It’s a beautiful sunny autumn afternoon. Everything about this day seems perfect for hammocking. Unfortunately, you don’t know how to hang up your hammock. What do you do now?

The Scoop recently chatted with Jenna Depriest, a sales associate at the Gearhead Outfitters store at the Battlefield Mall in Springfield, Missouri for some quick advice that will get you into your hammock before the winter season arrives.

1. Grab your hammock, find your trees, preferably 10 feet apart, depending on how low or high you want your hammock to hang.

All photos by Hope Boston

2. “Each hammock comes with two carabineers at each end of the hammock and your straps will come separately” said Depriest.

3. First, you need to start off with your straps. The straps will have two different ends “one is the one you actually put around the tree and the other would be what you would attach your carabineer to.” Just in case you have two trees that are very far apart two, you have a lot of choices.

4. Make sure to always match the lengths on the each side.

5. Once you’re finished with your hammock, “even though you have all this fabric, you can stuff it down into a little sack.”

“Pro-tip: take your carabineers and roll them once in the fabric and stuff it first so that it doesn’t scratch the hammock. If you want it to be more compact it also comes with a strap which makes it super easy for backpacking or camping just to be very compact and super light weight. And your straps will just roll up and go into their own little bag.”