WannaskaWriter

      My son Martin works at a medical equipment design company in the Twin Cities and had access to its wood shipping crates, many of them custom built. He brought this little beauty up (note that I used the word 'little,' in its description) in the spring of 2021 for me to make it into an elevated box-blind for deer hunting on our farm in northwest Minnesota.      It was constructed of three quarter-inch plywood and two by fours, on all its six sides, and had several metal twist-lock closures to tightly secure the lid. We eliminated all but one of the closures, and made the lid into a door totally ignoring the obvious.     Martin and I used four steel blind-post brackets called 'risers,' to attach its heavy duty box to four 10-foot long, 4" by 4" green treated posts and eight 2"x4" x 12' cross-tie brackets, so the blind would stand ten-feet above the ground.      I even went as far as painting the whole thing, top ...

        I started remodeling "Craig's Stand" in September after discovering that a weasel had gotten itself temporarily trapped inside it. It had found a convenient entry through a warp in the exterior chipboard wall and found itself sandwiched in a batt of insulation behind the plastic sheeting.      I think the weasel went ballistic in an attempt to free itself and chewed, scratched, and ripped its way to freedom. Did I mention it shit everywhere it stopped trying to find the door? Yes, it did.     Considering the destruction -- and defecation inside, I got to work cleaning its debris away, even going as far as wearing a Covid mask against the purported dangers dealing with feces.When my vision cleared I could see my efforts were in vain, the deer stand was virtually useless because of how all the trees had grown up around it since the horrendous spring rains we had. Although picturesque in its cozy forest setti...