The Pallet Fort

For a while now, James has been collecting bits and pieces of lumber. He would beg, borrow or steal anything he could get his hands on to build his fort. After a few months of trash picking and remnant scavenging, he had amassed quite a collection. Everyday he would build a fort, varied slightly from the day before. It began to look as though a band of roving lawn gnomes had taken up residence in our yard, living in shelters cobbled together with feed bags and 2 by 4 scraps. I began to think about other ways of satisfying his desire for a fort, but without the hillbilly effect. Since everyone else is making stuff out of pallets, I figured...why shouldn't I?! Finding pallets proved to be more difficult than I anticipated, as apparently those suckers are a commodity that can be sold back to the recycling people. After trolling craigslist for a while, I found some pallets nearby...and they were actually still available! Woo! I arranged a pick up time and off I went. (Jeff kept the kids at home) Now, here's a little tidbit for you: there is a shortage of trailer parks in these here parts. You almost never see them. Well, whaddayaknow? It was in a trailer park. In the middle of nowhere. Tidbit Numero Dos: In these here parts, the middle of nowhere means at least 8 minutes away from Walmart. So, I pull into unknown trailer park in the middle of 'nowhere,' and find the trailer (a nicely maintained double wide on a street of singles). In the driveway was parked a minivan and I thought, 'Oh, good, must be a family...less chance of ax murderer...' because after all, it is craigslist and that does make me a little nervous. So I approached the door and a lady comes out. Shortly after follows her husband (I assume). They had tattoos and facial piercings and all the trappings of a fairly serious Goth couple, minus the combat boots. I also didn't notice any safety pins on clothing or earlobes. Bonus? Hmmm. So I went around the house with them, and found them to be the most pleasant and chipper freaks I have had the pleasure of speaking with. It was almost like someone took Mr. Rodgers and put him in a  Black Sabbath shirt and pierced his eyebrows. They told me that they had picked up the pallets last year from a church that had been selling pumpkins. Goth couple got them to use in their elaborate haunted house on Halloween. (Thus the fake blood, she explained.) They wanted to keep them but their landlord said they needed to go. I only took six, and as they were helping me load them up I told them what I was going to do with them. They were so thrilled that a little kid would be using them to build a fort. And so we inherited 6 fake-blood spattered pallets for our own. Thank you, friendly Goth couple! Also, thank you for not being ax murderers. And now, since you are all wondering when I am going to S-H-U-T U-P and show you pictures of the darn fort already, here it is:

I am not sure we lost the hillbilly effect, but with a little paint it will look as prim as a white picket fence! (or so I tell myself...)

And guess who lost a tooth last week?!