First Snow

Tonight was the night that Junior's scout pack was supposed to have a weekend campout at Pawnee Lake (it was cancelled!). Up until now we've been spoiled with an exceptional Indian Summer, week after week of warm days throughout this Autumn... ummm, up until late tonight! No more than an inch accumulation is expected, but the icy claws of Winter will be sinking in deeper before too long, I'm sure.

Tipi Report - Trail Fit

The main body of the cover is all hemmed and double stitched. I couldn't resist trying it on! After the initial shrinkage of the canvas, the bottom hem is riding high, but the addition of the lift flap and the lacing flaps should lower the edge more than is shown. Plus I always have the option of adding more fabric if I think its needed ;) But obtaining enough poles of the proper length is going to be a bigger issue...

Tipi: Home of the Nomadic Buffalo Hunters

I've been doing plenty of research for the design of my lodge cover, since I want this to be both authentic and a durable costruction. I'm never happy blindly following a popularly-accept plan for anything. I want to know why something is such-and-such a way - should my lodge have narrow or large smoke flaps, gores or no gores, sewn stake loops or pebble wrap loops... the list of styles is varied if not endless.

Anyway, talented illustrator Paul Goble shares his years of research in this highly graphic book, and he explains many "why's" quite clearly.

Too Close for Comfort?

Can you see him? Out there lurking in the thick brush?

Yep, that's him...

And he's B-I-G!

It may look like I scrambled up a tree to safety to keep some distance between myself and a hungry bear, but that wasn't the case ;)

These Black Bears are kept a safe distance from watchers thanks to a high walkway at Wildlife Safari near Mahoney State Park. The animal life is allowed to roam, and the people keep their distance.

Tipi Report - Cutting Begins!

Today we made the commitment of putting scissors to a very LARGE hunk of fabric - there's no turning back now!

BEFORE

AFTER

The 24' x 12' cover practically fills up my driveway, and makes use of two large canvas dropclothes joined end to end (which cuts down considerably on sewing!) Then after stretchinbg out my cnavas as flat as possible I simply determined the center line at the top edge, and from there measured out a length of string tied to a pencil to trace out the half circle shape of the bottom hem... the rest was snip-snip-snip.

I'd already preshrunk my fabic to offset the risk of my lodge going from a size 12' to a size 10'5", so the very bottom edge came up a bit short. I can use some of the extra material just trimmed off to sew on there.

Why a size 12' tipi? When many "experts" and manufacturers advise nothing less than 18'? Because 12' is right for the two of us - our plan is to eventually use this for camping (not "living"), it cuts down costs and construction (not to mention stress on an old sewing machine) and for now that's the plan I'll stick to.

I can only hope that Grandma's 60's era Sears Kenmore is up to the task of sewing the rest. So far a canvas sewing needle and the spool of outdoor UV resistent polyester thread I found at Walmart is doing the job. Now I'll need to do some basic hemming around all the edges to keep the material from fraying and reinforce the existing seams with an additional zig-zag stitch.

Face to Face

Whitetail

Tipi Report - Sew What?

Add Grandma's freshly lubed Sears Kenmore, a spool of UV resistent polyester thread and two large canvas sections measuring 24' long and what have you got?

A kidhood dream-come-true in the making!

Looks like my livingroom is going to be taken over by yards and yards of tent-making for the fore-seeable future.

American Bald Eagle

White Buffalo

Camping with the Scouts

This was a completely new experience for me - thousands of campers pitching tents bumper to bumper (while in the dark in our case!) and waking up to the strains "Revelry" ealy in the morning. But rather than have me tell you all about ScoutQuest 2010 held at Mahoney State Park, perhaps it's best to let Junior (Webelos 2 Scout) tell you himself in his own words:

October 8-10 was a special weekend. We went to ScoutQuest when we were camping. It was crowded with scouts and rides. All the scouts' flags were there. There were plays. We ate with our friends. And we played at camp.

We played dodge ball, shot a catapult, fought in the battle dome, and there was lots of stuff to buy at the scout shops. We saw people dressed as Indians, and even Gallagher! It was a lot of fun, can't wait tell next time.

And there you have it ;)

Medicine Pouch

Sunset Lake

Junior's scout pack had a service project of cleaning one of the area lakes today. In the meantime, I was able to sit back and watch the sunset :)

Tipi Report - Got Canvas!

At a local hardware liquidator I found some large canvas dropcloths, strong but lightweight, which is just what my Grandma's old sewing machine should be able to handle if were to make a traditional canvas lodge cover. If it were to be out in the weather year-round we'd definitely want something hevier, but for our purposes, the lightweight fabric is the ideal choice.

I brought home the largest size canvas the shop had (12' x 15') and threw this on my old tipi poles, partly for old time's sake, and partly just to get some idea of the size. The overall height shown in the photo is 8'. That was fine for us back in the day as kids, but just a bit too confining now. We definitely don't want to go with anything under 10' at the very least.


On a side note, this evening I found this Monarch chrysalis attached to one of the poles.

Painted Turtle

I came across a pair of these guys, crossing the road to see what was on the other side.

Mourning Dove

Happy Labor Day!

Another good excuse to go camping at the lake!

Barred Owls

This pair of owls are cared for at the Chet Ager Nature Center. Unfortunately due to injury they are unreturnable back to the wild. But as a tradeoff they will not fall victim to the many possible depredations of the wild. They will never go hungry or fall victim to disease in their new home.

Crazy Horse

What do you do in your sleeping bag at late at night when you can't get to sleep? The same thing you'd do at home. Bring along a book to read!

I like to read something about the place I may be travelling through. And whenever I travel up through the northwestern Nebraska - Wyoming - South Dakota region, I bring along this worn, dog-eared book by Nebraska author Mari Sandoz: Crazy Horse, The Strange Man of the Ogalalas, given to me long ago by my Grandma E.

Mari Sandoz didn't just pen her work, she researched this biographical novel thoroughly, interviewing the actual eye witnesses of the events. She never fell into the stiff confines of depicting a romantic West. And part of her writing process was to locate herself in the actual locations and reading the manuscripts to herself. She did not take the easy road to her writing.

Crazy Horse was written as from the Native perspective (even mimicing the Lakota style speech) and published in the 1940's, when such personal accounts were unheard of. I've read many of Mari's books such as Old Jules, These Were the Sioux, Cheyenne Autumn... This one without a doubt is the absolute best.

Snapping Turtle