Shift Your Back Yard to the Play Ground

If you are inviting boisterous and active youngsters for a party, then more preparation will be needed. Take a tip from the following articles on how to prepare yourself and your backyard for boys fun ground.

In the far corner of the yard we have built a brick fireplace. This fireplace can be as simple or as elaborate as one wish. Ours is a small one, sturdily built, using only three dozen bricks, but it draws well. It never loses interest for the youngsters, to say nothing of the oldsters. The boys love to do outdoor cooking. Wieners and buns, potatoes and husk-wrapped ears of sweet corn baked in hot coals, and dessert of toasted marshmallows is a favorite. The boys are very proud when their parents are guests at such a meal.

Perhaps you are thinking that the mosquitoes are also guests at such a meal. That problem was solved for us by building a screen house, also a family project. We had no blueprints. Its size was regulated to our needs. It was high enough to admit without stooping our six-foot Daddy. We covered the frame, which was made of crating lumber, with fine wire screen and purchased a ready-made screen door. The roof is of heavy, water-proof awning cloth. A picnic table and benches for five people makes for comfort, not only for eating but for handwork and games.

During the winter months we slide the screen house into the unused side of our garage. If the sides of the screen-house are made of screen windows hinged together, it can be folded during the winter months. The side of the yard reserved for such games as croquet, juvenile badminton, and quoits, is bordered on the west by the garage. So that these games might be played after dark as well as in the daytime we hired an electrician to install an outdoor floodlight. Such lighting is not expensive and permits enjoyment of games during the evening. It also means no game must be left unfinished because of darkness.

Hitting the bull's-eye in a game of archery is much more intriguing and safer than shooting arrows wildly about in closely populated neighborhoods. So we set up an archery target using the garage for a backboard. The target is painted on wallboard which is backed by a thick layer of straw.

A basketball basket is also fastened to the garage wall. Youngsters love to shoot baskets and have devised various competitive basketball games. For everyone's convenience we have one hard and fast rule. All game equipment must be put into a place provided for it when the game is finished. Shelves that provide such a place were put in by the boys and their Dad inside the garage along the far end just high enough to miss the nose of the car when it is parked in the garage.

Many youngsters boys are in awe of some rough and tough games. Before the party boys arrived, better get ready yourself with all the equipments needed for the games.