Gosh fellows, I don't suppose you could afford a horse! On the other hand, no self-respecting nag would be caught dead hitched to that gig anyway, so it's just as well.
What we have going here is some kind of late Victorian Popular Mechanics do-it-yourself weekend project: Make Your Own Two-Wheeled Cart From Firewood in A Single Day. The baling wire patch-up on the wheel is a little much don't you think – that's what duct tape is for. And we'll pretend we didn't notice the chimney – that's just way beyond rustic.
There was a period in the late nineteenth century when the idea of roughing it meant making everything out of limbs and sticks. Folks in three piece suits and silk dresses put stick furniture on the porch, and chairs fashioned from the antlers of half a dozen elk were the height of cool. Their contemporaries who were still making do in sod houses and covering their walls with newspaper must have thought, "You people are nuts!"
The only thing this photo proves is what every wife knows – leave a bunch of boys to their own devices, no matter what age, and nothing good can come of it. Well, nothing that makes much sense anyway.
But who knows better how to have a really good time? Their only mistake is that they made a record of it. Sure made my day!