Arrrr, here be treasure: The value of knowing your property well

My son's fourth birthday is coming in just a few days. And, he's recently been all about prirates. So, we decided to do a little treasure hunt. Of course, I had a bit too much fun making the map. I also found that, since I've already made so many garden maps and stared at so many arial views of my property,  figuring out the distances for this map wasn't too hard.

Sorry about the low quality picture. I had to wait until eveyrone was asleep to take the picture, so the lighting is pretty bad. But, this was just too much fun to not share!

Here's the map--Beware of Cats! :D



I still have a little more work to do on it, such as marking where the treasure will be buried (can't have you guys going and digging up the treasure, now can I? :D), and I'm not very happy with the buildings, as I changed map style after I drew them. But, I don't really have time to start all over again...and my son won't care!

I'm wondering, though, should I write "Well" by the wellhouse, or something more creative instead, or draw a little image of splurting water, or just leave it as it is?

And, TREASURE, me mateys!





A lot of the things in here are actually stuff I already had around. Years ago, when I taught preschool, I bought the chest, coins, beads to make bracelets, and gemstones. We had the little flattened red "marbles" from stepping stones we made for Mother's Day. So, all I bought was the telescope, giant glass "ruby" and eye patch. It's been really fun asembling all the things to make an "authentic" treasure chest. Speaking of authentic pirate chests, did you know there's only one verified pirate treasure chest in the world? They didn't actually bury their treasure, nor keep fancy treasure treasure chests. I had no idea until I found out while researching pirates a few days ago!

My family has done this as well though it was not really Pirate Treasure as it was in finding Geostones in a far flung area of the property. Of course geostones are not conducive to this areas so my wife had bought the Geostones earlier, and then I had hiked to the area I thought the kids would have fun digging around in, and hid them all about... salting the mine so to speak. It was a lot of fun and the kids really liked it, never suspecting what we did. Even a few years later they talk about it.

It is always good to get the kids out and about the property and enjoy what they have. I always did as a kid.

and eye patch

 Many don't know this, but the patch over the eye of a pirate was not often because of a lost or damaged eye, but because if one covers an eye, it becomes used to the dark, and so when sneaking up on, and going down into the hull of a trading vessel or warship, the pirate would be at advantage, having removed the patch, and thus exposing the eye that is accustomed to the dark.

Yar, Har, and Swab the deck!

Anyway... as a leg amputee, I've played the pirate a few times.  

Awesome fun project, by the way.  

, should I write "Well" by the wellhouse, or something more creative instead, or draw a little image of splurting water, or just leave it as it is?

You could have your well be a magical wishing well.  The new Pirate's of the Caribbean fanciful  style seems to have mystical fantasy elements attached to it.   You could say that it has to be in a house so that it can't move around.  

Travis, that's awesome you guys went geocatching! It's something I'd like to do someday, probably when our little ones are older, and it seems like a great way to get to know your large property. Our property is only 5 acres, but there's still some spots with heavy, thorny underbrush, that we still haven't gone, but we are definitely outside everyday, and take lots of walks exploring it. My son even named our hill, "Sambang Hill," because when he was one year old he used to call salmonberries "sambangs." By the next spring, his enunciation had advanced that he called them salmonberries. When we the we told him about how he used to call them sambangs, he decided to name our hill that's full of salmonberries, Sambang Hill. He also named our blueberry patch "Blueberry Land." I love that he knows our property well enough to give it names, and that he knows where to go to get various fruits and veggies!

Roberto pokachinni wrote:Many don't know this, but the patch over the eye of a pirate was not often because of a lost or damaged eye, but because if one covers an eye, it becomes used to the dark, and so when sneaking up on, and going down into the hull of a trading vessel or warship, the pirate would be at advantage, having removed the patch, and thus exposing the eye that is accustomed to the dark.

I actually wondered if this was the case. I often close one eye at night when I go to the bathroom. I don't want wake my kids up by turning on the rest of the lights in the house to get to and from the bathroom, but I also don't want crash into a bunch of things walking around with my eyes adjusted to the bathroom light, so I keep one closed. I'd do the same thing when I had to rush outside to get a diaper off the line before nap. I wanted to be able to see in the dark of my son's night-light lit room, and not be blinded by the sunlight. Next time I do it, I'm totally going to feel like a pirate. Yar!

