Workbench and dogdoor problem solved!

We have a small dog and cat, and of course, a little door for them, leading onto our back porch.  We also had a huge problem, as the wind blows from that dirction often, bringing lots of cold air, dirt, leaves, etc., into the dogdoor.  The flap broke off, and attempts to rig up a flap that worked failed.  Enter:  my genious husband again!!!  Here is what he did....let's see if you can figure out what happened here....no looking ahead!

"something dumb this-way-comes!!"

Well?!  Didja?!?  Figure it out, I mean?!  See that place where one of the planks does not extend to the ground, just off of the deck?  THAT is the new entryway into the dogdoor area!!  They go under there, jump up onto the deck, and come in their door, which is now protected behind/under this wonderful workbench!!!!  You have to admit that this is GENIOUS!!  Eventually, we will probably build new steps with a bigger platform, so that you can stand on a level withthe workbench all the way down (on the right), and then descend the steps.  Yes, we will have to leave room under the steps for the animals to get through.  :)

trash corral

Now for the other backyard projects we've been doing!  We've made a trash corral, using a structure we already had for the base of it (not sure what the original use of that structure was....we got it from a deserted storage unit), and added some fence planking to "hide" the cans and make it look purty!  This is the side you can see from the house and backyard.  Beyond it, are the woodpile, and some of our field.

Now our cans are "corraled" so that the wind can't blow them around!  Yay!!

Treehouse!

And now.....the reason I have been absent from here for awhile......We have been SO BUSY, building the most wonderful TREEHOUSE!!!  My husband is a genious kind of guy, who thinks up all these things to do right out of his head....truly creative!  The platform is 14 feet up off of the ground!  Here's some pics:

silly helper!

under construction

my genious at work!

finally finished, with platform, house, and walled rails!

Sonnet cleaning her house!!

We worked SO HARD on this for days and days in temps reaching 104 degrees sometimes!  But we had a blast, drank lots of lemonaide, and learned a lot!

Jinglebell Jack!

Meet Jinglebell Jack!!  He is a bold sort of fellow, full of hijinx and cleverness!  I made him when my older 2 girls were little, because we had a book by the same name, about this wonderful little clown that a Mom made for her little girl after they had seen the clown in a circus.  It made them so happy to have a Jinglebell Jack of their own!

Here is a picture of him with his book:

and another showing some of the cute pages in this little vintage wonder:

I made him in much the same way as my Mom made the little button doll shown in an earlier blog.  Of course, instead of the buttons, I made lots of little fabric yo-yo's from circles I cut out of remnants I had on hand.  I also had to embroider his face on.  I did this just by looking at his picture in the little book, and drawing his face onto some fabric. 

He loves his own book, as you can see here:

The other day, I found him to be quite fallen apart, from much playing (he had overexerted himself!), and sitting right by him was an old fashioned dolly that had lost her head!  I think she may have just been in love with Jinglebell Jack, and was overcome!  Anyway, I fixed them both, and here is their happy owner now with them: