Dizzying Heights

I’ve talked a bit about the property our house is on.  It sits at the top of an uphill lane that we share with four other homes on about half an acre of land. The lane is covered with tree limbs like a canopy and makes for a peaceful entrance, except when one of the girls sticks her hand out to slap the leaves of the bushes on the side and either giggles hysterically or ends up crying. The former owner was quite a gardener and the land right around the house is filled with beautiful flowers: foxgloves, lilies, buttercups (which some people tell me are a weed, but I say a weed is only a weed if you don’t like it), daisies, roses. There is also oregano and rosemary and mint gone wild, a cook’s heaven.

Behind the property line is a green belt that leads to a gully through a downhill trail. The girls love exploring this and we often don’t see them for hours, as mentioned here. Ainsley has been obsessed with building a fort at the bottom, obviously subscribing to the ‘room of one’s own’ philosophy as well. She (with some help!) made walls of branches and ferns. She took a pallet found on the side of the house all the way down there by herself for a floor. She has boards over the little stream to make a bridge. It is a beautiful space for her. She wanted to keep its location a secret. But like all secrets and ten-year-olds, the two were soon parted.

Her three sisters also built a fort of their own, being not exactly welcome in Ainsley’s sanctuary. They used the wood from the rockery for a floor, which Maeve and Hailey dragged down with Hannah as the 'supervisor'. Fort is a loose definition of what they built seeing as they saw fit to put in a fence, a bar and a tiny table and call it ‘Bamboo Island’. I am certain it’s lemonade instead of Mai Tai’s. For now. I was waiting for the Professor and MaryAnn to show up for happy hour.

(To read the rest of my adventure visiting the girls' forts, visit our blog at www.midcenturymodernlove.com)