Our Fairy House Part Two

Today was construction day!  We gathered our supplies.  These were the basics.  Throughout the construction I was always sending Maddie to "get more sticks!"

A nice pile of supplies

The first part was the wall.  I wanted to do three walls like a little lean-to, but we have heavy clay soil, and it was difficult to push the sticks into the ground.  I decided on only one upright stick wall. I'll get to the other walls in a minute.  The sticks were wobbly when I did get them into the ground, so I had to improvise and use some fresher dead vines (not cut by me...) and try and braid it into a rope to tie them together.  Thank you Dave Canterbury and Cody Lundin of Dual Survival!  (Discovery Channel show that aside from a few bleeps, is awesome for kids).  That show taught us how to make rope from vines.

The start of a wall

Maddie came up with the idea for the roof.  We had the house set under a large branch, so Maddie just decided to pile sticks up across the expanse.

The beginning of the roof

We were very fortunate to have rude squirrels and a naughty skunk.  They dug up the ground and pulled up moss.  We were able to harvest the dead moss to cover the roof sticks.  Maddie was happy there was moss because it soaks in rain (again, thank you Dave and Cody!).

Covering the roof with moss.  Not complete yet.

Next Maddie worked on the inside. She found flat bark that she laid down as a little carpet.  Using the river stones we found she made a little bed.  She used a nice piece of moss for the mattress, a lovely oak leaf for a blanket and another chunk of moss for the pillow.

Our very naughty squirrels often chew branches for next bedding.  A lot of the time they drop them onto the ground.  I was able to use big branches of dried oak leaves for the back wall.  For the left wall we just piled up sticks and used a few fresh vines to weave them together lightly.  Inside to the left of the bed is a table and two chairs with an acorn meal ready to serve.  A few more river stones by the right wall for stability and we were done!

There's Maddie with her new fairy house!  We have a lot more room under that branch so I think a few additions might be in the future.

Take a look at Dual Survival.  It has some wonderful survival tips.  You never know when you might need them.  You can get full episodes on the website.

Discovery Dual Survivor