Photos to Accompany the finished yurt

Alex working hard in our living room to cut
the panels out of the plexiglass for the
sky light

Putting the skylight together.  There are 5 panels
4 panels of plexiglass and one that is sheet
metal that the stove pipe will go through.

Cutting some sheet metal into a circle to cover the very top
of the skylight

Alex's sheet metal cutting tools. 

A test fit for the stove pipe. 
It looks kind of massive sitting here on my floor
but it isn't really so weird. 

The stove, kind of ugly but free and delivered straight to the
yurts front door via the mighty mahindra tractor,
of course that was after Alex dug the stove out of a rather
large snow pile

A view from the inside with the skylight
 and stove pipe in place

The outside.  Alex nicely cleared that path on the
roof by dragging the skylight up the front there.
Very effective for clearing the snow off.
Oh and there is a Jasper in this picture
for a size comparison

Close up of the skylight and stove pipe

A view of the yurt in the distance.  It would be cooler
if the yurt was sitting on the rocks I sweated to
move into place further in the woods but whatever

The yurt survived its first ice storm.  Unfortunately
I don't think this will be the last ice storm it sees
this winter. 

The door being put together in the green house

A view if the inside of the door

The outside of the completed door

Propped up against the yurt waiting for installation.  The
brackets have already been put onto the side of the yurt

The inside with the door attached.  The yurt gets a lot of natural sunlight
it is pretty awesome. 

Awww isn't it cute. 

The stove in the center.  Obviously it hasn't been
lit yet since the floor is still covered in snow.
Alex has been using the emergency shovel
from my car to shovel the snow out of the yurt.

After another large snowfall

Alex lit the stove up for the first time and nothing catastrophic happened
pretty cool right?

HIs car parked next to the fence he built to keep the deer out. 

Yurt is finished!

Alex has been working amazingly hard on the yurt this last month.  I think partially out of desperation.  As it has gotten colder and snowier up here in Maine he just wanted to done and set up.  We are officially declaring it done, even though there are a few small touch-ups that still need to be done.  But lets be honest, aren't there always a few minor things to work on!  I am sure my cousin Megan would agree with that statement, she just bought her first house and has also been working very hard on it! 

PicasaWeb is being silly and not allowing me to upload the photos onto the blog so in the meantime a bit more about the yurt.  The stove has been installed but it will still need to have the stove pipe completely caulked into place.  Alex bought a fire mat thing to put under the stove and now he just needs to get a few people to help lift the stove so that the mat can be slid underneath.  Even without the mat he did a test firing of the stove the other day and it worked just fine.  It didn't even fill the yurt up with too much smoke!

We are still debating whether the stove will keep the yurt warm enough for me to possibly come over for a weekend camp out this winter.  I still haven't seen the completed yurt, actually I haven't seen it once in person since he has set it up a few months ago...  If Scott and Zizi ever leave to go to Mexico like they were planning to I will definitely come check it out.  In the meantime I just really haven't felt like it...  I know that is a little immature of me but the truth is the truth.

While Alex's sister was living with us she did a bunch of work to help raise the yurt as well.  Going out in the snow and freezing cold with Alex to raise the roof beams.  Personally I have never been so happy that I need to work 10-5 every day in my life.  It was bloody cold out there!

Yesterday Alex went on a walk in the woods searching for the perfect door handle for the inside of the yurt.  He claims to have found one that is just lovely and has a perfect bend in it :)  There are some rumors floating around our apartment that Alex will bring his kickwheel into the yurt so that he can spend some weekends throwing pots.  I have to admit that his yurt would be a wicked awesome studio.

On another note, Alex would really like to make a few more of these now that he has "worked out the kinks"  So if you or anyone you know is in the market for a hand made in Maine yurt let us know and we can work out a fair cost (probably not too much more then the raw materials).  Plus as an added bonus I will throw in Alex setting up said yurt for free!  Woot.  How is that for a bargain.  For an extra 50 bucks he'll even take his shirt off while he works...  Nah, I'm just messing, he'll keep his shirt on while he works. 

