LAURIE MUSTARD / WINNIPEG FREE PRESS
Inside, Grandpa Mountain has a lamp, heater for winter, fan for summer and even carpet on the floor.
Reading today’s column may just save your life!
If it does, I will graciously not refuse your thanking me by e-transferring a goodly amount of cash to my email below. I promise to use it for charity. Cough...
OK, seriously now. This climate change that some truly "brilliant" brains are refusing to acknowledge is happening is making Manitoba’s weather moodier every year.
Wind shears, tornadoes and increasingly more aggressive weather are visiting our little homes on the Prairies much more often. It used to be relatively safe to live in a trailer park in Manitoba. Not so much anymore.
What to do, what to do?
You’ll be happy to hear I have a dual-purpose solution for you.
Build a mountain, with a disaster — natural or otherwise — shelter in it.
Eh?
Now, I didn’t originally set out to build a shelter, I wanted to build a "mountain" with a cool fort in it for the grandkids to enjoy. A friend of mine — who had just sold his water and sewer biz — had an unused 1,500-gallon concrete "factory-second" cistern left over, which I spotted and asked if it might be available.
"It’s yours," he said with a smile. "Take it away."
A heavy-duty-construction buddy was able to move it for me (this is not snowmobile-trailer material), and when it arrived in my yard, I got him to set it in a way that the opening was on the side, not the top. I had power run to it, then started the "Clean Phil Wanted" thing.
Every wife with a hubby named Phil should have a T-shirt with that on it.
It took many loads of scrounged fill to bury that baby. I was stalking dump trucks at soil-excavation sites. I found that if the haul (to my place) was shorter than the haul to their other dump site, they were more than happy to deliver.
Bottom line: I finally got it covered, shaped via skid-steer, bought some lawn-type soil to top it all off, spread that, also spread $150 worth of special ditch-type grass seed on it, then hand-raked that in for added effectiveness.
Rain was imminent. Hurray! Rain didn’t come, big wind instead; about 1/3 of the top soil and most of the grass seed gone with the wind. Sag. Bad words.
Nevertheless, I’m slowly winning the battle with the weeds and Grandpa Mountain is looking more park-like every year. The main work in progress presently is to plant bushes around the entrance, hiding it so only a select few know the "fort" is in there.
Before burying it, I also added a concrete culvert and an old stainless steel water tank — ends removed — to make a tunnel entrance (buried) to the opening.
There’s some furniture inside — a lamp, heater for winter, fan for summer, even carpet on the floor. High enough in there for your average adult to walk around.
The kids ride over Grandpa Mountain in summer and toboggan down it in winter. So much fun.
It is, however, also an excellent tornado shelter in case someday the big one comes. My luck? It will hit while I’m asleep in the house, taking me far, far away, while all my neighbours chill comfortably, and safe, in Grandpa Mountain.
Should you have an old cistern on your property no longer being used, empty it and keep it prepped for emergency use. Just remember, we’re talking about a water tank here. Climbing into an old septic tank may kill you quicker and uglier than a tornado.
Purchasing and adapting water cisterns for Grandpa Mountain-style shelters for trailer parks, campgrounds etc. might be really worthwhile, although there should be one designed with a more user-friendly entry, because not everyone can fit through the current opening. Just sayin’...
Comments or feedback, love to hear from you!
lmustard1948@gmail.com
