Thursday, August 5, 2010

Little boats

Yesterday while at the farm, we all decided to gather some sticks and make little boats to float in the pond. This pond was in spring time a favorite swimming hole and frog watching spot, however now that full summer is upon us, all around it is overgrown and in it full of algae and not at all inviting to swim in. As it turned out, it was even to algae filled to float the boats, but we didn't realize this when we started:)
we started with the sticks we had gathered, broke them off in to somewhat even straight pieces, and gave one side a few spots of hot glue to keep them together while we weaved the ends.
We tied a piece of hemp string to one end a weaved over/under three four times back and forth from side to side

as you can see it was a casual weaving, it did however do the job, and worked wonderfully

We added a mast right in the middle, Kaleena said she had made boats before where the mast was placed to the side, and this had made the boat tip over, so they went in the middle. It was also Kaleena's idea to add the little support beams on the side, she thought it would hold better and also look pretty. I do believe she was right! We attached these pieces with the hot glue. She picked a few flowers for the maiden voyage, 
and we used a sunflower leaf as a sail.
 Ohh yes, and we added a long string for the children to hold the boats by.
Aren't they gorgeous..so simple and primitive, yet so functional
(well except for the leaf, which withered quickly)  
while we were getting ready to set sail, our friends told us that a mama bear with her two cubs were spotted on the ridge above us, so of course the sailing was delayed as we all ran to the top to see if we could see them, our friends got a nice shot of one of the cubs, but by the time we got up there, our doggie had scared them into the woods, ohh well.... Happy to know that they are around though.
So back to sailing, where as I mentioned the pond turned out to be to gunky. 
Back at my sisters, we set sail in the creek and this turned out to be the perfect spot.
The boats sailed beautifully, and the children really enjoyed them. At first they(the children:)) stayed at the edge, but being my children they were obviously soon in the creek with their boats, they build dams and splashed with them the rest of the afternoon.






such a lovely simple project..
~thanks for stopping over and happy sailing~

7 comments:

  1. I used to love floating boats as a kid. I so have to make some with my little ones. Thanks for bringing back that memory :o)

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  2. Just beautiful. My daughter is still talking about bark boats--though the one we floated was not successful. There is something about putting a boat in water that is powerful.

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  3. We also made some sailboats recently. But ours were dry-land boats. Which seem happy enough sliding along the imaginary floor-sea, but really, a boat should float!

    Yours are beautiful. I love the flowery touch!

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  4. Beautiful..I am trying to build up my blog..How do you do to put pictures of your last post in your sidebar? Looks very cool! Can you please share with me? thank you.

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  5. Anonymous,
    To add a picture on the side bar go to add a gadget, choose add a photo, select a photo from previous post, copy the link, and add when prompted.
    Hope this helps..

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  6. oh it's so pretty!! I'll try! we'll see if they float! ;)
    Merci!

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