Peculiar Children Annex - Camper Remodel

Back in the 60's my in-laws, Jack and Jean Jones, were living in El Paso with their three small children. They bought a beautiful spot of property in the mountains of southern New Mexico, and whenever they had a minute - weekends, vacation time, etc. - they traveled up to the mountains to build their new home there. Pretty amazing, when many adults these days can't build a simple shelf! While they worked on the house, they lived in this little camper.

All of them. Two adults, three children. I still can not wrap my mind around that.

In the years since then, the camper has been used for various storage purposes, and the trees that were tiny saplings 50+ years ago are now tall and solid...and have cut off any chance of removing it easily. 

It sits maybe 30 feet off our back door. I stuck my head in once shortly after we moved in, and decided to pretend it just didn't exist until we could get rid of it.

Then, while we were taking a walk one night and I looked up at it from the road, the thought popped into my mind that it might actually make a cute play house. I made the mistake of thinking out loud, and the kids pounced. PLEASE, Mom??? I needed another project, right?

First to take stock of the situation.

Hmm.

Erm.

Is that a saddle?

Okay, obviously the first thing to do is empty it out. Considering all the other creatures that have obviously called it home, I didn't let the kids help, but they were fascinated. I had to draw an imaginary perimeter for them to stay outside of, but they stood with toes at the edge, watching and commenting. 

My first thought was to tear out the old appliances, but then I thought what's a play house without a play kitchen? And the old fridge is just so cute!

Well, it could be...with some scrubbing...and fresh paint...and if I can fix that bottom part...

Yes, I wore PPE!

Yes, that is somebody's old nest, with inches-thick layers of poop and pee underneath. Every enclosed area (and several not enclosed) were like that. LOTS of scrubbing to do. 

And I see those pink leggings, young lady - bringing my camera to me does not give you permission to stay inside the imaginary perimeter. Scoot.

Oh hey, look, masks!

HOW are those still white? I'll just use my own, thanks.

Now this box is worth sorting through:

Some useful treasures gleaned from the piles:

And at the end of stage one we have:

Needs a new floor, and I think I will add shelves. May as well cut the pipe out and seal it, we won't be running anything through it.

Drawers all removed for scrubbing/bleaching. Seat cushions tossed, springs and all. Table seems usable but needs new hinges. Lots of windows!

The bathroom...is another story. Here I unearthed the only actual mouse. She was displeased. Lots of floor damage. If all else fails I may just seal the whole thing off. But...it would make a cozy reading nook...

Next up...dump run!

Several dump runs, actually (thanks Daddy!) Christopher was a huge help moving trash to the driveway, en route to the dump, but I still wasn't ready to let the kids do more than peek inside. It would be a bit ironic to miss coronavirus only to come down with hantavirus! 

I filled the shop vac twice with mouse turds and acorns, which was just a start. All of the drawers were scrubbed, soaked in bleach water, and then painted. 

Blue? Why not. I happened to have a can of blue spray paint, and the kids are already planning a tie-dye color scheme!

I didn't get a 'before' of this cute stool, but it was already a faded yellow, so I just brightened it up.

Note supervisory chickens.

It immediately became The Favorite Chair. As in, the one everyone keeps fighting over...

Next up inside was tearing out the old flooring. I think it used to be some type of linoleum...

Sigh of relief that the floor underneath was in pretty good shape! Some of the lino came up in good-sized chunks. Other parts came up in teeny. tiny. chips.

I decided to remove as many pipes and wires as I could to make cleaning and remodeling easier - we won't have water or gas run to it, and any electricity will be battery powered or via extension cord. Of course, everything was on there TIGHT! After struggling with the line to the stove, we decided to just go ahead and cut through it all. By "we" I mean I decided, and Mike got to cut.

There was an earlier water leak over the stove that damaged ceiling and wall. Since the cabinet there was out of kids' reach anyway, I decided to take it out. I forgot to get a 'before' picture, but despite it being crumbly it took a bit of work to remove. I started out with a flat bar, but the wall was too spongy to get any purchase. I ended up using a combination of screwdriver and good old hit-it-with-a-hammer. The screws were all, of course flat heads.

