By Olivia Martin | Social Media Editor
For many, quarantine was a time of endless lounging and screens, filled with Netflix, TikTok and Zoom. For others, it was a time of productivity filled with new skills, hobbies and interests.
For Basalt, Colo. junior Morgan Ash, it was a time of creating and building. Her proudest creation was an outdoor handmade pallet swing she made with the help of her father’s instruction.
Ash began doing homemade projects during the earlier parts of quarantine at her home in Colorado. She started with various such as building a chicken coop, hand-sewing a dress, and installing new flooring into her home. She then worked her way up to building the beautiful deck swing that hangs out from her porch and is a perfect spot to view the Colorado stars at night.
Ever since her father’s knee surgery took place a few weeks ago, Ash noticed that he was not able to build or fix anything around their house, which is a regular hobby for him.
“I thought: I’m here for this amount of time, my mom is working, my dad can’t do this on his own, so I’ll do all the labor for my dad and he can just instruct me on what to do” Ash said.
After getting some inspiration from her mother, Ash decided to take things into her own hands and use this time to have her dad teach her how to build a swing.
“The process wasn’t easy,” Ash said, “and took a lot more planning rather than actual building.”
According to Ash, the hardest part was figuring out how long to make the ropes in order for the palette to hang evenly on all four corners.
“The Hardest part was trying to figure out how long to make the strings in order for them to be able to swing, because there was a lot of math that went into it. I actually used a lot of my math skills,” Ash said.
After researching, planning and eventually building, Ash and her dad completed the swing and are very proud of the results. She is currently in the process of finding the right materials to make a cushion for it, and her dad is looking forward to when Ash returns home from school so that they can touch it up even more.
Ash reflected on how much she learned through the creation of this swing, and the bonding between her and her dad that resulted from the building process.
“Aside from learning how to build a swing, which is pretty cool, being able to hang out with my dad and learn from him was honestly my favorite part,” Ash said.
Her dad also reminisced on the fun father-daughter bonding experience that occurred because of COVID-19.
“All in all it was a super process for us to bond together over,” P.D. Ash, Ash’s dad, said. “We consider it a corona activity because there really were not a lot of things people were doing in public, so we just decided to do something together at home.”
After being in quarantine with her family for an unexpectedly extended amount of time, Ash encouraged others to take advantage of extra time with family or loved ones.
“Instead of sitting inside your house,” Ash said, “you should take the people that you enjoy doing things with, like your family, and go out and create something that could be fun for you guys to do together and enjoy having around the house—like a swing.”
