dirty photos




So this all started when we took an extremely dodgy looking road/path. Somewhere in Northfield. The road/path seemed to end in a field, so we decided to turn around... but I was all "wtf is that weird structure?" So! Forward we went. And we saw that the weird structure it was a grody weird treehouse and said okay let's turn around.


Oops.



You can see the treehouse in the back... the X marks where we entered the field. Unbeknownst to us, most of the field was virtually a swamp. We backed right into it... and couldn't get out. The tire tracks mark our slow descent into hell. We turned onto soft ground and kept sliding downhill. Much gas was wasted as James tried in vain to get us out. But the entire field was mush.

So... we built a road.



Here we are still working on getting the front wheels onto the boards we started scavenging from around the base of the treehouse. James has his trusty high-lift jack. We would have been screwed without it.
At this point I really thought we were never going to get out. The property owner was going to show up with a shotgun and murder us for ruining his lawn.



Success! All four wheels up on solid ground.



This is just after the first real movement we got. A routine developed- we lurch forward a few feet; assess the situation; take boards from behind the jeep and place them in front. Repeat. We had about 1.5 carlengths of road and we just recycled it every iteration.



I found this poor worm dangling from the side mirror. Many worms were harmed that day.



Progress is being made. James lugs a heavy, waterlogged board. At this point I could barely lift them.
We needed a bit more road, so James climbed up to the 2nd story of the treehouse and detached a huge piece of siding. We also used what used to be a door and a piece of corrugated metal. Everything was useful. Everything also had to be lugged across a goddamned swamp.



I wore the wrong shoes for this.



Home free. Eventually we cleared the mud pit, although the ground was still plenty soft. James expertly engineered a turn and we maneuvered onto solider ground. Every iteration went faster than the last. Finally we dared to make a break for it... and got back to the treehouse safely.



Here she is. Built of four telephone polls, lots of scrap lumber, random office furniture, and a stanky rotting mattress. Nasty, nasty, nasty. But it saved our ass- all the lumber we used was laying around it's base. It'd been sitting there for a few seasons. It was pretty gross.


It's hard to see, but this shows the total distance of our revolving road. From the mud pit on the right to the chuck of old farm machinery towards the left- where we turned- and then you can see our tracks from the risky drive along the "ridge".

At this point, we very nicely piled all the stanky lumber up in a pile by the treehouse, because we are kind and considerate like that.

Conclusion: uh, don't go driving on random grass roads to investigate strange structures because it'll probably just be a grody old treehouse.



Flickr set.