Primative Tarp Camping on Die Weide

Not having camped in over 20 years, I no longer owned a tent. But I've got tarps and a sleeping bag and a strong desire to camp again. I bought a lamp, and a cot to add to the supplies and Friday I left work early and headed out out to Die Weide for my first camping trip on our place.

First things first - I also purchased a Remington 597 .22 rifle for plinking and rabbit hunting (someday.) So I set up to shoot a few rounds to see how she fired. I brought a small screwdriver to adjust the iron sites, but found out that the elevation adjustment also required an allen wrench which I didn't have.  I got the windage adjusted correctly but it shot high and I'll have to adjust that next time. Once I knew it shot high, I adjusted my aim and subsequently shot pretty good groups for rule-of-thumb low aiming.

After breaking in the .22 I started the fire in the pit, but it was very windy, so I constructed a windbreak from plywood, 2x4 scraps and a left-over sheet of steel. The wind break worked great Friday evening because the wind blew consistently from the South-South-East. Below you see a photo of my bacon burgers and home fries over the fire and a glimpse of the windbreak.

As the sun settled in the west, I recalled that one of my quibbles with our house in Cedar Park is I can not see a sunrise or sunset from any vantage point from our house because there are too many houses and trees to see the horizon. However, that's not a problem in the wide open spaces of Die Weide so I captured a nice sunset photo through the picnic pecan. Nothing spectacular, but the day will come when I will be able to take photos of a stunning sunset or sunrise. After dark I threw another log on the fire and brought out my guitar to serenade the wind, fire, and stars.

Here are my Friday evening fire and sunset photos.

Bacon burgers and home fries. (Windbreak at top)

Sunset Through Picnic Pecan

Enjoying the fire at night

I built my camp site by the light of my led cap light and the lantern I purchased earlier in the week. Taking advantage of the shed and a couple of handy 2x4s I draped and tied down the 8x10 tarp into a lean-to to keep the wind off from the south and added the smaller tarp to provide privacy and further wind protection from the east. The wind never let up over night and at one point, around 2:30 in the morning, I got up and tightened up the small tarp as it woke me often flapping in the strong breeze. I woke an hour before sunrise but snuggled a bit longer in the sleeping bag due to the cool morning. A warm sleeping bag on a cool morning is one of the few reasons I stay in bed after waking. Here is a photo of my tarp shelter. (Inge said it looks like a hobo camp...)

Hobo Tarp Tent

I stepped out before the dawn and scouted for rabbits with a telephoto lens on my camera. I never saw a rabbit, but did see and hear a lot of cardinals, who have a song as beautiful as they look.

After the rabbit-less wandering I fired up the pit and cooked up bacon and eggs for breakfast. The night before I covered the fire with dirt for safety and when I removed the dirt in the morning I found a few still-smoldering coals. So for fun I built my kindling and stick tee pee over the coals, stuffed in some dry grass, blew a little and in no time flat I had a fire without a match or lighter! I feared my breakfast fire a bit though because the strong winds from the night before became stronger and swirled far more, which blew a lot of sparks around. I worried that I might set the drought dried grass afire. I resolved then to cancel cooking for lunch. (Rats! I looked forward to yummy pork chops over the camp  fire!)

The rest of the day I spent jumping on the shovel in the garden area to loosen the soil deeper than the plough reached. I only managed to cover a third of the garden as shovel jumping is wearing work. Afterward, I planted my corn and black-eyed peas and the rest I will plant bit-by-bit over the next couple of weeks. I am concerned that this might be a meager garden as La Nina has put us in a spring drought that has the soil a lot dryer than needed for good germination and growth. Although the water harvest shed and tank will hold a lot of water, it requires rain to fall first. And rain is something we've not had this spring. Inge and I have discussed and I've looked up on line several methods for putting in a shallow well as most of our neighbors have wells that produce water at 19' depth. If we don't get rain by June we'll throw in to drill a well to keep the garden producing.