(And, I think you're totally amazing for being an amputee and a pirate. That's the kind of spirit I want to have about life.)

This gave me a treasure of a smile!

ARRRGGGG!

Aye, we have an accord. Great fun there be fer all manner of seadogs.

Love the map, but we be wondering may tee, where be the X that marks where the treasure be?

Great work and idea for a fun time!

Redhawk

I honestly still haven't decided where to put the X, and my son's birthday is Tuesday! Maybe you guys can help? I'm torn between putting it where we'll be digging my daughter's pear tree--the hole will do double duty that way! (that'd put it NE of the "Beware of Cats" building) Or, putting it somewhere else, perhaps by my son's Big Happy Rock. I can't tell which fits better with the back story, honestly.

Speaking of the back story, my son has been all about fairies this year, too. He loves to dig though the gravel in the road and find little quartz crystals and then put them on mushrooms "for the fairies to use as flashlights." So, we had the idea of getting him a little fairy for his birthday, as well as one for his sister. We bought them from here: https://www.etsy.com/shop/FifteenMagpieLane

This is his (I added little red and yellow wings and made him a red tunic, too, since my son's favorite color is red. But the camera is in my napping son's room, so I can't take a picture now! So, here's the image from the etsy store I bought it from):



And this is the one for his sister:



The idea is, on his birthday, he'll open up his present to find this map and a compass, as well as his little fairy holding a note. The note will say something like:

"Help! My little sister and I were taken by a pirate. He wanted to add us to his collection of treasures! I managed to escape, by my little sister is still trapped inside the chest! As I espcaped, I grabbed this map and compass, but I don't know how to use them. Could you please help me?"

So, really the question comes down to if you were a pirate hiding treasure on our property, where would you hide it?

I finally confiscated my camera again and got a picture of his fairy. Of course, the lighting stinks because it's the middle of the night and I have to be sneaky so as not to wake the littles.

I wrote out the note, too. The paper I'd written on it was a bit large, so I figured I'd write it and then crop off the extra on the right. I showed it to my husband and he said, "You could draw a sketch of the pirate there! Just, like, a three minute sketch. Don't take hours!"

Needless to say, I can't do three-minute sketches...

Love the idea of a double duty hole in the ground.

Pirates did bury treasure in what might seem like strange places, most likely these were isolated, with easy to see landmarks.
Black Beard for example liked to use captured cannon, he filled them with the booty then sealed them with cement and dumped them over the side in coves where his ship could go.
Several of these have been found and those found cannon were marked E. Teach.

I know this is going to be exciting for your son, it's such a wonderful idea.
If they are now liking fairies you can let them build fairy houses in the edge of the woods, that's where they like to live.

Redhawk

Today was the big day! We decided to bury the treasure by his Big Happy Rock, that way he could dig again and again to his heart's content. So, under the guise of "letting the ducks out," I went and buried the treasure, with a big X made out of rocks. Then he opened his present. We read the note (he asked if it was a pretend pirate, and we said yes with a big smile) and he located the X with a bit of help.



Then we were off, past the herb spiral



To the Big Happy Rock, where X marks the spot!



After removing the rocks, he started digging



Arrrg, here be some treasure!







The treasure was found, and the fairy was saved, all thanks to my little boy, who is now four years old!



(In case you were wondering, there's a note from the Little Sister Fairy, who says that she heard the pirate getting apprehended by police, so we need not fear any more shenanigans from the pirate every again. )

He then had fun burying and digging up the treasure over and over again, and having us all pretend to be pirate and police officers and cabin boys. He then got his bubbles and started blowing them at us, so we named him Captain Bubblebeard the Merciful.

Good times and wonderful memories were had by all!

Thank you all for joining in our little adventure! :D

I regularly find treasure at work. I've always dreamt of finding a container full of money. Today, it finally happened. Unfortunately, it was all pennies. The Canadian penny has been discontinued, due to its low value.

Dale if those pennies are solid copper instead of clad like our newer than 1983 pennies are, then they are worth their weight in copper as scrap.

