Two Tree House Watch Towers, Linked by a Bridge

 In June, 2020, the parks were closed due to COVID-19.  At Chip's Wood Shop, we built our own tree house.  Not just one, but two- each in its own avocado tree, linked by a swinging bridge.

Video Tour

The foundation of each tree began with a frame around and through a fork in the trunk.  The frames were contoured on the inside to minimize stress on the bark.  For added support, I put steel fence posts between each frame and the ground. 

Next, I made a bridge with steel rope, strung through palettes and around the frames, creating a "belt" around the two trees without strangling them.  I sprayed all palettes with termite treatment before using them.

To hoist up material for the rest, I made a winch, the subject of a separate post.

Each tree has a platform above its frame, on vertical supports.  The platforms are made of palettes and pressure treated lumber.  I built railing around all walking surfaces and fastened wire fencing to prevent falls and dropping large items.  The design of the tree houses makes them tricky to photograph.  They are meant to be hidden as much as possible within the trees so they don't annoy the neighbors.  There is another steel rope "belt" around the platforms so they support each other.  They are designed to move with the trees, rather than fight them.  In a heavy wind, they sound like a wooden ship at sea.

A friend gave me a load of used flooring, so I used it for both tree houses.

The kids wanted a ladder they could hoist up to keep the bad guys from getting in.

After a year and a half, the tree houses have held up under many friends coming to visit and the highest winds we get in our area.

Garden Wars: Return of the Veggies

The gophers continue digging up the yard, but

BAM!

Garden Wars; Attack of the Gophers

The gopher is a worthy adversary. I have taken the garden to a new defense level- wire mesh. Underground. Why so extreme? I would never have believed it myself,  so I took this video of a gopher munching on a corn stalk and dragging it underground:

Last year, I had 20 tomato plants, each about 4 feet high. 19 of them disappeared. The silver lining of our COVID19 economic downturn is that I got furloughed for a week. I'm very blessed. Many people are suffering right now. Most folks are at least bummed that they have a week off and nowhere to go. Not me! I will never run out of projects. This week, I chose to dig up my garden and lay down 1/2" wire mesh, stitched together like a shallow box with no lid, then put the garden back down on top of it.

My little vegetable garden is 10'x20'. I dug down one foot, so 7.4 yards or 5.66 m^3. At 76 lb/ft^3, that's 7.6 tons. Since it had to be moved twice, thats 15.2 tons, just short of the mucker's daily quota of 16 tons, according to our very entertaining tour guide at the Molly Catherine gold mine. Respect.  It took me about 4 days, though. Of course that includes probably about 4 hours of hand-stitching with wire, as well as naps in the hammock.
I dug right down to the level of our water main, 1-inch copper. To protect the pipe,  I split 1-inch PVC in half and covered the copper before laying down the galvanized steel mesh. My favorite  tool for cutting PVC is the band saw. To keep the cut straight and prevent the tube from twisting too much as I cut the 10-foot piece lengthwise,  I made a riving knife out of scrap slotted steel angle.


I cut the wire mesh with aviation shears and folded the sides up and folded a 3-inch flange out around the top. At the corners, I stitched the sides together.

Now I need to get busy planting again.

Space-Saving Corner Dual Monitor Stand

Stuck at home? Enjoy enhancing your work area with my weekend project: Corner Dual Monitor Stand