•September 30, 2015•

By Mike Brothers
NP Managing Editor

This column is rooted on the number of stupid human tricks I have done. The beauty is I never lack for suitable, or maybe unsuitable, stuff to write about.

Seemingly, an innocent request from daughter-in-law Crystal prompted another incident.

A few weeks ago Crystal sends me a photograph of this cute little zoo for stuffed animals with the question: “could you build this?”

Here we can begin to see why the fundamental reason many of my stupid human tricks end with me striking myself in the forehead with an open palm declaring: “Oh Brother!” along with a few expletives.

I don’t know if it’s hereditary or just plain stubbornness, but I have always been convinced that I can build just about anything. And most of the time I will get the project finished; it just may stray from its original design.

Armed with nothing but determination and a photograph on my phone about the size of a postage stamp I was ready. I gladly took on the task of building a zoo to contain twins Lyla and Landon’s jungle of stuffed animals.

I have seen these kids’ toy room; you can’t miss it when you walk into the door at son Trevor’s house - the room to the right is covered with toys, stuffed animals and books.

Many of them have places they belong, but with a couple of two-year olds the most likely place for any toy is on the floor. So the idea of a zoo for the stuffed animals became a special challenge-it had to be kid friendly and fun.

Friendly and fun was the goal now to start the project. I had some balusters left from an earlier porch rebuild, which I thought would make perfect bars for the zoo.     Login or Subscribe to read the rest of this story.