Building For The Future

Remembering The Tent Complex Decade

July 11, 2008

july 11, 2008

Elaine Meinel Supkis

Dear readers, I periodically mention living ten years in a tent complex my son and I built after my husband was injured at work and we were stuck in the court system, fighting to keep him alive. Those years were a true marathon effort to stay alive. We had less than $500 a month to live on and we kept on paying off our debts so we actually had less then $200 a month for everything. The ruins of the tent complex are still visible and I am dismantling it this summer so time to remember a difficult time that was also one of the most beautiful and amazing time for all of us, even my husband who suffered by far, the most.

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If you stand in my driveway which is half a mile up a mountainside, you can see in the distance a varicolored ruin. This is the remains of what once was a huge, comfortable nest my son and I built during the years we had no money and little hope but lots of love to share. It is nearly flat now, crushed by 8 years of storms, snow, wind, trees falling on it and animals making new homes in it. It is, like any great castle, a ruin with its own special artistic elements. So today, I took one of the dogs over to photograph it.

Remember: we are in this terrible mess caused by too much money piled on houses which crushed them just as certainly as snow crushed this tent! Yet people don't know how little it takes to live and be happy in very strange places, very peculiar structures THAT COST NEARLY NOTHING. Yes, this tent complex, nearly all of it, we made from free materials my son and I collected passionately and persistently. Many good friends contributed to this by finding and bringing more and more things to add to this business of ours.

During the 1991-1993 recession we even had friends move into our tent complex with us! After all, it was about as cheap as housing gets. Not only that, we had running water when it rained, we melted snow on the stoves in the winter for water. We used an old stocktank which was put in our bedroom as bathing water. I put logs under it to heat it up. In summer, Mr. Toad lived in that cave under the tub. We even made a little door for him to go in and out of the tent!

In this tent complex was the ox stables, the horse stables, the sheep fold for 45 sheep, a duck house, and a chicken pen. And two dogs and 4 cats lived in the main tent rooms. We all lived literally under one roof. It was immense fun.

This was the front door. The first road up the mountain did a hairpin turn and came up to the edge of the deep, dark forest. There, under the eaves of the tall trees, was the tent complex. This door was built the second year in the tent. The first year, we had only one room, what became our bedroom. This door led to the kitchen and living room. In these rooms was a water storage tank that was 250 gallons, a water barrel above the sink that was 55 gallons, a Victorian wood stove for cooking, a big wood stove for heating in winter. Once, it went down to -40 degrees F in winter! Luckily, there was a blizzard so we had several feet of snow insulting the tent complex!

Around the centerposts, I built a table. In the cloth roof, I put in two skylights which we can see in the following pictures.

And here is where the Victorian stove was. Each stove had its own chimney that was build out of the sheets of steel used to cover the wood pallets that transported buckets of tar. The guys at Curtis Lumber collected these for me and I ended up with dozens of sheets of steel this way.

I look at all of this and am filled with great emotions of intense depth. Even today, I can remember how I felt the first day I set to work to clear the ground for the very first tent. We already had staked out the house. It was just a hollow next to the forest. I didn't want to be too hot. It turned out to be 'the Snow Hole' in winter. Long after snow melted elsewhere, it was dead winter at the tent! But in summer, it was cool and shady.

The oldest part of the tent has totally collapsed. It was not as solidly built as the later parts. This was because we thought we would be living in it for only a year, not a decade. We had this pit under the heavy feather bed in the middle of that room. When tornadoes or huge storms roared in, we hid there with the radio. Once, a tornado formed right over head and then roared down Rt. 22, it destroyed a garage and parts of several houses. My husband said, 'Look, Elaine! The rain is going straight up and it is getting dark!' I have been near tornadoes so I lunged for under the bed.

Another time, a deadly series of 25 tornadoes tore through the region, killing people. We hid under the bed all night that time. We were also hit by lightning in the tent. Then there was the blizzard that nearly blew us away. Out in the 80 mph winds we were, using logging chains tp throw over the roof and secure them to the base of various oak trees! Then there was Hurricane Hugo which roared in. We ran OUT of the tent complex but we couldn't get all the animals out in time. A tree fell right between the sheepfold and the hen house! Not one animal was hurt.

