Forts and firepits

The boys have been building forts in the backyard lately.  They have gotten progressively more involved as time has gone on.  Eventually our yard started to look like a trash pit.  Then there started to be problems with the neighbor boys fighting over the fort and so I decided it was time to be done with the forts.  There will be no more forts made in our backyard.  Today the ice and snow and rain finally stopped and while the high was only in the low 30's, I decided it was time for us to take the forts down and clean up the mess.  I had no idea how much of a mess it was until I got outside to help them clean it up.  Apparently the boys allowed the neighbor kids to drag in trash from the forest behind out house.  They learned a difficult lesson today that when it is in your yard, you ultimately are responsible to take care of it (and clean it).  They didn't think it was quite fair that they had to clean it all up without the help of the neighbors who helped make the mess.  Now our yard is off-limits for awhile and no little neighbor kids are allowed back there for awhile.  I was so irritated with the buckets of junk I threw away.

We have piles of logs and sticks in our yard from the boys and piles of wood from the business so I bought a fire pit and we set it up so we could burn some of the wood and get warm when our hands got too cold.  I think it softened the disappointment of having to clean up the mess by having a fire.