Building a House

Some of my favorite bits of preparation were ones I saved for last, both to savor them and because I was waiting on supplies in the mail...  Yeah, sure, let's call that deliberate...

The two I tackled last night were the ones dealing with shelter, my house on the Trail.  Namely, I built a tarp rainfly for my hammock (or to use on the ground when the mood takes me) and an all-encompassing bug net.

The designs are pretty simple, but very similar to what's being built here, so I'll let Instructables do the work:

http://www.instructables.com/id/Complete-Camping-Hammock-with-Screen-and-Rainfly/step2/Materials/

Basically, it's a rectangular tarp to go over my Grand Trunk single hammock, with a reinforced D-ring attached with webbing at each corner and edge midpoint.  The bug net is a giant sleeve, which I'll cinch up at both ends so it envelops my hammock and drapes overtop the ridgeline.

The tarp.  It's so small!

Trying it out in favorable weather.

Starfishin'.

The material I used was a dream to work with: it's silicone-coated ripstop nylon ("silnylon") that weighs 1.1 oz a yard.  Ripstopbytheroll.com is a dream to use and has all the notions one could ask for in stock--highly reccomend them!

Next up for building is an ultralight, stuffable pack for portaging, a pee rag, a buff scarf imitation, and finishing up my bug net.  Then I'll give it all a test setup!