Loafed around recently in my very large double-wide hammock under a little tarp on the patio stand (eno-type double, backwoods daydreamer asym fair weather friend, Byer of Main Vario stand). It was cool enough I dragged my Very Loud blue and yellow DIY underquilt out from the closet, and added a 55 degree REI travel sack on top. Toasty!
However, I must admit that for the First Time Ever (no - not fooling here) it RAINED while I was in the hammock.
Well
Sprinkled a little bit.
Just enough to get the concrete a little spotty, enough to made my tarp damp, not enough to blow in and get me. I did have to take great care to get my tall self and my wide hammock situated to take advantage of the asym nature of the tarp.
I was reading a pretty good book and every once in a while I'd hear a series of scraping/flapping sounds followed by a loud CHEEK. Some bird (woodpecker type) cleaning our pine out of any bugs. I was too comfortable and lazy to rearrange myself for a good look at the bird.
There are limitations to the Beyer hammock stand. It adjusts both horizontally and vertically. However, as many of us have already learned, the farther apart the trees, the higher the huggers must be. I have to set the stand collapsed to its smallest length, and the uprights to their highest position, in order to hang my hammocks, which tend to be long. And the hammocks are still much closer to the ground than I would have them in the 'wild' so to speak. Today, one end of my ridgeline (which is a whoopie sling) was as short as it could be and the other end of the hammock was hung by the suspension ring.
The other thing to keep in mind is that the uprights on this type of stand flex when a load is in place, meaning that a tarp, if attached to both ends of the stand, will sag once the hammock is occupied. I got around this by attaching one end of the tarp to the stand, and the other to a nearby tree, via a bungee cord. In any case, the tarp is longer than the stand, since I have it (the stand) as short as it will go.
The tarp runs just above the stand's end.
The ridge of the tarp stayed nice and taut even when I was sprawled out in the hammock. My two guy lines on the sides do not have any sort of shock cord involved, and you can see how there are wrinkles in the surface of the tarp near the ridge (visible in the first picture).
I suppose I'll have to sacrifice my self for the natural sciences and spend some more time tomorrow out there, just so I can figure out which woodpecker it was.
Tough job, eh?
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