On one hand, visiting my parents’ lakefront home is a very peaceful experience. A quiet dock hugging a modest view of one end of Singletary Lake is a balm for any ailment. Even more soothing is watching my children blow bubbles, their little rainbow-mirrored perfect spheres floating off and away like so many worries.
Add in these two guys with their power tools, two-by-fours, concrete-poured footings, and large slabs of plywood, just up the steep slope from the dock, and it’s not quite so peaceful anymore. It’s more of a testosterone-driven fantasyland aimed at creating the most amazing plywood-constructed castle this side of the Taconic.
The idea for this castle started about a year and a half ago, on cold, dark autumn night when we’d enjoyed a family dinner together with my mom and stepdad. They had noticed how medieval my kids were—in certain ways; for instance their love of dragons, wizards, damsels in distress, and weaponry, and not so much in their hygiene or lifestyle, thank goodness—and were, shall we say, inspired. Loving to build things, and take on insane creative projects, they proposed building a castle. The kids immediately took up the task of crayon scrawlings of design plans. We basically developed these plans over the last year and here we are.
The thing will be maybe three or four stories high, with a castle tower, dungeon, armory, trap door… perhaps storage for fabrics like flags and banners and dress-up clothes… and who knows what else, perhaps a root cellar for those embattled times when the city walls shut down.
Rather than build, I spent the day hacking at overgrown foliage to try to increase the view of the placid lake. I figure with all the activity at the castle, I’ll need the increased peaceful experience more than ever.