Tipi Continued...

Before I left for the fall mud season, I wanted to cover the big stack of cookstove wood and the even bigger stack of bark I had saved for burning. In the past I have learned that just tarping the stack means that I get a foot of snow on top of the tarp and the tarp freezes to the ground, and it is a royal pain to get to the firewood underneath. I haven't had time to build a woodshed yet. Then it occurred to me that the previous owners had lived in a tipi while they were building the cabin. Their tipi poles were still stacked neatly next to the site where they had their tipi. Even though the ground wasn't level and I didn't have a nice canvas tipi cover, I had poles and a couple of huge brown tarps, and I decided to build a tipi for a temporary woodshed. It was not easy to erect even a very bad approximation of a tipi all by myself. The poles are very long, and it is hard to get those first three to stand up. But using ropes and nearby trees, I finally managed. It is lopsided and sloppy, but it has already withstood a pretty bad windstorm, and I am pretty darned proud of it, funky as it looks. I built it over the stack of stovewood and moved all the bark into it, and now I have a tipi woodshed for the winter. The last task of the fall is completed.

So now I'm gone. I went into town before the sun was up yesterday to vote. Then I grabbed a cup of coffee and a bagel and drove off to Richland, where I am visiting Tom. I'll go back and forth between here and Whidbey Island for the next month or more. When I go back to Montana, it will be winter. This blog will probably take a break until then. To be continued...