I hate flat head screws. With a passion. And, of course, it was open to the cabinets on the other side, so I will need to seal that up, but it's not as bad as...

Yeesh. Looks awful, but a pretty easy fix. I ripped out the worst parts (guess I shouldn't have bothered washing my hair this morning), and later we will put new wood over the old.

Another issue area is the far end of the camper. Slight water damage, but mostly the gap open to the outside is the problem! The curve of the wall made simply filling it in a bit tricky, so I decided to put in a low bench and just cover/seal it all that way. That also takes care of the hole in the side of the cabinet where the piped ran through.

Like my flyaway hair in the corner? And the egg sacs on the wall. I did relocate one black widow who was living in the kitchen area, but we don't mind other buggies.

Much better!

And then there was this thing, just begging to smack someone's shins.

Why????

I cut that off and then sealed the insides of the cabinets and the floor with a coat of elastomeric.

I can tell you one thing, it sure smelled a lot better in there at this point!

At this point (I had also been scrubbing with disinfectant over and over), I decided it was safe enough for kids to come in. They were SO excited!

And immediately left their stuff all over.

Now that they can come in, I can put them to work.

I scrounged the 2x8s at the local Restore. Not pretty, but sturdy enough for my purposes.

The counter top had seen better days. 

I may go through and put linoleum over it later, but for now another good scrubbing and contact paper will do.

Don't you love how much face cuts bleed?

Don't ask.

Now for a little wood...

A little primer...

Some finishing touches...

All items found while we were emptying the camper out.

And...(drumroll please)...

Before again:



And after:

Before:



After:

Needs curtains (ordered on Amazon). Isn't the phone awesome? Yard sale find!

Grace's artwork: sky, sun, flowers, grass. And the brown is...because it's raining poop.

I need to remove the white paint on the cabinet, and curtains are coming for this window too. The kids are having a BLAST pretending to cook things!

Before:



After:

Christopher's artwork. Chickie nuggies!.

Sheridan's artwork (latest obsession).

Before: 

After:

That's the drive-up window for the taco truck/cafe/whatever it is this week.

Logan's art, and the phone number for the kids' taco shop!

And finally, the bathroom, which I came close to sealing off and ignoring:

Before:



And after:

My plan is to decoupage the walls with pages from discarded books, but it is already quite easily the favorite spot - and pretty comfy (of course I had to try it out first!)

So, it's pretty much done except for some finishing touches! What ever will I do with all my time now?

Cue child yelling from the back porch...

Sigh.

Treasure Hunt

We had been tossing around the idea of some sort of hike or picnic today, then last night out of the blue our friend Mr. F. messaged that he had set up a scavenger hunt for the kids on a local trail! What a fabulous thing to do, and such perfect timing!

We didn't tell the kids anything about the hunt, just the hike. We packed our backpacks and set off, warning them to watch for rattle snakes. 

These holes were a bit too tiny for snakes, so we're going to say ants. 

A heart!

When we got to the spot where Mr. F. had told us to start. I told the kids I thought I saw something go under the flat rock. Remembering the snake warnings, they all backed away! Logan got brave, though, and lifted the rock to find...

A clue! The hunt was on, and the kids immediately spotted the dead tree in the distance.

Sheridan's turn to retrieve this one.

Ooh, we had to count steps! She was very excited, as she was wearing the (fake) Fitbit she got for her birthday.

Some cool plants along the way...

Christopher's turn...big yucca above the old board!

But there were TWO piles of three rocks. What happened if he chose the wrong one? Was there a trap??? His siblings, of course, came up with all sorts of dire predictions...

...so he leaned in close and spotted the paper sticking out of the first one. Then, of course, he lifted the other anyway. No booby traps - much disappointment.

The next clue said to look for the alligator head.

Do you see it? He's kind of smiling, so we deemed it safe to approach.

For the next clue we had to walk until two telephone poles became one.

Can you see the second behind this one? No? Must be the right spot!

Next clue: Turn around and follow the trail of seashells (now how did THOSE get there?)

Treasure!!

Very much so!

Fossils, pyrite, serpentine, petrified wood...SO COOL!!!