I hope everyone has enjoyed watching the yurt come together.  I can honestly say I have loved watching Alex work on it.  Who knew I was dating such a smart guy!  In a moment I will switch browsers and see if I can post some photos to show how everything wrapped up.

Don't forget to keep watching the blog for more yurt adventures, though at this point our adventures will probably be of the camping variety.  Plus we have a friend who has a yurt up on Sebec Lake in Maine which we are considering cross country skiing out to for a weekend.  There will definitely be some awesome photos of that.

Yurt Photos

Alex uploaded 79 pictures of the yurt with captions to his Picasa web album.  So I'm not going to recreate the wheel here.  If you would like to see the yurt essentially finished check it out here:  https://picasaweb.google.com/105887024639551658307/Yurt02#  All that is missing is the door, and the skylight.

Woot!

Update on How my Life went to Hell in a weekend.

I know some of you have been wondering what the hell happened since Thursday night which has caused me to start apartment hunting (and I did find a nice one today though a little expensive for me).  So here is a recap about the last 5 days.

Thursday:
Alex and I packed the cats up after work and took them to Anabees for the weekend since we were going to the Common Ground Fair up in Unity.  We were supposed to pick them up on Sunday from the cat hotel.  Alex and I drove to Waterville checked into a motel and spent the evening watching bad cable television while planning our weekend at the fair. 

Friday:
We got to the fair bright and early with sun shiny faces since we were both doing a volunteer shift in the morning.  I was working as a ticket taker at the Pine Gate, and Alex was doing composting.  After our respective shifts ended we went and saw the bunny barn (which I love) and a few other animals.  We ate a delicious falafel, some Maple Sugar Candy and lots of other goodies.  Around 3 o clock Alex went to the bathroom and I sat under a tree, he vanished for like half an hour and when he returned he was all stormy and freaking out.  Apparently Tim and Lili (the people who own the camp) had come up for a long weekend, Friday- Tuesday.  Alex and I didn't know they were coming so we didn't remove our stuff or "clean up."  Tim and Lili legitimately freaked out on us.  Alex offered to come down that evening and clean everythign up move our stuff he could have been there by 5.  Zizi said that no no everything was fine, she would clean it up no problems no hard feelings. 

Saturday:
Alex and I went back to the fair and had a mediocre day worring about what would happen when we got home.

Sunday: 
We had a slightly better day at the fair, though not by much.  We were nervous about going back and needing to see Tim, Lili, and Zizi so we left just after noon and headed home.  When we got there we ran into Tim and Lili and it was far worse then I imagined (though Alex said that it wasn't worse then hed imagined).  We got yelled at, told that the cats are NEVER allowed back in the camp.  That we had been disrespectful to the space because we had been using their things (cups plates, bowls, pans etc)  That the condition the camp was in was unexcusable (it wasn't that bad I swear) etc.  Finally they left saying that Zizi would talk to us about how we are going to "move forward" in the future.  Zizi of course wasn't home so we sat around for over 2 and a half hours waiting for her to get there and for us to get reamed out once again.

Zizi didn't have much to say to us, just that there were definitely some problems that we were going to need to work out since we are living as a community and there need to be ground rules and oh yeah your cats aren't allowed back.  Alex said he would talk to her more on Monday to hash things out.  Me I said nothing went to bed slept 12 hours and cried a lot. 

Monday:
I went to work upset and Alex said he would talk to me after he spoke to Zizi.  At lunch I got about half of the story from him that basically I was the problem and either had to drastically change my personality and actions and start being more of a community member or I wasn't welcome back.  But of course Alex was cool and they really want him to keep living there because hes awesome.  I spent the rest of the day at work crying every time someone looked at me and was so bad that my boss tried to send me home and I burst into tears sobbing that I didn't have a home and had no place to go.  I must have looked really awful because she let me know that she has a spare bedroom in her house and to call her if I need a place to stay for awhile.  In between crying I spent the rest of the afternoon looking for apartments in town. 

