Today we went and visited a wildfoods man in the Cowichan Valley. Usually when I see him we talk about edible and medicinal plants, including the ayurvedic qualities of the plants, but not this time....
He has been creating sleeping shelters outdoors, that are warm and dry enough to sleep in even through the heavy rains and snowfalls of vancouver island. He has been sleeping in his shelter every night since fall.
This idea came to him when he realized that we are influenced to eat and experience the food which we see when we wake up. If we live indoors we eat stored food because we connect with it before we see living plants. By creating outdoor living spaces we wake up outside, are directly connected to nature and are inspired to eat fresh wild plants. The best food to start the day with.
Today we made a shelter for plants to grow within. We took curved douglas fir branches and connected them together with wire to form a semi circle. Then we connected the semi circle to another, forming the outline of a quarter orange peel. We added a curved middle beam, which we attached with wire to the center of the two larger branches to form the basic structure of the sleeping shelter.
We harvested willow and hardhack branches from the surrounding environment and wove them in branch by branch. Until the shape of a quarter orange peel manifested in front of us.
This shelter was created to help plants grow. By placing the shelter in a south facing open area, it will contain a warm micro climate. The air within the shelter will warm up and allow plants to grow earlier in the year than they would otherwise. It would be useful to place this shelter over a stinging nettle patch, where bamboo shoots break through the ground or any tasty treat you are waiting to see the first signs of this season.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
I like the idea of making a shelter of materials on the ground and outside, though I`m not so warm circulation wise to wake up outside and be charged to eat what I see.
ReplyDelete