"Come In Out of the Cold"... For Next To Nothing!
(Page 2 of 3)
September/October 1978
By John Wilson
A nearby abandoned cabin was restored to house a few of the commune's members, and the two converted school buses that had given the nomads mobility were adapted to serve as living quarters. The rest of the families, however, solved their shelter problems in a far more traditional manner . . . with earth lodges and wickiups.
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The group found a good source of the only "store-bought" building materials in their lodges—wool, cotton batting, blankets, tarps, and the like—at auctions in the area. It seems that any items that weren't bid upon were generally discarded at the end of the sale and the auctioneers were glad to give the stuff to anyone who'd take it away.
Heinz, Song Feather, and their daughter Kachina live in the bigger of the two Flowering Tree lodges built from a little of this recycled material and a lot of earth and logs. Their structure is about 22 feet in diameter, can hold up to 30 people (if they don't mind being "friendly"), and cost the family a grand total of $4.00 to construct. The money was used to buy gasoline . . . for the drive to an area where fallen trees could be had for the hauling.
The couple—with the help of the rest of the commune—dug a three-foot-deep foundation pit and surrounded it with a framework of windfall timber posts. Scrap planks—which were gathered for free when a house in the nearby town was torn down—were set against this skeleton, and the earth from the hole was piled around and over the structure. Heinz then spread black plastic sheeting over the roof and secured its edges with more heaped soil. (This not only gives the "home" a leak-proof ceiling, it also functions as a primitive solar collector.) A blanket and a tarp (from one of the auctions) provided a double-layered—and somewhat insulated—door.
Later, Heinz and Song Feather equipped their "winter quarters" with salvaged windows and a thrown-away cast-iron stove. As a result, their "hogan" is warm inside. In fact, at times Heinz feels that it's too warm.
"We spent more time outside when we lived in the tipi, and I think that this fact alone makes the tent a healthier place to live," he says. "Also, an open fire has a kind of magic . . . it centers people. I'm thinking about throwing the stove out."
