Winter Melancholy

It's the last day of December and I'm feeling down. The tent feels awfully small this time of year. The days are short, and I just want to sleep. I need some sun! I start feeling this way every year around this time. January is tough, too. But once February is near, I know it's about over.

Heavy Snow Takes a Toll

I had my first significant storm-related failure a few weeks ago. We had a Winter storm with mixed precipitation and the heavy accumulation of snow, rain, and sleet on my rain fly caused it to break loose from the conduit pipe running along the eaves.

Heavy snow damages rain fly

Fortunately, my good friend, Tom, had convinced me to attach the rain fly to the conduit with nylon zip-ties. Not only was that a clever and easy solution, but the zip-ties broke before the grommets did, so it was easy to fix the damage.

Not so for the small tarp that I had set over the picnic table. I rigged it about the same way, using zip-ties, but the tarp itself wasn't very thick so some of the grommets tore out. I'll replace it in Spring with a heavier tarp.

Living room tarp was a total loss