After work Alex took me to visit my cats at Anabees.  They were really happy and had been socializing with her cats and making friends.  Phil cat always knows when I am upset and he let me hold him and rub my snotty face all over him for a half hour.  I paid Anabee for the time that the cats had been there already and told her I would be back for a visit on Thursday.  After that Alex told me all the rest of his conversation which involved a whole lot more of everything Anna has done wrong and everything that is wrong about me.  Then he got to the best part that Zizi had told him that three cats are too many cats in general and that if we were going to stay we had to get rid of at least one of them.  Well obviously that was a deal breaker for me since I refuse to abandon a cat so I stopped crying and starting calling apartments and scheduling tours for today. 

Tuesday:
Went to work, apologized to everyone for crying everywhere yesterday and explained what was happening.  I saw one apartment that I liked today it is a 2 bedroom for 725 a month.  After work I am looking at another one that is a bit closer to the library and is a 1 bedroom for 675. 

And that is how my whole life went to hell in a weekend.  As for the yurt as long as I didn't screw things up for alexs job at the farm he plans to keep building it at least to see it to completion and prove that we rocked.  After that who knows what will happen. 

 

Patience

Anybody who knows me from growing up knows that I have absolutely no patience what so ever.  The end.  If it can't be done right now and be completed within an hour I don't want to hear about it.  This might be why it is so odd that I have agreed to undertake this yurt building (fiasco) with Alex.  I apologize to everyone who unwittingly has asked me how the yurt is going in the last two weeks.  There is a good chance I tried to bite your nose off, occasionally I might have even lunged for your throat trying to stangle the good intentions out of you. 

Fear not, I am trying to relax.

Part of what that means is that I am pretty resigned to the fact that it could be spring 2014 before I actually have a yurt to live in, and part of it is also that it is easier to just ignore this whole yurt "thang."  Having said that, I love my gym membership.  After five months without a shower I really like to be able to get clean without needing to ask permission to use the hot tub, or stand out getting eaten alive by mosquitoes while I try to wash my hair. 

This weekend and next weekend I am declaring a much needed yurt break.  This weekend I am going to hang out, perhaps go shopping, and go apple picking.  Next weekend I am going to go to the Common Ground Fair up here in Maine.  If you want a fun time check out the CGF in Unity Maine it is a super cool weekend with some amazing crafts and food. 

Since I assume in the two long weeks between these events nothing will get done in terms of cutting the wood we need for the platform I will reevaluate whether I should stab Scott in the eye with a pencil the last week of September in order to go to Home Depot and just buy lumber. 

Anyway until the yurt is up I would recommend the "duck and cover" method of speaking to me since I am a little bit volatile right now...  Or perhaps just bring me some damn cookies and I will be as happy as a kitten!

-Anna

Hard Core Grump attack

Yesterday I checked the weather and it said that it would be warm and sunny all week.  All I could think was "Thank God, maybe we will get some work done this week."  Of course I woke up this morning and all that was going on outside was rain.  It was pouring out and according to the weather today, it is supposed to rain all week.  How screwed up is that?  Since Alex and I began building this yurt it is like we just can't win regarding the weather, progress, materials, everything.  Every step of our yurt has been a hurdle.

After I got home from work on Tuesday Alex and I went out to "the Site" as we now refer to it, and decided that it was time to put the big behemoth in it's hole.  It was the one rock that was still sitting next to its hole since we couldn't face needing to move it again.  My opinion had been that we should just flip the rock in over the weekend when we had the tractor out there.  Alex's dad though thought that we should put the rocks near the hole and then carefully consider what we were going to do with them.  My response, "What am I going to do with it?  I am going to put the massive 200+ pound rock in the damn hole we dug and toss a platform on top and call it good."  Alex and his parents seem to think that I have a lackadaisical approach to yurt building.

I honestly don't care about square or level, if I never heard the words "shim", "shore it up", or "plumb" ever again I would be so happy.  I mean lets face it I know that this is going to be my home but essentially this is a tent platform, not rocket science.  I don't plan to live here forever, and if that changes I will build something better on land that I actually own instead of pouring all my time and energy into what is essentially a temporary dwelling. I would like it to be as pretty as the next person but my patience has limits.

