Backyard Boats

This was a fun project to do with my kids. Ultimately I did want to feature the a product that I can make for sale, but really this was a trip down memory lane and forcing my kids to be a part of it, but I came away from the project with new ideas too.

I grew up on what had been part of a fruit orchard. Because the lot we lived on was large (compared to modern house building practices) we had irrigation rights. This meant that during the summers we received water diverted directly from water collections like reservoirs to help water the land. When the irrigation water was used, we had a diversion route to go into our garden, around the garden to other parts of the yard, or to our rock ditch. When my mom felt like the garden didn’t need any extra water, the other ditches filled with water streams. My brothers and I would build hasty rafts out of the wood scrap pile and play in the water for hours.

When I was thinking of things that I could make for other kids to enjoy, I couldn’t help getting carried away with nostalgia. I helped my son and daughter make some quick rafts–but they also wanted to paint them. Bruce made the one that kind of looks like the wright brothers’ airplane–he calls it “The Dragon;” I helped Katelyn make the sail boat raft, but she was the one to make sure that she painted hers. I also made a scrap raft that I called “Purple Thunder.”

I had some left over vapor barrier from another project that I used to drape over some play slides that we have, then created some other barriers using chairs and rocks to shore up a kid pool. With the slides and the pool we had a pretty fun waterfall and pool that was a great time to play in.

Of course, I did make a more substantial toy boat that is featured above. I spent a little more time making sure that it looked a little more like a boat, had some bright coloring, and then sealed the paint and the wood so that it would be more durable in water. Sure enough, the boat was perfectly sealed and the water didn’t soak through to the wood.