Seriously, I am actually happy to be in a strong house. Heh. Once, before a big storm, one of the cats was chasing a forest rat up the roof of the tent when both of them fell through. I had to rush to a hardware store for a tarp! But the wind was howling. I couldn't hold it down. It billowed like the sail on a ship. So I hitched Chip and Dale, the oxen, to the ropes on one side and had them walk forwards while I used logging chains to anchor the other side. This way, we slid the new tarp which was 150 feet by 50 feet, over the whole complex. Just in the nick of time.

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The tent complex had three bedrooms because so many people came to live or visit with us. These were almost house-like because people wanting to stay with us would help us haul in more construction materials we collected from town dumps and construction left-overs given to me by guys who knew I was in difficulties. The picture above was my son's bedroom. The turkeys used to go to his bedroom window to eat insects. They would make happy turkey 'Blurp! Blurp!' noises while tap-tap-tapping. One turkey hen adopted a baby duckling. She happily herded it around and when she sat down, the duckie would sit on her back. One day, she stepped on it. This broke her heart. She trailed after me, wailing, 'Glurp! Glurp!'

This was the guest room. I don't think anyone would want to stay there today. Still, the triple window is still there. Amazing.

And this is the part where the oxen and horses lived. Sparky's stall was next to Chip's stall. Chip and Dale had these lovely golden balls on the tips of their horns. Sparky loved those balls. He would tease Chips until the ox would stick his horns into Sparky's stall to intimidate him. Sparky would then grab the ball with his teeth and pull. Eventually, he pulled them off! To the happiness of the oxen who could then use their sharp horns to rearrange the tent's interior. Rip! Tear! I would scold them. 'Bad boys! You do that, I won't give you any sweet mix!' Then they would moo at me and Sparky would chuckle. But when Sparky was bad, the sheep got HIS sweet mix! They would watch him with their beady little dark eyes hoping he would foul up and they get the splendid treats.

The chickens ended up living in the sheepfold. This is because of the very, very cold winter of 1994. They ended up sleeping on the sheep! Then, they discovered they could ride the sheep. It was hilarious to see the sheep run out into the pasture with chickens on their backs. That cold winter, a very tiny lambie was born during a violent blizzard in spring. I named her 'Itty Bitty'. I kept her alive for only one day. She had such an intense desire to live! But she was too small. Barely bigger than my hand. A baby lambie is the size of a human baby. The last thing she did was try to climb up to me, crying for her life. As I held her in my hands, she died. We cried a lot for her.

I even has this workshop where I built things for the house and did all the tool stuff for the house. This was an important room. A lot of the things in here were given to us as gifts by people who weren't using these tools anymore. It made the house possible. The point is, we can do so much if we want to do it. Nothing can stop us even if we are itty bitty and can't stay on this earth for very long, even so, the memories live on and now are across the planet.

For that is all there is: to remember, to recall, to love and to hold dear to the heart. One by one, our many animals died of old age, too. Their time here was set by Mother Nature and we have to endure our losses and count our blessings every day.

People ask me, 'What can we do today to save ourselves?' And are dissatisfied when I say, 'Love your family, care for your children, live life with wonder, care and know that everything is, in the end, an adventure. For good or ill, it still is an experience. And no one can put a price on this nor take it away. We can only lose it through dissatisfaction, distraction or anger. At every burial of a loved friend who shared this decade in a tent with us, most of them living while we all moved into the big house, every one of them, we shed tears and then laughed about all the many stories they gave us.

Aside from the obvious love of all these dogs, the horse, the oxen, the sheep, the ducks, everyone, the toad, even. They all gave us a great gift, one that didn't cost a penny. A gift of understanding what Life really means and how we can live in grace and joy, even when in sorrows. When Chris was at his sickest, I trained all the dogs and even the oxen to go searching for him by saying, 'Find Chris!' and off they would go, searching high and low. Even the sheep knew this after a while! Stella, the eldest, was best at finding Chris when he went out in despair to kill himself.