I keep all my pre-1984 pennies, one never knows when the metal value will go higher. Our older nickels are mostly nickle too, meaning the metal value is more than the monetary value.

Happy birthday! I thought this story was a treasure. Thanks for letting us in on the surprise.

Years ago, when the nieces and nephews were little, I used to draw pictures on rocks and leave them along the creek where we camped. The kids had fun discovering and collecting them and I told them that the woodland fairies had left them there.

Roberto pokachinni wrote:

and eye patch

 Many don't know this, but the patch over the eye of a pirate was not often because of a lost or damaged eye, but because if one covers an eye, it becomes used to the dark, and so when sneaking up on, and going down into the hull of a trading vessel or warship, the pirate would be at advantage, having removed the patch, and thus exposing the eye that is accustomed to the dark.

I thought the purpose of the eye patch was to eliminate the double vision issue after having too much rum. ☠

Nicole, Thank you for sharing your son's birthday adventure with us.

I thought of this Topic when I watched a movie on TCM.  In 1965, Troy Donahue was cast opposite Joey Heatherton in My Blood Runs Cold.  Its not a movie for the kids but it had a treasure box much like yours and a story based about a locket found in the box, you might enjoy it, too.

"The young man believes he and the young woman are the reincarnations of lovers from an earlier time.  (Their great grandparents.) He convinces her of his beliefs and encourages her to run off with him."

Two years later, and my daughter is now turning three! And, she was getting interested in gemstones, rings, dice, and my son was loving burying his chest for her to find, so, it was time for her to get her own treasure chest!

We got her a bunch of multi-sided dice (she calls mine "jewels") and moodrings, some pink and purple rocks form the rock bins (yes, many are died. Those are the ones she likes right now...so I gave her the one's I gotten when I was little and didn't know better!). I knit and felted her a pouch for her treasures...and made new fairies! It's fun looking back at this thread, as this is where my fairy making started! (As I don't really have time away from my kids, she watched me make them and gave input for how they should look and didn't want them to have wings. So no wings!)

Here's "Mama" and "Dada" fairies, and they've lost their children! The kids have gone off in search of treasure!


Thankfully, the parental faries had heard their kids talking about a Tree Fort House, and we knew just where that is!



We found them stuck in the tree, but before getting stuck, they found the map!



The map has a big red X by "Chicken Shire", so we're off!



My daughter was too cold to dig, but her brother was happy to help! (And the chickens were happy to cluck away in the peace of their little Chicken Shire and let the humans do the silly digging that has nothing to do with finding bugs). And, yes, I DID make her a new map! I had a lot of fun making it and adding the newer developments to our property. I told my son his was an historical map, and he's quite content to keep it just the way it is



The loot! (And a fun scarf sent by Pearl, which just so happened to arrive on the same day, and now lives in my daughter's treasure chest. Thank you, Pearl!)



My son still uses and loves his treasure chest. It largely houses his hematite collection, but he found room for his new loot, too!

I'm honored my scarves are part of the treasure! :D That's fun! I had forgotten this thread, we did a lot of treasure hunts as kids, and I, like Dale, still dream of finding treasures in the trash I'm looking in. I have found some, a real silver ring, lots of broken jewelry, pretty rocks (including a chunk of azurite malachite that is the doorstop in this room, who throws away pretty rocks!?) and things more valuable than treasure to me (14 inch cast iron skillet, new, unseasoned!) (11 foot dome tent) (LOTS of good books!)

I'm SO GLAD you are raising your kids this way. Last kids I tried to make a treasure chest for were totally clueless, not interested in the least, it broke my heart to see them have zero imagination. If it wasn't from a movie, and exactly how the movie did it, it didn't make any sense to them. That's just sad. I have lived my whole life in my imagination, and I don't understand how anyone can't imagine things.

"When you quit seeing little fairies dancing upon your windowsill, you have become a man like any other. Your wings have been clipped."  I'm glad you are not clipping their wings! :D

Wow! The wholesomeness of this thread was a much-needed mental/emotional boost for me. You're a great artist, and I bet those maps will be cherished by the kids for years to come. Maybe you could even frame them and, someday, when the kids have their own homes they can hang them and always have a good memory of their childhood home, family, and homestead lifestyle...