Small success of the morning:
An unhoused friend/neighbor had put their tent by the trash cans because obviously the elastic had come out of one of the sets of pole-segments in the storm, rendering the tent useless.
Friend usually sets up tent right at 7 AM, which is the time after which local gendarmerie does not bother people for setting up tents on the beach. It was getting on toward 8 AM.
Friend was asleep in their folding chair a few meters away and I did not want to bother them so I just quietly experimented w the setup.
The elastic was nowhere in sight, so I walked the couple blocks home and brought some fresh elastic. (Have a large stockpile of elastic; part of my inheritance of three generations’ worth of sewing/needlework supplies from the women in my family.)
But alas, the poles though hollow are so skinny that even the improvised long wire needle I made to thread the elastic through would not fit into the skinny poles.
However, the tent itself was still totally fine and I was hoping would not have to be thrown away.
Fortunately one of the two sets of pole-segments had its elastic intact, so I used that to put the tent halfway up like a semi circle.
And then I found a super skinny bamboo segment from the stockpile of bamboo cuttings at my house to serve as a flexible segment of pole. (The bamboo poles I gathered from a fancy riverfront mansion’s curbside “trash”; am using the various-sized poles to make shade trellis structures in my yard. My yard serves as a “3-D business card” for my eco landscaping business.)
It’s not gorgeous, but it’ll do. On second thought … maybe it IS gorgeous because the tent didn’t have to be thrown away and is therefore still available to shelter my friend from rain and sun.
Friend was still asleep in chair at the time I finished repair. Friend may wake up and decide they still don’t want the tent for whatever reason, but at least now they will have an option for keeping it.
PS. The little repair project was FUN!! I think sometimes we forget how rewarding it is to do little repairs instead of tossing & buying new.*
Also, I have this belief that even inanimate objects such as tools and supplies possess some kind of spirit or feeling, such that they feel sad to go through their whole lives without being used, and feel joy when they finally get to be in service.
(*Or in my friend’s case it probably wouldn’t have been buying new, but *receiving* new from the donation stream, which comes with its own pitfalls. Anyway my friend has had this tent for a super long time, knows and likes it, so I wanted to offer an option for keeping it.)
# landfilldiversion #improvisation #solidarity #coliberation #housing #houselessness #Florida #permacultureactivism #DegrowthMindset
You can see pics at my post in the Transformative Adventures group on Facebook.
To see more of my permaculture / ecosocial activist posts, please follow my Facebook page DEEP GREEN book by Jenny Nazak, and my blog jennynazak.com. Thank you!