Apocalyptic Hoarding Diary

She took two steps back, put her hands on her hips, and examined her work.

Three bamboo poles are just the beginning; to build a bamboo shed, at least a dozen more are needed.

At this rate, it would take most of the day just to cut bamboo, but she wasn't in a hurry; she had plenty of time.

The sun was high in the sky. She wiped the sweat from her forehead, switched the axe to her other hand, and went back into the bamboo forest.

As Xu Xiaoyan cut down more and more bamboo, a long row of forty-six bamboo stalks, varying in thickness and length, had been formed against the rock wall.

She divided the bamboo into three piles according to their uses: the thicker ones were used for pillars and main beams, the medium ones for purlins and cross braces, and the thinner ones were split into strips for weaving walls and making doors.

The sunlight streamed straight into the pit, making the entire open space dazzlingly white. She was covered in layers of sweat, her shirt sticking to her back, feeling sticky and uncomfortable.

But she couldn't care less about that; her mind was filled with the steps and procedures for building the bamboo shed.

Xu Xiaoyan first carefully cleared the open space in front of the cave, removing all the gravel, dead branches, and weeds.

Then, they leveled the ground with an entrenching tool and tamped it down with their feet. To fit the occasion, they even found a large rock to serve as a stone table.

The entrance to the cave faces south and is about four meters wide, making it fairly spacious overall.

She plans to build a bamboo shed four meters wide and two and a half meters deep in front of the cave entrance, which will connect to the cave entrance and form a "口" shape.

Inside is a natural cave, and outside is a man-made bamboo shed; together, they form a complete living space.

The first step in building the shed was to erect the pillars. She selected four of the thickest and straightest bamboo poles and dug four holes at the four pre-selected corners with an entrenching tool, each hole about thirty centimeters deep.

Xu Xiaoyan sharpened one end of the bamboo, inserted it into the pit, stood on a stool, and used the back of an axe to hammer it down repeatedly, changing the angle every few hammer blows to check if it was crooked.

When the first pillar was erected, she stepped back a few paces to examine it. It was a little crooked, and she had to hold it and adjust it for a long time before she could straighten it.

With the experience gained from the first one, the next three were much faster.

After all four pillars were erected, she backfilled them with the excavated soil, tamped it down firmly with her feet, and then piled a ring of stones around the base of the pillars for reinforcement.

The next day, Xu Xiaoyan began making the main beam. She selected four bamboo poles and placed them on top of the pillars. She wrapped the rope around the bamboo poles three times, then tightened it and tied several knots.

Once the main beam is in place, the entire framework of the bamboo shed is complete.

Then came the purlins and rafters. She placed eight medium-thickness bamboo poles between the main beams, spaced evenly, and secured them with ropes.

These purlins are used to support the roof, and each one is spaced about fifty centimeters apart.

After the purlins were laid out, she used thin bamboo to make rafters, tying them side by side to the purlins with close spacing.

Bamboo stalks were laid one next to another, densely covering the entire roof frame.

Looking up from below, the texture and knots of the bamboo are clearly visible, giving it a simple and unpretentious beauty.

The roof was finished, but the four sides were still empty. She planned to seal off the side against the wall first.

The entrance to the cave is itself a natural stone wall; she only needs to make a transition at the junction of the bamboo shed and the entrance.

She placed a bamboo pole on each side of the cave entrance, then tied some thin bamboo strips between the two poles in a crisscross pattern, taped on a plastic film, and left space for a door frame.

This doorway serves as the passage between the bamboo shed and the cave. In the future, one can walk directly from the bamboo shed into the cave. She plans to build bamboo woven walls on the remaining three sides.

On the morning of the third day, Xu Xiaoyan took out a pair of work gloves from her space. She didn't need to wear gloves for the work she did the previous two days, but she would suffer if she didn't wear them for today's work.

With the protection of gloves, she quickly split several thin bamboo stalks open, then used the back of a watermelon knife to cut them in half along the bamboo fiber texture, and then split them into even thinner strips.

Splitting bamboo is a delicate task; if you use too much force, you'll easily split it crookedly, and if you use too little force, you won't split it at all. After splitting a few bamboos, she found a little trick.

First, make a small cut at the top of the bamboo. Then, hold the back of the knife with both hands and press down hard. The bamboo will then split neatly along the grain.

The bamboo strips she split varied in width, but she didn't strive for perfection; as long as they were usable, that was fine.

After splitting the bamboo strips, she began to weave the walls between the pillars. The weaving method was very simple, just crisscrossing horizontally and vertically, like weaving a basket.

First, fix the vertical bamboo strips between the upper and lower horizontal supports, about ten centimeters apart. Then, insert the horizontal bamboo strips one by one, alternating between the upper and lower supports.

When she was halfway through weaving, she stopped and looked at the gaps between the bamboo strips. They were just the right size, allowing air to pass through while blocking most of the view.

Xu Xiaoyan wanted this effect: well-ventilated yet not completely exposed. It took a full ten hours to weave the three bamboo walls.

Her fingers were pricked by bamboo splinters several times, and her gloves were covered with tiny bamboo splinters, but she didn't stop and finished weaving them all in one go.

On the fourth day, she began installing doors and windows.

The door was made by binding four thick bamboo poles together to form a rectangular frame, with thin bamboo strips woven tightly in the middle to form a door leaf that could be opened and closed and secured with rope.

She made the windows even simpler.

A 40-centimeter square hole was left in the north wall. Instead of installing a window sash, a roll-up curtain was made from a piece of plastic sheeting. It was rolled up for ventilation during the day and lowered to block the wind at night.

By the time everything was finished, the sun was already setting, and the light in the sinkhole had turned a warm golden yellow.

Xu Xiaoyan stepped back a few paces and stood at a distance, looking at the bamboo shed she had built herself.

Four pillars stood firmly on the ground, the dark green roof gleamed slightly in the sunlight, and the three bamboo woven walls had clear textures and were a mix of green and yellow.

She walked around the bamboo shed, checking each binding point. Some places were not tied tightly enough, so she reinforced them. The base of one pillar was a little loose, so she stuffed a few stones in to make it firm.

After confirming that there were no problems, she finally breathed a sigh of relief, feeling completely drained, and plopped down on the ground.

Xu Xiaoyan sat in front of the bamboo shed, leaning against the recessed stone wall, looking at the fruits of her labor all day.

The bamboo shed is not large, in fact, it is very small, less than ten square meters.

But she built it herself, she chopped down bamboo stalk by stalk, she made it with every single knife and axe.

Xu Xiaoyan sat there, feeling the cool evening breeze blowing in through the gaps in the bamboo wall, carrying the fragrance of bamboo and the scent of earth, blowing on her sweat-dampened shirt, cool and comfortable.

The hollow was pitch black, but she knew that when the sun rose tomorrow, sunlight would shine through the bamboo shed.

She finally has a place of her own.