I built with my big brother on our wooded property up north near a cedar swamp. Back in those days I would play all sorts of games there with friends that I would bring up to our cabin. Behind the island there is a swamp with little islands that we give nicknames to. It is a great place to play and forget schoolwork.
The tree fort is not big. It is about 10 feet off the ground. That was high then but not any more. It is about 10′ by 10′. The walls are only 3′ tall.
I could easily fall out of that now. There is a small inside ladder built to climb into it. I can even remember the day like it was yesterday that we built it. It took a whole weekend before it was fully complete. Then we played in it all weekend. The tree fort is nestled in a wooded area.
It was so cool. We have a cabin near Cadillac. That is were the tree fort is. There are so many stories to be told about this cabin. I can remember the first time that I was up there exactly. It was a cold winter’s day.
I was only five at the time. We were driving our Jeep Cherokee Limited. The snow had to be five feet deep. A fire was already burning inside because my grandparents live in their cottage down the road and they came down and started the fire to warm the cabin for us. We had to shovel all of the snow off of the relatively short driveway. Once that was done we drove up and parked.
It was something to drool about. The best thing is that there was no bathroom! We had to go in the woods to the outhouse. That was by far the most fun ever. My dad said that we could not go far in the woods.
In about five minutes my dad called us in for dinner. After dinner I was so excited about the next day that I almost couldn’t fall asleep. The next morning was another adventure. We got to go sledding. That was a blast.
We drove down to my grand parent’s house and sledded on the gigantic sledding hill. We would go down this hill and out on to the lake. I was very tired after that day, from hauling the sled back up the hill! It was a beautiful sunny blue-sky day. Mid afternoon while we were sledding a yellow plane with skis landed just in front of the cottage on the ice. It was the frosting on the already great day.
