This post is actually bitter sweet. When we bought this house, the day we closed, a tree had fallen and the people we were purchasing from had to clear it from the driveway on their way to the closing. This would be called foreshadowing. When Bill and I drove up to our new home we looked at what was left of that tree and thought, treehouse.
Sam was at a great age for a treehouse and we consulted him on what exactly should be built. He said, “Castle”. Okay then the resident overengineer got to work drawing out plans and then redrawing them as things were added. If it’s a castle then we need to make it look like a castle. Since I’m afraid of heights it needs stairs not any kind of ladder type thing, but real honest to goodness stairs, with banisters, and a parapet, and a dungeon sandbox. Bill’s brother Mike came out to help with the build. Peter got involved because I don’t do ladders. I do physics, so we devised a pulley system to get the walls up and allow me to hold them up from the ground till Bill got the screws in.
The walls needed to resemble stone blocks. It needed gargoyles, and ropes for the stairs to give that drawbridge feel. Bill and Mike put in working windows making sure that they were at a good height for sitting while you hunted. Because the castle would also serve as a hunting shack. Sadly it never was used for that purpose. The neighbor passed away and left his land to his daughter who was/is married to a man convinced that the entire world is out to get him and his wives money. To say he has made it difficult since his wife inherited would be to say, well we literally just stopped going in our own woods except to move the flags he put up on our land to show that he owned it. Any who back to the castle.
The outside walls were painted on the ground, because ladders are a nope.
Even the inside was finished. I spent time up their with my airbrush making the walls look like stone. On either side of the door I painted guards in full armor with swords. It had a lock with a a huge iron ring and key. It did not ever have a TV, game system and electricity which is what Sam wanted. Nor did it ever have a bridge that went from our home to the castle which was also Something Sam wanted. I think he also wanted some kind of conveyor belt, that boy can dream.
We loved this thing. During the build and beyond we sat out by that campfire cooking our meals while we worked and reading stories. Stories were taken up to the castle to be read on summer nights by the glow of battery lanterns. Sam heard the tales of King Arthur and Tarzan and all points between out there by his castle.
He grew up and the castle, well, it sat and stood watch over the march of time. The tree beneath it started to fail. The first thing I noticed was a hole appearing near the base of the tree. Then the floor in the castle just above the tree crumbled. You could look down from the castle and look out the bottom of the tree. It was not safe. Could we have added legs and saved it? Maybe. The roof had also been hit by a tree in a wind storm. Could it have been repaired? Maybe. Just about anything can be fixed. The reality is we no longer have small children and the odds that we will have grandchildren is slim. Which brings us to last weekend.
The castle sits outside of the area where the orchard is going, it wasn’t in the way. Bill was worried about the stability of the whole structure because the tree just kept getting worse. It was totally hollow which made cutting it down really scary. Bill went up to bring down the furniture that was still up there and the whole thing was shaking. It was a matter of time and trees like that can decide to shatter or drop in crazy ways that make it dangerous to be near them. We do not have any big equipment up here. Even Big Red, the truck, is slowly loosing her bed and probably should not be used to try and pull anything. So how do you handle a job like this?
Ropes, pulleys, rope puller, and two people.
Bill started by taking down my gargoyles because I love those guys. He took the door off and the windows out and then ran a rope through the back window (the direction he wanted it to fall), out the front door and down to a tree in the woods. He then ran another rope to a tree slightly higher in the ravine and that was where the rope puller was.
After that he separated the castle from the stairs, we ended up completely removing the upper stairs to help free the castle. Then cut the supports that went from the bottom of the castle to the tree. The idea was that the castle would pull free of the tree and then we would need to figure out how to get that tree down.
As each step was happening we kept tension on the ropes with the puller and it did eventually become so difficult I could no longer get the handle to budge. At that point Bill had to make a cut and then come add tension. For a bit we were not sure any of this was going to work. If it didn’t work that would leave a now free floating building perching on a rotting tree stump just hanging out in the woods. Probably not a good idea. At that moment where you want to stop and reconsider your life choices it started to sway. For sure I thought it might come down towards the slide which also happened to be where the dog was. I got his leash and was hooking him up when I heard Bill say, “It’s starting to go.” I looked up just in time to not just see the castle be breached but the whole tree pull right out of the ground. The castle never did come off that tree instead we ended up pulling the tree down. That’s where we had our first glimpse of just how dangerous things had gotten. The tree was not only hollow it was not rooted to the ground it was “sitting” on it’s base on top of the dirt. The tree failed before Bill’s build did.
The next few days were spent taking the rest of the pieces down and clearing the area. I won’t lie it’s been sad. After seeing just how dangerous it had become I’m glad it’s down. I’m glad that it came down without having to try and find heavy equipment or a crew that would even want to try tackling it. I’m glad that nobody got hurt. I’m glad that we didn’t have to try and figure out how to get the tree down and we don’t even have a stump to deal with. I’m glad that many of the pieces of the castle will be salvaged and reused so in a way the castle will still be here. I’m glad that we can now finish the prep for the orchard. I’m also sad and my heart hurts a little bit with bitter sweet feelings of missing the little boy gone and celebrating the man he is.
