Primitivists vs vegans, also, sleeping in the trees

[luzula]

Oops, I disappared off the face of the internet for a while. First I visited with friends who live on a farm and also have two toddlers. Gah, their life is so very full of things to do. I both enjoy visiting them and also somehow selfishly resent their busyness. I mean, it's a nice change for me to help out with physical work and pile wood and scythe hay and whatnot. But it also feels like it's hard to just hang out together, like it was possible to do before they had a farm and toddlers. Ah well.

Then I went to a camp out in the woods, organized by a village who wants to save the nearby forest from being cut down by a company. This camp turned out to be about half hardcore vegans from the Hambacher Forest occupation in Germany and half primitivists who thought agriculture was humanity's big mistake. There was a cultural clash where someone broke down crying when they saw someone eating a fish and compared it to eating a dead baby. Um.

Still, it was interesting, and I'm not sorry I went. The village wanted help doing inventories of the species in the forest, so I did that a lot, and also there was tree climbing (the German activists were of course experts in that--they basically live in treehouses). I have now realized my goal of spending 24 hours up in the trees! We built a platform by taking a large wooden pallet and putting beams through the ends. Then we hauled it up a tree with a pulley system and secured it to the trunk. I spent most of the time up there either on that platform or in my hammock which was hanging from a rope bridge between two trees. Here are some photos:




Overall it was a lot more cold than having the hammock close to the ground, probably because there was a lot of wind. Also I couldn't close my sleeping bag properly since I had to be secured to the rope bridge while sleeping. I also got quite stiff, despite doing some gymnastics on the platform. I don't get vertigo from tree climbing, though, so that was no problem. When I got down on the ground again, it was almost like stepping off a boat, and the ground felt like it was swaying for hours. I got lots of ideas about building such a platform at home, and either putting it in the woods near my home, or in some less frequented corner of one of the big public parks in town. Then I could rig some shelter from the rain above it and sleep on it sometimes. Some insulation from below would be good too.

Comments

"Culture clash"

[jesse_the_k]

...is certainly a nice way to phrase it.

Why weren't the primitivists off in the woods gathering berries?

Holy shit how did you get from the platform to the hammock?

Re: "Culture clash"

[luzula]

There's usually a fair sprinkling of vegans in the organizations I'm in, but it's never been an issue--they eat their food and others eat theirs, and nobody accuses anyone of eating babies.

The rope bridge has an upper rope and a lower one. So you clip on to the upper rope and stand on the lower one. Or you can just hang from the upper one if you lose your foothold, which is not hard to do since standing on a slack rope is not easy.

[lilysea]

There was a cultural clash where someone broke down crying when they saw someone eating a fish and compared it to eating a dead baby.

Wait, what? o.O

I've been vegetarian since I was 13 and I am ****boggled**** by this.

Although I suppose I happily buy my partner fish all the time because it's good for his Depression.

Vegans frequently make me o.O

(And I strictly avoid dairy due to food intolerances! But I am ***all about the eggs***, because my chronically-ill, food-intolerant self needs that protein...)

(I once had a militant vegan tell me in all earnestness (and not a little anger towards me) that non-vegan-vegetarians were worse than non-vegetarians, because vegetarians had thought about it, but only committed half way, whereas non-vegetarians had just never thought about it.)

[luzula]

There's usually a fair sprinkling of vegans in the organizations I'm in, but it's never been an issue--they eat their food and others eat theirs, and nobody tells anyone else to eat differently. But I think these were vegans from a tightly-knit subculture where they were used to being the majority.

I am a non-vegetarian who has thought about it, so I guess that would make me even worse. : )

[seascribble]

I got vertigo just reading this post. I'm glad you enjoyed it though!

[luzula]

I can get vertigo if I'm not secured. But once I know intellectually that I'm safe, that translates into emotional security for me as well.

[mific]

Intrepid! I get vertigo on a ladder, so nope, not for me, much as I love the notion of treehouses.

[luzula]

I actually get more vertigo on a high ladder as well, since I'm not secured then. : )