together so that left us cousins with tons of time too. My two older boy cousins and myself built a fort as young kids much like the one I worked on today with my kids. My niece and daughter had started in this fall and today with the beautiful weather we added on and finished some walls.

The view from inside.

I want my kids to find joy in being outdoors. I want them to be able to entertain themselves and not need a t.v., computer, or some game system to take up all their time. I want them to look back at simple things like a fort and a few Sundays spent working on it and smile and recall the good times when they are adults. Some of my biggest smiles come from stories of remember when we were kids and......

 

[Big Muddy rancher]

It looks pretty much like the one my sister and i build and my kids rebuilt years later.

Every ranch kid needs a fort.

 

[leanin' H]

As a former youngster myself witha PHD in fort building, I must tell ya that is one nice fort! Mom and Dad used to turn us loose at the ranch while they rode for cows and we would climb in big old skunky bushes for hours on end. Then we'd head for the willows along the old channel and the "miles" of trails through the willows and old ditch. Who needed a video game? We'd crush old beer and pop cans onto our feet and use them for horseshoes as we ran the range. Kids today (city kids mostly) don't know what they're missin'!

 

[jigs]

I agree totally with your stand on electronics. our 4 are so different. two love to be outside, and two will go if it is needed. too many things to keep them inside, but my one boy almost has to be FORCED to come in..... I wish school was not mandatory, I wuld just let him stay home all the time and do as he pleases!

 

[Soapweed]

As a kid, I rode a million miles with a broom as my "saddlehorse." My grandmother always thought the bristley part of the broom should be the tail, but I always thought the bristley part should be the head so that is the way I rode it. :wink: As an adult, I dislike the inconvenience of horseweeds. As a kid, though, it is pretty fun to go traisping through the forest that is formed by the tall horseweeds. Another favorite game was to walk tightrope around the houseyard fence. If you fell off, you had to go back to the first post and start over.

 

[the_jersey_lilly_2000]

That's like.............what............a years worth of firewood in Nebraska??? LOL Just kiddin, cool lookin fort.

Weren't much fort buildin when I was a kid. Bout the only "trees" in West Texas are mesquite bushes. With plenty of thorns, not real good fort buildin materials. But....we did play in the old barn at grandma's. Mostly we'd go lizard huntin, with the bb gun. Or spend the night in the storm cellar out in the back yard. That was on the verge of bein skeery. Tween the snakes that could be down in there, and the scorpions that usually were. Made for a long night. But once you braved up enuff to say you'd stay, you hadda just tuff it out and spend the whole night LOL

 

[Shorthornguy]

:lol: :lol: I never grew up.....me and grandma still havin fun :lol: :lol: 8) :wink:

 

[Shortgrass]

Our forts were rocks piled up in a wall. I could lay stone better then than ever after.

 

[PureCountry]

Our best forts were snow castles in the drifts around the bales. We'd have tunnels going every which way. Great fun.

 

[nr]

Our best forts were snow castles in the drifts around the bales. We'd have tunnels going every which way. Great fun.

Now THAT sounds like fun. We never had enough drifts. But our forts were all GREEN. Made of saplings for walls and built in a green mossy area which was very soft and always green "wall to wall carpeting!"

Our favorite occupation was trying to re-route the creek Lots of digging and stone moving.

 

[Julie]

About 2 miles from the house there was an old saw mill tucked away in the pines (Colorado) --and we made our fort from the old slab pile --we found a stand of pines close by, nailed up a few horizontally and then stood slabs up against that for walls ... the most fun was in the building, not the using

We also had one in the willows along the creek a little closer to home ...it looked alot like CattleArmy's.

It didn't take us (4 kids) long to learn to disappear to find something to do or Mom or Dad would FIND something for us to do and it was never fun if they got to pick!

 

[nonothing]

When I was younger we used to build forts inside the house on rainy days.....using blankets,couch cushions,pillows,chairs and tables....I remember my mom letting us sleep in our inside forts at night.We had flash lights and popcorn ,my brother and I would be space captains piloting the mother ship,or soldiers watching from inside our fort....even our bunk bed could become a fort or a space ship we controled.....funny how two kids can enjoy times where the only thing needed was thier imagination.....