This weekend is Scott and Zizi's annual Harvest Festival.  If you asked me in May if I would be in my Yurt by the time of the Harvest Festival I would have said hell yeah.  No question about it.  Now however we are going into our 4th month of yurt construction and we seem essentially no closer then we were in July.  At this point I don't even know where we are going to stay for the Harvest Festival since Lili and a friend is coming up for the weekend (we hope starting on Friday not on Thursday) and will be staying at the camp.  Which means that once again we need to board the cats with Anabee, pack up all of our shit and haul it out.  Personally I want to just start moving all of  my stuff to the new site and be done with the camp.  I am sick of this moving in and moving out business.  Hell I am kind of sick of living on someone else's land and this is only the beginning.  I still have a long time of living on land that isn't ours if everything goes according to plan. 

It's not that I don't like living at Moose Pond, I am merely tired of not having a "home" of my own.  I was watching Katherine eat lunch at work today and she was having an Enchilada and all I could think of was damn, its been four months since I have been able to bake an enchilada.  I used to make them all the time since Alex and I both like it, but not anymore :(  Now it is a waiting game to see what happens first, a yurt appears, or I go to jail for murdering someone in their sleep.

Love
Anna

Labor Day, Or Should I Say Labor Days

This weekend was another epic adventure.  It was a three day weekend thanks to Labor Day so we had an extra day to toil...  Alexs parents came up to help us again and we effectively beat them up.  This weekend is best told in pictures, especially since it is all starting to blur in my very sore head.  

I believe that these pictures are not in Chronological order of any form so here is the general rundown:  Saturday= clearing land and chainsawing, Sunday= Laying out the 24 x 24 deck outline and choosing locations for pillars, and digging holes for the rocks.  Monday= moving large amounts of rocks and leveling them.

Alex and his dad admiring a hole they are digging
for a rock.

Alex maneuvering the tractor to bring in the rocks.

The behemoth finally in the bucket and ready for relocation.

Another rock waiting for relocation.

Alex hanging pushing off the tree to try and load the rock.
 Notice that neither foot is actually on the ground in this picture...

More pushing.

A break to play with the cats inside.

Alex tickling Noodle.

Ha, Alex's new raincoat a gift from his mother.
 He also has the matching pants. 

Just some of the wood we cleared out of the yurt site. 
This stuff is all waiting to be chopped into firewood.

A few of the logs that we didn't saw up yet,
 these are going to be the load bearing parts of the platform.

We did need to carry them out of the
 way so that we could start laying out the outline of the platform.

I believe Alex is attacking a stump with a shovel.

Anna learning how to use the pulp
hooks to drag logs.

It was still quite hard to drag since
you only use one hand.

Alex demonstrating how to use two pulphooks to carry logs. 

This is actually significantly easier then the
dragging method as long as the log is short
enough that your arms can reach both ends.

A break from log dragging to take a photo.

Alex and his mom eating breakfast on Sunday,
Spinach and cheese omlettes (yuck)

My breakfast.  This used to be a dozen donuts.

Showing off my mad chainsaw skills. 
I am actually quite good at the chainsaw if you ignore
 the fact that I don't have the arm strength to
start the stupid thing.

Alex sawing down the stumps so that
 they will be hidden under the platform

Alex's mom raking the forest floor so
that we have a nice clean home. 

Trying to obtain a "square" and falling miserably. 
My opinion who cares if it is square just toss that shit
down and nail it in place. 

I was overruled and we spent about 3 hours laying
out the lines, measuring, and making things level. 
I'm still not quite sure why but I suppose they had there reasons. 

Joanne laying lines.

Anna and Jasper sitting outside the box. 
We had given up trying to help and were reduced to shredding leaves. 

We are very skilled at leaf ripping. 
This might be the longest Jasper and I have ever spent together.

And the hole digging commences.

Alex shoveling dirt out of our hole. 
We needed to dig seven 2 ft deep holes for the pillars.

The center ring all notched and ready to go,
 This is actually from a while ago but I never took a
photo of it.  Alex did all the notching by hand.

It looks like a fancy cog wheel.

Demonstration of how the rafters will work.

His mom and dad were very impressed.

More shots of the tactor and rocks. 
We spent 3 hours moving the rocks just into the site.

I think your tractors sexy...