As a kid...
When I was a kid, and living in Alabama, I used to go into the 2-acres of wooded land located behind my Great Grandfather's church and build forts. I have always had this love for building forts most likely ever since I saw the movie Swiss Family Robinson, visiting that attraction, as well as the tunnels in Frontier Land. Anyway, somehow, I managed to save up $500 and it was put into a savings account. When I needed material for the fort, such as aluminum siding, I withdrew $350 and paid for it. I'm glad my grandmother didn't not let me do it because it was a great experience and it kept me busy--along with being a project that I could start and finish on my own. For the lumber to hold up the aluminum, I cut down a couple of trees, stripped them, dug the holes, and tied them together with rope. I then nailed the aluminum up to these new posts.
Because I have a great imagination, and because my imagination was even more powerful when I was a kid, I once thought that I could live in this fort and forge off the food that I would either catch from the nearby pond, or shoot with my BB gun. I had it all planned out. How do I go to the bathroom? I built a latrine. How do I stay warm? I build a fireplace. How do I keep snakes out? I brought my dog. How do I generate electricity? I built a damn and used an old bicycle light generator. How do I get water? I could use a pump to pump water up to my fort, but I never figured this out.
Because I figured that I might catch more fish than I could eat in a sitting, and because my way of generating electricity would not sustain a refrigerator, I damned up a small stream located close to the fort using similar techniques that I had seen from the beaver damn located at the big pond nearby. I also dug out a little pond which was about 24-inches deep by 5-feet long by 3-feet wide. It was COOL!
When it was all said and done, I asked my grandmother to come down and look at it--she was my biggest fan at the time. She brought the video camera and I took her on the grand tour. I wonder if she still has that video. lol I was so ambitious.
Anyway, over the next few weekends I would go to the big pond and catch fish. I would put the fish into my little pond, which was neat. I wondered if they would stay alive in that pond, or even if the pond would stay together. I grew older and my interests switched from being back in the woods to working on electronic things, such as CB radios, car audio amplifiers, VCRs and T.V.s.
I guess it was about a year or so later I went back to the fort--which I never stayed the summer in, by-the-way--to find that the aluminum had fallen down because the posts rotted, the generator was rusted, the latrine fell apart, but the pond was still in tact. Seriously. It was so much in tact that I went down there and was still able to walk across the damn I built. After trying so hard to see if the fish were still in the pond, and making the assumption that a raccoon had come by for a snack, I began draining the water out of the pond. When the water got to about a foot high I was taken aback by what I saw. Not only had the fish survived, but they were HUGE! One fish that I caught was originally about 4-inches long was now about 10-inches long. It was AMAZING! How did they survive? It was muddy water. I didn't feed them. Yet, not only did they survive, but they grew. I now figure that they possibly ate worms that flowed into the pond from the stream that fed it. I was so excited! Even with the failure of the fort as a project, the theory of storing food alive in a pond nearby WORKED!
Good times
Because I have a great imagination, and because my imagination was even more powerful when I was a kid, I once thought that I could live in this fort and forge off the food that I would either catch from the nearby pond, or shoot with my BB gun. I had it all planned out. How do I go to the bathroom? I built a latrine. How do I stay warm? I build a fireplace. How do I keep snakes out? I brought my dog. How do I generate electricity? I built a damn and used an old bicycle light generator. How do I get water? I could use a pump to pump water up to my fort, but I never figured this out.
Because I figured that I might catch more fish than I could eat in a sitting, and because my way of generating electricity would not sustain a refrigerator, I damned up a small stream located close to the fort using similar techniques that I had seen from the beaver damn located at the big pond nearby. I also dug out a little pond which was about 24-inches deep by 5-feet long by 3-feet wide. It was COOL!
When it was all said and done, I asked my grandmother to come down and look at it--she was my biggest fan at the time. She brought the video camera and I took her on the grand tour. I wonder if she still has that video. lol I was so ambitious.
Anyway, over the next few weekends I would go to the big pond and catch fish. I would put the fish into my little pond, which was neat. I wondered if they would stay alive in that pond, or even if the pond would stay together. I grew older and my interests switched from being back in the woods to working on electronic things, such as CB radios, car audio amplifiers, VCRs and T.V.s.
I guess it was about a year or so later I went back to the fort--which I never stayed the summer in, by-the-way--to find that the aluminum had fallen down because the posts rotted, the generator was rusted, the latrine fell apart, but the pond was still in tact. Seriously. It was so much in tact that I went down there and was still able to walk across the damn I built. After trying so hard to see if the fish were still in the pond, and making the assumption that a raccoon had come by for a snack, I began draining the water out of the pond. When the water got to about a foot high I was taken aback by what I saw. Not only had the fish survived, but they were HUGE! One fish that I caught was originally about 4-inches long was now about 10-inches long. It was AMAZING! How did they survive? It was muddy water. I didn't feed them. Yet, not only did they survive, but they grew. I now figure that they possibly ate worms that flowed into the pond from the stream that fed it. I was so excited! Even with the failure of the fort as a project, the theory of storing food alive in a pond nearby WORKED!
Good times