they did all labor, every man according to his strength

During our spring break at the end of March, we had a few good-weather days. During several of those days, we spent a lot of time working outside. Josh had the boys go to work with him one day and finish raking up branches from trees that he cut down this winter, and after they were finished, they hit golf balls on the driving range together. Josh de-thatched our lawn and grandma's lawn, and the boys help haul all the dead grass off to the pumpkin patch to roto-till into the dirt. One afternoon, Josh trimmed our apple trees with tree-trimmers and a chainsaw, and the boys carried all the cut branches to the burn pile. He's a brave man to climb up the tree and cut the limbs while stabilizing himself at the top of the tree.

 

The boys were good sports about doing all that work, but their favorite outdoor project they worked on during spring break was cleaning out the old root cellar that's adjacent to our driveway.

 

Whenever the weather was decent, and whenever they weren't doing anything else, they were found working inside the cellar:

This structure has been an on-and-off project for about 8 years. It's over 100 years old, and is falling apart now. It's purpose used to be to preserve and refrigerate food. Several years ago, I began the process of clearing out a corner of the cellar by throwing away all the glass bottles that had nastified food still in them, and throwing away all the glass shards I could find. It was quite a process, and I worked for a few weeks doing just that and quit because the task felt so overwhelming. One summer, I remember we worked in there clearing out all the trees and shrubs that had taken root inside of it. One year, we hauled out several of the old rotted boards that used to be shelves. We've always had the vision of the area being a fun little fort for the boys, but have never stuck with the process of cleaning it out long enough to make that vision become a reality. So now that the boys are bigger, they have caught onto the vision, and began working on it themselves.

The walls have crumbled on the north and south, but the west wall is still intact, and the east wall is mostly standing. The cellar no longer has a roof, but the support beam still ran across it from one standing wall to the other. The boys pulled down the old support beam while they worked, and it was so heavy, they couldn't haul it out of the cellar. So, Ammon worked for hours using an axe to chop it in half so that he was able to lift it out and onto the burn pile that's right outside of the cellar! That was a major feat for him, and we were impressed! He's hauling out a board here in this photo, but the beam that he cut through is visible to the top left of his hat:

Jonah worked as the go-to guy. Whenever Ammon needed supplies, he'd send Jonah back and forth to the house to fetch them. Jonah got him a hammer and some nails (among other things), to try and keep some of the old doors in tact. Jonah also worked with Micah to remove items out of the cellar, and either throw them in the garbage, or in the burn pile, or into a collection pile. Jonah and Micah also used tree trimmers to cut branches off all the new tree growths that were growing in the cellar.

After watching Ammon use an axe to cut through the beam, Kanyon thought he would try to do it, too. He worked at it for a long time, until I realized that we could use the other half of the beam as a new bridge to cross the ditch and into the cellar, and that halted his work. The old bridge was almost completely rotted out in the center, and was rickety when walked on, and this beam was the perfect solution for a replacement.

Josh helped the boys put an old door across the main doorway entrance from the bridge. The old door used to go to one of the cellar rooms and is pretty rotted, but it looks awesome to have an original item still standing in the cellar! This picture now shows that door in the front doorway, and the new bridge that used to be a roof beam:

The boys got a lot of work done in the cellar over spring break--they removed the roof beam, got rid of rotted wooden planks, threw away more glass bits, cut and trimmed and removed tree starts, raked up a section of the ground, and cleaned out a lot of garbage. It's the best it's looked since we moved here! There's still some work to be done before it can be considered a playhouse--it's still not completely safe inside of it--but I'm so proud of their dedication and hard work cleaning it out!