She is no longer with us but Chris is. And this was thanks to the animals and their obvious devotion to us. For animals can be devoted! They have hearts and they don't care for the things we treasure, they want to have a place at the hearth or a stall or a house of their own and to know we protected them. When the bears came to bother them, they knew we would chase it away. When the coyotes hunted the lambs, they knew they could run into the tent complex and be safe. When lightning lit up the sky, Sparky would neigh, toss his mane and charge to the tent for shelter! All the animals paid a lot of attention to us.

When my son grew up and left home, every time any of the animals spotted his school bus, they would get all excited and come running down to the bus stop only to see no one come up the mountain. Sad, they would hang their heads and come home to me and complain. To this day, when we say, 'Danny is coming!' They dance with undisguised joy! They know who he is and what this means! Utter bliss. They get the thing more valuable than money: attention and love! And they all love to be loved.

And I am certain, this is what we all want, too. Peace and love to everyone. Please take care and be optimistic no matter what.

Big Thunderstorm Downpour On My Mountain

July 11, 2008

Elaine Meinel Supkis

We had this terrific downpour the other day. I ran out after this one hour storm dumped over 3 1/2" of rain on us and took pictures of the house my family and I built with our own hands over the years. Time to look at a house made from scavenged materials, trees we milled on a small wood mill, odds and ends of various sorts. The house was designed by myself with no blueprints, not plans at all. Just step by step, as I got materials, I used them. This house is very, very strong and extremely solid. For the wood is big and wide and the trees were selected by myself, in the forest.

Trees growing on mountainsides have smaller rings and are of sounder wood than trees that grow in swampy areas or have less pressure from the prevailing winds. Trees that fight for life on mountainsides are strong because of adversity. This is true throughout all of Nature: if something is sheltered and never has to struggle to survive, it is weak and sickly.

This is why we must face the winds and storms of life and be brave and good. Even if this doesn't seem to be as beneficial as screwing your neighbors, stealing stuff and running murderous regimes, in the long run of history, goodness shines through like sunlight through stained glass windows in ancient cathedrals.

This was the end of the storm. It was a very small storm but extremely powerful. It it lasted more than an hour, it would have destroyed much of my community. As it was, this unleashed a sufficient flood that it nearly washed out our roads. It certainly did make a big mess of all the roads on the side of my mountain including my own.

My front door faces north, towards the mountainside. The storage area for the winter firewood is on the right, by the hoses. I deliberately designed the front door to be insignificant because the surprise is when one walks into the house.

The view from the entryway runs straight to the southern sun room which has several sliding glass doors looking out upon the huge landscape of the village of Berlin below as well as the surrounding tumbled, steep hillsides to the south. Also, there is the stained glass window which was damaged in an earthquake and which I got all the pieces together and rebuilt it. As always, we can rebuild things to an amazing degree if we wish. The effort is often worth it. This is how I got this window.

Here is the view when one walks through the house to the windows facing south.

This is facing north to the front door. Our fireplaces for each floor pass through this area. We heat this house through passive solar energy from the sun rooms and with wood we chop up in our forest. My heart really goes out to everyone who will be punished brutally this coming winter as we see high and higher energy prices. For always, if the main source of energy goes up in price, they all rise in tandem. There is no escaping this system. Being too hot in summer is annoying. But freezing to death is a certainty if we have no energy sources and are bankrupt. I worry about this in general for the good people around me in this community are already preparing for winter and everyone is planning to probably use wood since it is local.

But not everyone is in this situation where they can get cheaper energy. It is a lot of work, dealing with firewood, feeding the fires, cleaning the chimney, emptying the ash tray every day, chopping, cutting and stacking firewood, etc. But it beats having no money.

This is facing east to the dining area and bedroom. Every room on this floor is set up so I can see my husband in bed no matter if I am in the office, living room, kitchen, bathroom, whatever. This is why the bedroom has not one but two doors. This house has no hallways because of the need to see directly into all rooms from the center. This was a deliberate design my son and I developed when my husband was injured at work.

