Getting ready for Sukkot and in the midst of other preps, since we will have 60+ staying here, I’ve had little time to think about our sukkah this year…  then I had a bright idea.  Or, as my boys say, in their best Gru impression, ‘light bulb.’

We tore out part of the barn as a meeting area and it freed up multiple cattle panels and a few t-posts.  If you are not familiar with the very useful farming item available at most feed/seed stores, a cattle panel is 50” tall by 16′ long, made of heavy 3/16″ welded rod, and somewhat flexible…

So, six 8′ t-posts ($5.90 each), one 2x4x 10 (actually used a 16’er just because that is what I had…) and four cattle panels ($25 each) make a very nice rough sukkah.  All that is left is to decorate.

We did throw an old tarp over the top and hung solar lawn lights for evening ambiance, but the general structure took shape in about 30 minutes, mostly me griping at the boys to ‘hold something still’ while I tried wiring it into place.

Here are some pics of our not yet decorated structure…  Best part?  Nice size, lots of head room, nothing to store and all parts are re-useable on the farm!

Here we are driving the posts.  We chose to arch the back wall, so it is really about 15′ long, but adds depth in the middle.

Initially I wired the 2×4 directly to the 8′ t-post, then chose to sleeve the post with a piece of pipe (pvc will do) to get a little more elevation.  The height is over 8′ in the middle.  About 7′ at the edges.  Two cattle panels arched over the top, one across the back, about 18″ off the ground, and one divided for the end walls.

Tarp for a little sun/rain protection.

Solar yard lamps, with the base probe removed, then held in place…  should charge through the day and give nice light in the evening.  We have eight around the perimeter of the tarp.

Hope this little project will give others some new inspiration as they build a sukkah!

Shalom, shalom!