Little Hawk- Building the trebuchet was a hoot. Our excuse for the endeavour was that we're homeschoolers, but the truth of the matter is that we're nerds and liked the idea of having a trebuchet in our yard... Now let's see the Joneses keep up with THAT! Plus, we just wanted to prove that we COULD do it. We ended up using my husband's free weights as our counterweight and cut the sling from a pair of jeans that were chewed up by a rat (see previous rodentia threads.)
It's not large enough for the traditional trebuchet ammo (but hey-- a trebuchet large enough to sling a dead, diseased cow just might fall into zoning violations despite being in the country.) Besides, we have no one to whom to lay siege- with the exception maybe of those folks up the road from us who burn their garbage only when the winds blowing in our direction. Grrrrrr....

Beccy