Dome Sweet Dome

       More Letters From Paradise
           Dome Sweet Dome
      A popular book in the late sixties and early seventies was "Operating Manual For Spaceship Earth." Its author was  a professor at the U. of Illinois, named Buckminster Fuller.   In the book he wrote that we should look on our earth as if it was a spaceship hurtling through space.  And on the ship people had to rely on food, water etc.  Our job is to conserve and take care of our planet in order to survive. Good advice then, and even more so today.
       He is also the inventor of the geodesic dome. You know, those connections of triangles.   And that is where I come in.   I helped construct, and owned,  two domes.  I was part of the back to the land movement, and, as such, had a small farm.  I wanted a greenhouse.  I had learned much at the U. of Mich.:  How to graft, bud, seed propagation, etc.  I bet you didn't know that you can graft together a potato plant to a tomato plant, and have in a pot, tomatoes on the top, and potatoes on the bottom. That's because they belong to the same genetic family.  But now getting back to domes.
       My first dome was rather small and dumpy looking.   It was about 15 ft in diameter, and about 7 or 8 ft high. It was built out of 1x2 pine, and covered with white plastic.  To attach the triangles you had to drill two holes in each one, and then bolt them together.   It took a lot of time, and you had to have a ratchet.  When finished, it worked fine, that is, until one of my pigs got loose and punched a couple of holes in it.  So much for that one.
      The second dome was much bigger, 25 ft dia. and about 10 ft. high.  It was constructed of redwood, and covered with vinyl.   Two of my students helped me build this big one.  When finished, it looked like a giant soap bubble.   It was a Sunday when we put in the final bolt.  A wire was strung from the top of the dome to a long steel rod in the ground.  I would finish the tie downs after school Monday.  As luck would have it, a very powerful wind storm arose, and when I came home I found 109 triangles all over the field.  Would I build another if I had the chance?  No, I don't think so, been there and done that.
        Domes are really wonderful, the sense of space and the absence of walls. But domes have the problem of leaks where the triangles are joined. And our problem with the big dome was not tying it down, but also covering it with vinyl.  For that material does not block the sun's rays.  While working on it you could get a sunburn.  Still, it could have been painted with white wash as green houses do. Anyway, it was an adventure.
       Aloha
       Grant