Gooooooood Morning SuperForest!
Up at Zero One, there is an abundance of living space. But we want more! Besides the main house and guest house/garage, we’ve just added a teepee to increase our potential living density. I was lucky enough to have Justin and Mea there to show me how it’s done.
Justin
Mea’s brother had dropped the teepee in its disassembled form at my house in Los Angeles, and I checked it with my two boxes of belongings. It sat patiently in its canvas bag until this week, when we set to work raising it up.
Teepee poles a’plenty in the bamboo forest!
First we went and cut some bamboo. Bamboo is incredibly fast growing, non-native, and highly invasive. Anything we took would be quickly replenished by Kauai’s abundant rainfall and rich topsoil. We cut 17 poles for the teepee, one for a fruit/coconut picker, and one extra just in case.
Mea modeling her lovely pregnant belly, and our neatly bundled poles
Mea had lived in this teepee for several years, and had much experience setting it up. I stayed out of her and Justin’s way and took pictures while they measured out the three main poles, and put a screw in the lift pole to hold the rope wrapping in place.
Once the poles were measured and the support screw was in, we carried the poles out to where the teepee would sit and tied the three together using a clove hitch knot Mea found online. Internet is so helpful in this life.
Then, with Mea holding the rope and Justin holding the base, I lifted the tips of the poles into the air. Mea steadied them and Justin then swung one pole around until we had achieved a tripod shape.
Here you can see that our first clove hitch was very tight, and crunched the bamboo.
No matter, we dropped the tripod and substituted a fresh pole. Back up to speed in no time.
Already the tripod’s strength is apparent.
A few measurements to set the proportions and it was time to start adding the side support poles.
Now all the side poles have been added, with the exception of the lift pole, which has the teepee’s canvas skin tied to it. Mea used the main rope to bind the support poles together. To do this, she took the rope and ran around the teepee several times, binding the poles into one strong mass. She looked amazing as she ran, barefoot and pregnant, so strong, capable, and fearless.
Wound up tight!
Next, the lift pole got a support screw of its own to hold the canvas in place, plus it got some lovely feathers and good magic for luck and fortune!
Feathers on the top, canvas skin in the middle, Mea at the bottom and we’re ready to lift the teepee’s skin into place.
Now that the skin is upright, we unfold it around the support poles. It takes a fair amount of pulling, coaxing, and yanking to stretch the skin over the poles. I’m glad that there were three of us.
Making adjustments.
Pinning together the front. The circle is the front door.
Now we used polished sticks to “stitch” the front of the teepee closed.
Two of the kindest, wisest, gentlest, and most capable people one could ever hope to meet.
And here it is! The Zero One teepee!
Taa-daa!
Putting up the teepee was an amazing experience. It took three of us one day to do it, if you count cutting the poles. If you don’t count the time it took to get the poles, it took three of us two hours. A building this strong, portable, lightweight, and environmentally friendly is a dream come true.
I hope you enjoyed this and feel inspired to go on out, find a piece of land, put up a structure to live in and get to permaculturing.
Coming up next: A view from inside!
My love and gratitude to all, especially the State of Hawaii for its incredible bounty.
Aloha,
Jackson
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