Raising the Tipi

We had set the time to put up our tipi at 4:30 this Sunday afternoon, but a thunderstorm came along first. Instead, we had an early dinner at the family cabin, watching the wind and rain pelting down. And then, as can happen so often in Iowa, the storm blew past, the sky cleared, and we had great weather for tipi-raising just an hour after the storm started. Here are a few pictures of the process. As we commented while we were at it, the Native Americans would laugh at us reading the instruction book. But in the end, the tipi graced the landscape, pointing toward the sky.