When we were kids, back in the 60s and 70s, it was pretty common to pitch a tent in the backyard and go camping. I don’t know if kids do that much anymore. I always enjoyed it, and I think it might not be a bad idea even for adults without kids to do it from time to time. And it’s definitely a great idea for adults with kids, I would say!
It can even be combined with basic disaster drill skill -type stuff, while still being fun for the whole family and feeling like a party.
A few months ago, I found a dome-style tent abandoned on the beach. It was missing its fiberglass structural poles, and had no stakes with it or anything.
I decided to try to use the tent to create a campsite in my little urban yard. My thought was to build a little bamboo structure to hold up the tent.
Well, the other day I finally got around to cutting the bamboo poles to a suitable length and lashing them together to form roughly a cube-shaped structure. Also used some palm-fronds of the type that people frequently leave at curbside as “yard waste.” I was pleased with the results.
And today, I cut a bunch of dried lemongrass away from my lemongrass plants, and used it for an underlying mulch since I didn’t have any pine-straw left from my last delivery.
And then for a ground cloth, I used a former housemate’s air mattress that had popped & that I previously cut up in order to be able to use it as a durable plastic sheet material for something. (I had been using the sheets to cover a couple of my rain tubs — and sometimes, during super rainy times, to cover the compost pile to keep it from getting waterlogged — but I hadn’t been very pleased with it in those applications, largely because it didn’t look nice.)
After spreading out the ground cloth, I set up the tent by tying its loops to various parts of the bamboo structure.
The result is 99.9% invisible from the sidewalk even if you are looking for it. I’m lucky I happened to find an abandoned tent that was in subdued color rather than bright colors. It’s gray, with black mesh material and a couple areas of grass-green.
Everything used in this project was rescued from the waste-stream — from the tent itself, to the bamboo, to the strips of cloth I used to lash the bamboo poles & palm fronds together to make the structure.
I am looking forward to camping in my yard whenever I want! And offering accommodation to similarly minded friends who might be visiting.
You can see pics of my little bamboo structure and tent site here, on my DEEP GREEN Facebook page.
Update: Last night I slept in the tent and it was delightful. This will definitely be the coolest place to sleep when the weather starts getting hot. I always tell people one of the keys to living happily without air-conditioning is to not try to hang out in buildings too much in the hot season. Or as I sometimes phrase it, “S.O.B. — that is, “Stay outta buildings!”
Sleeping outdoors, or in a screened porch, etc. is a great way to spend the summer. Last summer, to me, felt like the hottest summer ever, and I spent several weeks of it sleeping on bare ceramic tile in the room that has the most windows. But staying outdoors would’ve been more comfortable, and now I have a mosquito-free way to do that.