The Daring Book for Girls - Andrea J. Buchanan [70]
…all our Friends desire to be rememberd to you and foremost in that Number stands your Portia.*
* * *
* The wife of the Roman Republican Senator, Brutus. Abigail often signed her letters with that name.
Clubhouses and Forts
EVERY GIRL SHOULD have a clubhouse or fort of her own, and here are some ideas for making one. Several weekends may be spent sweating over the plans for a long-lasting clubhouse of wood beams and nails and real roofing tile. But there are ways to make quicker work of this endeavor.
QUICK FORT
With 6-foot metal garden stakes, you can construct an outdoor clubhouse or fort almost immediately. Garden stakes haven’t the stability of wood beams, but the swiftness with which the walls go up easily makes up for that. Five stakes will do the trick.
The stakes come with footholds. Stand on them and they should push into the ground rather effortlessly. If there’s a problem, a rubber mallet or a taller person can help; if it proves intractable, that may mean that there’s a rock in the ground and you need to move the stake. Use one stake for each of the four corners. Set the fifth stake along one of the sides to create a space for the door.
Wrap the whole structure, except the doorway, with chicken wire or deer netting, or lighter-weight bird netting. Garden stakes have notches in them and you can attach the materials to the notches to form the basic wall. (Trim the bottom of the netting neatly at ground level, lest chipmunks and other small animals inadvertently get tangled inside; this happened to us.)
To add privacy, use burlap or a white painter’s dropcloth as a second layer, or cardboard (you’ll figure a way to attach these to the stakes). If you want a ceiling, the burlap or dropcloth will help, although they won’t be waterproof, and rainwater will collect on top. You can use a tarp, but the plastic can make the inside very hot. You’ll figure it out. A sixth stake, taller than the rest, can be added to the center to create a sloped ceiling. From here, use twine, rope, duct tape, wire, scissors, sticks, cardboard, plywood, and any other wood scraps you can scare up to build walls, create windows, ceilings and floors, and otherwise make it your own. There are no rules; it’s your fort.
LEAN-TO
A lean-to is a very primitive form of shelter that’s little more than a wall or two and a roof. It’s meant to keep you safe from the worst of the rain and wind, and often leans into existing walls or fences, hence the name. Find any tucked-in spot or corner, rig a tarp roof with some ropes knotted to trees, and lean a side of plywood against the house. Build up the front with branches, odd pieces of old fence your neighbors left out on trash day, or even a picnic table turned on its side.
INDOOR FORT
The classic formula of couch cushions, blankets, and the backs of sofas and chairs is a good start for an indoor fort, as is throwing blankets over the top of the dining room table (stacks of books on top help keep them in position).
You can improve upon these traditional forts. To make a hanging wall, screw a line of hooks or eyebolts into the ceiling. Run picture-hanging wire or clothesline rope through them. Attach clips or clothespins, and from these, dangle all sorts of sheets, light blankets, large swaths of cloth, holiday lights, or your mother’s oversized scarves to create a different kind of fort.
Daisy Chains and Ivy Crowns
TO MAKE A DAISY CHAIN, pick twenty or so daisies. Near the bottom of the stem, but not too close, slit a slender lengthwise hole with your fingernail. Thread the next daisy through this hole until the flower head rests on the first stem. Take care not to pull too hard; daisy chains are lovely, but fragile. If you want to see lots of stem between the daisies, make the slit farther from the blossom. If you prefer a tightly packed garland, slit closer to the flower itself, and pinch off the rest of the stem. Continue