Hana quickly end her wild thoughts and started by cutting the bamboo pole to match the length of the first five bamboos she had prepared previously. Then, she stood up and surveyed her surroundings.
[This side would do!] She moved away all her cluttered foodstuff on the floor to the side and started measuring using her arms and feet (1).
She used a charcoal to mark six positions on the dirt cave floor just beside the cave wall. If one connected the marks, one would find an elongated slightly bent rectangular shape being formed, where two marks would be adjacent to one another at a distance of one arm's length. These points would be the foundational base of the rack.
After she was satisfied with the positioning, she immediately dug into the marked position by loosening the earth with the short claw knife.
[Oh my, it was just like scrambling jello. So easy!] Hana happily loosened the earth while humming happily. For once, she felt making this DIY shelf would be much easier than an IKEA's shelf. Truly, the mentality was what mattered.
Once she finished, she planted the base of each bamboo poles vertically on all six location. She then measured the length between each pole horizontally from one point to another, while jotting down the information into the self-drawn diagram. After spending some time to calculate the number of bamboos needed, she walked out of her cave dwelling to choose the right bamboos to be brought in. It was already extremely dark. Hana just illuminated the outside of her dwelling with her loyal smartphone's torchlight facing upwards.
This time, she ferried long medium sized bamboo poles of the same sizes inside with Shiro's help. The aunty was in a positive lighthearted mood at the moment. Her work had never felt easier with her pets giving full cooperation and her new mini kitchen knife being so sharp and sturdy. She could now fully understand the concept of how 'clothes makes a man'. It turned out, it should be 'how a kitchen knife makes a housewife' instead.
Once enough amount of bamboo poles was ferried in, she stopped Shiro and proceed to slice the bamboo to half each. She then measured and cut the according to the length written in her notepad. While she was cutting the bamboos, she asked Kuro who was practicing its electricity to forage some more sturdy vines for her. The sweet little snake obliged happily, eager to be of help to its mistress.
Once the halved bamboos were done, she started making smaller strips now. Surprisingly, our 'lazy-to-the-bone' MC was striving hard this time. She did so well until she made a whole bundle of strips in a trance. Our aunty was actually 'savoring' the new knife. She did exactly the same thing when she received her knife set from Arash nearly ten years ago. At that moment, she had cooked heavily for two whole weeks. In a way, she was showing the gifter how she loved her knife by using them wholeheartedly.
A loud dragging sound disturbed Hana from her trance-like work, making her turned her face towards the cave entrance in panic.
Ohhh… it's just her snake pet dragging a whole bunch of rattan-like vines! The sound made was due to Kuro forcefully pulling the big bundle of vines pre-ordered from its mistress inside. The vines were stuck at the entrance. Hana, with Shiro by her side, stared blankly at the comical action of the snake. It pulled once, it pulled twice, it pulled trice!
The vines finally came through while the hardworking snake tumbled in together. It flew through the air and landed suavely on Hana's lap, just like a gymnast showing off its moves. Kuro raised its head high, expecting a praise from its mommy. Hana chuckled lightheartedly. The little one was so funny and hardworking. Kuro always went for the extra mile with each of her requests. It made the little snake extremely adorable and cute.
Huffing a pleasant sigh, Hana said sheepishly, "What can I do without you guys by my side...", as she rubbed Kuro's head dotingly.
Hana didn't realize she had only used half an hour to produce so much bamboo strips for the skeleton of the shelf. She started to peel the vines to finer strips to bind the bamboo strips later. She couldn't just use her clingwrap rope forever, it won't be enough.
Hana planned for a shorter-lengthed rack on the left side of the shelf while she made a larger one on her right. The shelf she made was a two-column segmented shelf, with a double bamboo poles as the middle skeleton. This was so that the left side will accommodate the two filters, while for the right side will be used to keep her sundry things and other foraged materials in an orderly manner.
For the left side which will house the filter bamboo canister, the horizontal poles must be closer to each other to support the body of the filter. The filter must also be suspended at a sufficient level; not too high and not too low. Too high will make it difficult for her to pour water at the top of the filter. If the filter was too low, then, she must make a small water reservoir. The small water reservoir needed to be wide to contain more water within, which will take up space. Moreover, dirt could easily enter a short and small water reservoir as compared to a taller one.
Once all the necessary items were prepared, Hana enthusiastically made her first ever filter rack cum shelf. She started to tie halved bamboo poles from the bottom to the top systematically, totaling up to four horizontal rows on the right side, and three horizontal rows on the left side. On the left side, the three rows followed the bottom first pole, bottom second pole, and the highest pole. Hana purposely left the third pole out because it will be easier to place the filter into the rack later. She then added an extra row on the left column in between the first and the second bottom pole to secure the soon-to-be housed filter.
After measuring the diameter of the filter canisters, she added a few centimeters and affixed three more vertical poles to make a snug square housing for both filters side by side. She then added some horizontal bamboo strips at the same level of the second horizontal row with the intention of stabilizing the vertical poles.
[Shall I test this structure?] She thought excitedly. The rest of the rows just needed some bamboo strip weavings to complete them. Hana felt that she needed to test the integrity of the structure first before doing anything else. At this point, if mistakes occurred, she could still undo them.
Hana took the first filter from the makeshift filter rack carefully by gently cutting the bamboo poles she used to hold the rack together. She sliced horizontally twice, from top to bottom, to retrieve the first filter. Filtered water leaked through, but Hana paid no mind to it. She immediately transferred the filter to the other filter rack by sliding it into the housing from the top. Hana let go of her hands a bit at a time, afraid that the whole structure might tumble down if she was not careful.
"Huhhhhh..." She was relieved when nothing happens.
She went to fetch the other filter and placed it beside the first one. Just to be safe, she tied the filters together with some vines.
Feeling elated, she wiped the accumulated sweat from her forehead with the end of her yellow shirt while exclaiming happily. "Yay! It's done!"
She immediately calmed down after a moment of happiness. The shelf part was still unfinished. It was too early to be happy. She needed to double up a little.
After that, Hana arranged long strips of bamboo horizontally on each row; around four strips each and tied them up one by one with a thin layer of vines. Then she took some more bamboo strips and weaved from the opposite side, just like weaving paper mats during craft session when she was a kid. She cut off the leftover jutted strips with her knife when the whole level was done. Hana was very satisfied; when she ran through her knife, she felt almost no resistance. It was akin to cutting butter with a hot knife.
Half an hour later, the jolly aunty had finally finished weaving bamboo strips on all levels on the right side of the shelf. For the left side housing the filter, Hana only added two halved bamboo poles at the highest part of the shelf, totaling up to four bamboos. It was better to use that part to hang dried ingredients or even the meager amount of clothes she had after a good wash. The lowest row of the left side was layered with more bamboo strips horizontally as they were important to support the weight of the filter and make them suspended midair.
Hana looked at the small mini knife in her left hand fondly. Truly, with a good knife, everything became easier.
Hana realized she had finished making a regular sized DIY double-columned shelf by herself in about one hour.
[It's a miracle! Arash must be proud of me 😊.]
....
Author's Note:
(1) measuring using her arms and feet = the measurement of feet/inch/yard existed using the old system, but not prevalent, once Malaysia has adopted the metric system (SI unit). In here, Hana demonstrates her knowledge of using her own body parts and measurement, just like an old fashioned people.