Bridge Accomplished

Yesterday, Cary and his brother Eric built a bridge over the stream that divides the property in two. It's not a big waterway, as you can see below, but the sides are muddy & indistinct enough that jumping over it usually meant getting your feet wet.
They used nearby logs for the undersupports, and reclaimed pallet wood (from the tile pallet that had been sitting in the yard for months) for the decking. The nails were from the tail ends of nail-gun ammo strips that we picked up and saved during the construction. A cool side effect of using scavenged/recycled materials is that it makes it feel more like building a childhood fort than a grown-up project.

Sprout models the finished bridge. No more wet & muddy feet! That's a cause a cat can really get behind, you know?

While Cary & Eric put the bridge together, Miriam and I (mostly Miriam) cleared the brush off a mossy ridge of stones which extends into the nearby swamp, creating an incredible little natural stone nook garden. It's very japanese looking, with a beautiful snag sticking up next to to big beautiful moss & fern covered boulders.

It's a really neat little space, we'll have to improve the path and trim a bit more brush around the edges and presto- instant rock garden! Someday the path will continue from bridge to the rock garden and then further into the swamp to the birdwatching tower and the zipline...