Those who know me best, if they have been paying attention, will be quick to tell anyone who asks that my greatest weakness is imagination. I freely admit to being a dreamer, a thinker, a shaper and a maker. I read something or watch something or get a crazy idea and then it obsesses me.
So a couple of weeks back I was reading something about indigenous tribes in North America (Native American is really a misnomer, isn't it? I, of Dutch and Anglo-Irish lineage, was born in America, so I am therefore a Native American) and I was really taken with the ideas of nomadic hunter-gatherers. To narrow the story, I was taken with the idea of their living arrangements. In other words, teepees.
Call them teepees or tipis, I was suddenly struck by a memory of my late grandfather putting up some bean poles and a stinky army surplus tarp in the front yard one summer. That must have been close to 40 years ago, but thanks to the curse of the eidetic memory I recall it completely. It was something he did to amuse his young grandson (and possibly to distract that grandson from that weird Star Wars thing that was playing over at the drive-in in Gassville), but I recall it as clearly as playing naked in a plastic pool when the Jehovah's Witnesses came to visit. My ongoing battles with that particular sect is a story best saved for another time, but suffice it to say they don't come around much anymore.
Sorry, that was a tangent worthy of how they say my brain works. Anyway, I got the teepee idea, did some research, and decided to build one. "Why?" is the question I get most often (truncated from the more verbose and less socially acceptable version), and the answer is simple. Because I've never done it, the same answer for almost everything else. I like to try new things.
My research led me to the conclusion that the preliminary prototype should be done in stages. I decided to name the entire endeavor Project NOMAD.
Phase 1: Gather the materiel for the structure
1A: The skeleton itself, the frame poles.
1B: The covering
Phase 2: Preparation for construction
2A: Preparing the poles
2B: Preparing the covering
Phase 3: Construction
3A: Assembly of poles
3B: Covering
3C: Lining
And so I set out to build something purely to see if I could do it...
So a couple of weeks back I was reading something about indigenous tribes in North America (Native American is really a misnomer, isn't it? I, of Dutch and Anglo-Irish lineage, was born in America, so I am therefore a Native American) and I was really taken with the ideas of nomadic hunter-gatherers. To narrow the story, I was taken with the idea of their living arrangements. In other words, teepees.
Call them teepees or tipis, I was suddenly struck by a memory of my late grandfather putting up some bean poles and a stinky army surplus tarp in the front yard one summer. That must have been close to 40 years ago, but thanks to the curse of the eidetic memory I recall it completely. It was something he did to amuse his young grandson (and possibly to distract that grandson from that weird Star Wars thing that was playing over at the drive-in in Gassville), but I recall it as clearly as playing naked in a plastic pool when the Jehovah's Witnesses came to visit. My ongoing battles with that particular sect is a story best saved for another time, but suffice it to say they don't come around much anymore.
Sorry, that was a tangent worthy of how they say my brain works. Anyway, I got the teepee idea, did some research, and decided to build one. "Why?" is the question I get most often (truncated from the more verbose and less socially acceptable version), and the answer is simple. Because I've never done it, the same answer for almost everything else. I like to try new things.
My research led me to the conclusion that the preliminary prototype should be done in stages. I decided to name the entire endeavor Project NOMAD.
Phase 1: Gather the materiel for the structure
1A: The skeleton itself, the frame poles.
1B: The covering
Phase 2: Preparation for construction
2A: Preparing the poles
2B: Preparing the covering
Phase 3: Construction
3A: Assembly of poles
3B: Covering
3C: Lining
And so I set out to build something purely to see if I could do it...
