Fun with the chipper.

This was going to be the "summer of whimsey." I declared it such to my sister-in-law JD while out buying a string of Buddhist prayer flags to adorn the cabin. But if circumstances dictate decree, in retrospect the past few weeks are off to a good start as the "summer of squirrel wars" or "summer chipper."

Walden was great. Today's my first day back after a month away, two weeks spent at the cabin with the boys. We discovered new birds, including an American Woodcock with an elongated beak and a tinny peent call. We cut a path through the woods and chipped a third of an acre of brush in the process with an industrial wood chipper that turned a 6" trunk into chips in seconds. Most exciting was getting the floor on the new Fort at Walden Cabin. In a tree I'd planted 13 years ago. It's a 10' x 7' platform 12' off the ground, now decorated simply with a single chair and a chain of colourful Buddhist prayer flags. The walls and trusses and roof will have to wait to next year, leaving me and my enthusiastic littles with something to think of and dream about all winter. Jasper's already started sketches and has made it clear he wants a telescope in there, a solar panel, and carpet. Anything's possible in my whimsey woods.