Here is the kitchen. I got the Victorian wood stove from an RPI student who had damaged it by burning things too hot. We rebuilt it and I have cooked on it for nearly 20 years now. It only cost $50. Like much of the things we have, we got it because it was damaged. This is true of many items here. Also, when businesses go bankrupt or redesign their stores, I go haunt the back docks to pick up many wonderful things. It pays to be very sweet to the people who work so hard at these places. I will never forget when the GE president of Home Depot took over and ordered the staff to never give anything away.

I was furious. I wasn't the only person who was irritated by this. Instead, Home Depot had to spend money to get rid of stuff! Then, we made deals with the guys hauling away Home Depot junk and they would let us root through it before they removed it. They didn't care. They got paid anyway! And of course, Home Depot is now in deep trouble thanks to this idiot who is now destroying Chrysler.

The sinks in my kitchen, for example, were Home Depot throw-aways. The tiles on the floor were from a discontinued series and so I used the phone and got all the Home Depots in a 100 mile radius to give me the left over stocks which were only a dozen or so tiles a store but with 20 stores, this came to more than enough tiles! Again: talking nice pays big time.

The sliding glass doors were all 'damaged' and rejected by builders. Bargain Outlet then buys them enmass. They let me know if they got lots of bad ones. Over the years, I have collected about 15 of these doors from them, all less than $75 each, often for only $20 each! Three of the doors were free!

To build the floors of this house, I got an entire shipment of 2"x12"x 12' lumber because a builder rejected the load. Since I was always nice to the people delivering this wood, they simply drove to my mountain and gave it to me for the cost of carrying it! So I have very strong floors. Not 5/8th inch plywood.

Building things is a social process. Hobnobbing with all and sundry pays off, hugely. Often, when I found building materials I didn't need, I passed them onwards to others.

And the livingroom, facing the sliding doors to the side deck where we eat all summer long. The grand piano lived with us in the tent complex for ten years. We shall visit the tent complex in the next story. It is a sad and yet happy story. It is very painful, looking at the ruins of that earlier home.

Back to the outside:

The dogs have their own door which goes into the west sunroom. This is facing west and we can see the sheds which used to be Sparky's stall but now is used for equipment storage. The chickens still live in the building's other half.

This is the deck. Nearly all the wood to make this were milled here on the mountainside over the years. Chip and Dale, our ox team, used to haul huge logs from up above to the mill and then John, a dear friend, would turn these into timbers and planks as we worked in harmony, pushing, pulling and using huge steel levers to jerk giant trees into the cutting track.

Facing east, we can see the lower levels where the tractor and backhoe are parked for the winter. The doors came from a Victorian house in Troy, NY. Another freebie. As are many parts of this system like most of the ironwork, for example. I highly recommend dumpster diving. It is quite profitable. Just wear good shoes and use gloves.

As I get free building materials, the south side of the house morphs and grows. Nearly everything in this picture is scavenged materials or grew on this mountain.

Just had to include the rain gage. We were very happy to see this small but very dangerous storm get shoved to the east. In the 19th century, a storm like this one that also formed right overhead in this valley, didn't move and it dumped over 10" of rain in less than three hours. It destroyed all the houses along a normally quiet stream on Plank Road.

Everyone is gardening this year! And no wonder. It is a great way to save money. But the deer and rabbits and woodchucks attack the gardens. The dogs and cats are supposed to patrol but they get lazy and critters get in. The fence surrounding this garden was made from old barn boards I scavenged from a neighbor's old barn. With screw guns, putting this sort of bizarre structure together is easy. The string around the top has old tin plates which clank in the wind. This scares off the deer. I highly recommend this. An old, old man in the village told me about this and it works. When one needs to know esoteric stuff, going to very old people is VERY rewarding. They are all treasures! To be cared for because of this.

I collect discarded pots and have quite a few. I prefer to grow things like lettuce in pots because I can wander out of the kitchen and onto the deck and pick leaves at leisure. These are tender, wonderful leaves quite a bit nicer than in the store. Anyone can grow lettuce in pots! Just put them in a sunny window and water them. Or if there is any outdoors, put the pots in strategic places and then eat like a rabbit!

Next: the precursor to the house we built. The Tent Complex.

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