Tree House Fun by WebbyGirl2

My daughter WebbyGirl2 (age 8) made this beautiful picture on the computer this morning. I'm not sure which I like better...the sunset or the treehouse.

Did you ever have a tree/club house? When I was 12, my best friend Jan and I scavenged some weather-worn wood and rusty nails from the woods. We battled the hot Texas weather, the snakes, and the scorpions to get what we needed, and then we architected and built our own club house. One large board was our ceiling, propped on one side by a six-foot fence and on the other by a barrel stacked with wooden crates. One wall was the fence of course, and the other was a blanket where we spray painted our club name:

The Acting Outlaws

On the sides, we propped boards up on bricks--the scavenged boards weren't quite long enough. Next year, we even designed a draw bridge entrance, which we never used because it was so annoying to drag the ropes through, so we just slipped in through the gap between the blanket and wall at the corner. For a secret escape route, we removed one of the boards from the fence and put in a hinge and a latch.

We planted flowers outside, which bloomed in spring and withered in the Texas summer. One year we had a garden--we planted radishes and potatoes. We decorated inside with pictures and scraps of cloth. Our club house was our castle, and I still cherish the memory.

Of course, the neighborhood boys snuck in and ransacked our clubhouse and left messages on our chalk board. We never figured out which boys did this. Hmm, I wonder if my brother knows.

What about you? Did you have a club house? Was it as magical for you as ours was to us?