Tobin's Fort

Last Wednesday, Meagan and I took her kids camping at Lake Minatare, a few miles northeast of Scottsbluff. We like to go for a couple of days in the middle of week, when most campsites are empty. Neither Bill nor Andy are great fans of camping overnight, so they don't mind staying home to work while we are gone. 

The day will come when we can no longer fit everyone in the RV, but we have all slept there comfortably this summer.  Meagan is very conscientious about home-schooling the kids every day, even at the lake, and the kids were motivated to finish their schoolwork quickly, leaving them plenty of time to hike, swim, explore, and build sand castles. (They were especially pleased when Grandpa Stan and Grandma Deb brought their boat out the first evening, so the kids could go tubing, but that's another story.)

The first morning at the lake, everyone enjoyed building sand castles. The younger kids worked on this big castle with Meagan, while Tobin designed a whole village of smaller sand structures.

The water from Lake Minatare is used for irrigation, so the water level always decreases drastically by the end of the summer. This year, though, there is even more sandy beach than usual, because the Panhandle has had little rain since the beginning of June.

Tobin noticed that someone had planted a tall stick, maybe ten feet high, in the sand, and that got him to thinking...

He decided to build a fort, somewhat like a teepee, from the abundant sticks he found among the trees that line the beach. He recruited the girls to help him. By early afternoon, they had constructed a sturdy teepee next to the lake, big enough for all four kids to fit into, if they squeezed together.

Evie helped a lot with the fort's construction. When Phase One was completed, the kids draped some beach towels over the sticks to make the walls.

 

All four kids were excited when the fort became usable.

Even Meagan fit in the fort--sort of.

Later that afternoon, while Ari and I napped in the RV, Tobin, Evie, and Lydia proceeded with their second phase of building. 

Tobin and Evie worked hard, filling in the walls with pieces of bark and shredded wood that littered the wooded area right next to the beach. Lydia added some flowers and green leaves, here and there.

Downed trees, in amongst the thriving Cottonwoods, provided all of the building materials needed for the fort.

Even as we ate supper, Tobin couldn't stop chattering about the fort. He regretted not building it closer to the RV, so he could see it without walking so far. He wished his Dad was there to inspect it. He told me he wanted to figure out a way to put it on wheels and transport it home, so he could keep it forever.

That night, after we went to bed, the wind blew--hard. In the morning, we noticed that our chairs, next to the fire pit, were blown over. Before he got dressed or ate breakfast, Tobin begged to run down to the beach to see if the fort had survived through the night. When Meagan assented, Tobin and Evie dashed off to check for damage. They were back in just a few minutes, ecstatic to announce that the fort was still standing; just a few pieces of light-weight "chinking" had blown away. They replaced the missing sections with more substantial building materials, and spent much of that day, before we headed home, playing in the fort.

Tobin was rightfully proud of the finished fort. Even though the girls helped with much of the building process, Tobin designed and engineered the fort. It was his brainchild, and his fort.

Tobin has been asking when we can go back to the lake to see if the fort is still standing. He knows that it is unlikely to last forever. By spring, the water level will be much higher, even pushing past the trees that currently line the beach. When that happens, the fort, or its remains, will be under water. Tobin is looking on the bright side, though. He hopes that some fish will be able to make the fort their home, at least for a while.

And next summer, he can build a bigger and better fort, closer to our campsite. By then, he might even figure out how to put it on wheels...

By wisdom a house is built, and by understanding it is established. Proverbs 24:3