Wednesday, August 8, 2007

Tale of the Parachute

The whole story starts with a friend giving us a free cargo parachute. We bought some 8 foot poles for the side and have a 12 foot center pole for the circus tent. Little did we know just what we were in for. The crew arrived after dark so we set up tents only. In the morning when everyone was up, we attempted the parachute sun shade. Needless to say things did no go to well. The center was not tall enough, so it drooped all over. The poles weren't secure enough and moved around a lot. So Gilly decided to head into town to acquire some lumber, I think I'll promote him to ships carpenter. Gwen and Squishy went with us, mostly I think to freak the mundanes. After and adventure of finding the hardware store, Gilly aquired two daughters, at least acording to the clerk at the store( much giggling ensued and good natured teasing). When we got back there was grumbling amongst the rest of the crew who had had to fight with the chute while we were gone. So the 12 foot center pole was replace by a 19 foot one. More side supports were added and more guide ropes run and it was finally stable. At least till Sunday night when a wind storm decided to challenge us. After our neighbors sun shade blew into our kitchen I decided we need to take the chute down before it blew away. We started undoing guide lines but weren't quited prepared when the center pole came down in a hurry. Once all the ropes and poles were removed we flipped the chute over to remove the bees that had collect in the top. I went out to the center and got all the bees off but the wind kept picking up the edges of the chute. I hollered out to the crew that it looked like a trampoline. They grabbed the edges and started flipping them up and down. Much giggling ensued and the Captain almost lost her footing like a ferret in a trampoline.

1 comment:

Stealth Unicorn said...

But you told us to flip it over! How were we supposed to know you didn't want to be in it at the time? (VBEG)