We explored them for a few minutes, then put them in Mom's backpack for safe keeping, and finished the rest of the trail.

Shane spotted these cactus plants clinging to the edge.

Do you see the turtle?

Spidey hidey hole

Hmm...Mr. F.? Were you here too? We left it for others to find!

The lighting doesn't do it justice - pretty rich red striped rock!

 Snack break! (And time to look at the rocks some more)

The yucca flowers have died off, but the seed pods are starting to look like pickles!

We started seeing signs Mr. F. had been busier than we thought.

We had our treasure, so we left these for others to find!

I don't think he put any up there, Sheridan.

Another not-a-good-picture, but those three rocks were a bit shinier than the others in the area!

Who might be living in there?

Hmm...

 Now this one we think arrived here naturally, but the shape was cool!

As was the shape of these little wispy plants.

Cool rock AND pottery!

 Almost missed these!

Spot for Brer Rabbit to hide:

Water break! And perhaps a little more sunscreen for Grace.

Scared up a lizard or two

Then back to the car just as it started getting really hot! Thank you SO MUCH Mr. F. for a fabulous start to the day! If anyone needs us, we will be poring over some rock books...

Adventures of Mo and Jo and Other Short Stories by Sheridan Jones

One day Mo and Jo were up in the attic right after their mother told them not to go up there. They found their mother's old dress-ups. They put them on and went outside. They knew their mother would kill them, especially because it was muddy and snowy.

After a while of playing they saw their mother with a knife. She chased after them and caught them because they were slow and she slit their throats and ate them for supper and lunch.

The end.

One day as a lady was walking past a jelly bean shop she went into labor and gave birth to a baby. It was snowing outside so to keep the baby warm she stuffed the baby in her jacket and walked home just like that.

One day a little boy and his grandpa went camping. That night when the grandpa was asleep the little boy took the grandpa's tobacco! He had so much of it that he got very very sick and passed on.

Story Writing: Christopher

After the first attempt, I told Christopher his story needed to be a liitttttle longer than a paragraph! He chose one of my favorite pictures from the file, and must have been thinking about it all day, because he finally sat down at the last minute and wrote this:

Once upon a time, there was a man who loved to paint. Every day he painted and painted. Everyone loved his work.

One day he met a woman. He paused for a second. His heart was pounding hard. He said, "Do you want to get dinner some time?" She said yes. They went out lots of times, then got married.

60 years later his wife got sick. He tried to make her better. One day she gave him a necklace then she died. He was very sad. For months he didn't paint. Nothing made him happy.

One day, a man came to his house. He knocked on the door. He answered it. The man gave him a cat - a pretty cat. He thanked the man, took the cat in, set it down and looked at it and said "Why would he give me a cat?"

The cat looked up at him. The eyes of it made him see her in it. He could see his wife in the cat.

That made him happier than ever. Then a few days later he started to paint again. More pictures than ever.

Then he got old. In time, some of his family had to take cared of him. Then he was dying, but he was happy. He was going. Then it happened: it was dark for a minute, then light started to appear. Then he saw his wife, and they lived happily ever after.

The end.

A Boy, a Frog and...an Alligator?

Mercer Mayer they ain't.

One of our school-at-home activities involves me picking two pictures from my picture file at random, and the kids have all day to choose one picture and write a story to go with it. (Yes, fellow Mt. Vernon Education students: I still have the picture file we were assigned to create our sophomore year!)

Today Sheridan and Christopher both chose this picture:

Christopher's story:

There was a boy called Mo. 

He always said Mo.

One day he was walking down a road then he heard a croak and another and another.

He looked around and found a frog and looked at it.

The frog ate him.

The end.

Points for brevity?? We'll work on fleshing his stories out a bit...

Sheridan's version:

One day, a little boy went to a swamp for a camping trip. There at the swamp the boy ran over to look for frogs so they could have frog legs for supper. After a while the boy caught a frog.

The frog was a magic frog and the frog knew what the boy wanted to do with him. The boy went down the side of the swamp to the deeper end to catch more frogs. 

Then the magic frog got an idea. He turned himself into a giant alligator and ate the boy in two giant bites.

***

I'm sensing a theme, are you?