Blowing down the houses of pigs I understand: How better to get at the chewy, bacony goodness inside? But taking it out on innocent children’s swingsets? That’s just mean.
However, in point of fact, it was not the big bad wolf who did this dastardly deed, but the big bad windstorm, the very same one which several hours later would cancel my flight out of NYC. This one barreled through Ohio and not only knocked down the swingset but also did enough damage to the roof that we’ve filed an insurance claim. T’was a nasty windstorm, it was.
As regards the swingset itself, it’s not as horrible as it could be, since we were planning to take it down this spring in any event. Athena’s gotten to an age where she’s not using it much, and time has taken its toll on its inherent structural stability anyway — which of course helps to explain its current condition. But it’s still sad. It’s not the way one wishes to see a beloved symbol of childhood go out. Athena’s been consoling herself with Wii, however. I think she’ll make it past this tragedy just fine.
Ah yes, but will you?
Well, I am of course entirely broken inside. But I will never speak of it.
As always, I hate to pick nits, but I’m fairly certain that “tagedy” is when you get nailed with a meme you’d rather not deal with.
I hope she’ll get over that too.
Oops! #3 was me.
Damn blogs saving cutesy fake names with broken links!
And making me lay claim to stuff that was probably lame as all git out to begin with.
Too bad it was slated for demo. You could’ve rebuilt it with bricks. Wolves hate that.
It’s fixed in any event.
To make a swing set really safe, it’s probably best to set the posts in a little concrete. Less risk of falling (or blowing) over.
We had the same thing happen to our swingset in the last big windstorm. The sad thing was, we just set it up last summer. Now we need to figure out how to get it back up and much more securely set in the ground! Fun summer activities, don’t you know.
Looks like you’ve got the makings of a find little trebuchet there.
You really should save it for Athena’s eventual little brother Apollo.
The windstorm took out our neighbor’s swingset, too, as well as part of their fence from falling debris, and chunks of siding from about half a dozen houses in the neighborhood. I think we emerged unscathed, fortunately. ‘Twas a most blustery day.
When I was younger I had a swingset that looked almost exactly like that one.
It stayed in the backyard for several years after I had stopped using it.
Then one day out of nowhere one of the trees in our yard (quite a tall one, in fact) fell down and took out the swingset in the process. The tree came within a foot of landing on our house, so I think the swings were a small price to pay.
But more important, how’s the roof? You know if it weren’t that damn cold in Ohio, I’d fly there to repair it for you ;-P.
The roof needs fixin’ but is still keeping out water, we think. We had the roofers out for an estimate yesterday.
Burn the witch!
Er, the dead swing set I mean. After removing any PVC based stuff from it for safety.
Burn the dead, absent PVC stuff, swing set!