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...

Hurricane Irene

It seems that there is always something to ruin my plans.  Scott and Zizi, Jasper, work, rain, or in this case Hurricane Irene.  Now I love a good natural disaster as much as the next person, though as far as I am concerned this Sunday was hardly a natural disaster.  I mean seriously it was only a tropical storm, big deal.  Enough babbling about our hurricane or lack there of. 

Alex finished everything that needs to be done on the yurt except for the platform.  The rafters have been cut, notched, and shaped.  The walls are sewn.  The roof fabric waiting to be appropriately draped. The lattice complete.  All in all we are done.  However, due to the impending doom this last weekend we couldn't actually set the yurt up and make any use of it. 

This weekend, come hell or hurricane, the yurt is going up.  Alex and I are still in disagreement about where to set up the yurt.  He thinks that it would be best, and quickest to set up the yurt on the Pond House Frame because at least then we would be able to move out of the camp as quick as possible.  I think it would be best to just jimmy together a platform real quick in the yurts final location and put it up there so that we don't need to take the whole damn thing down and move it again.  Since we all know that yurts cause pain and heartache, I figure the less we deal with the stupid thing the happier we all will be.  With the exception of still not being quite sure how the roof is going to be sewn on, and a couple hundred grommets left to attach everything should go real smoothly. 

It will go especially smoothly if we have a whole bunch of willing workers standing by our sides helping to nail and hoist etc...  Don't take this the wrong way, I want manual labor, I don't want any form of higher thought or reasoning.  I am especially certain the I don't want any advice about how the yurt should be constructed.  Alex and I are perfectly content to wallow through this adventure with our heads up our asses ignoring well meaning advice...  Plus, it has been noted before that I tend to react to well meaning advice like a lion to a gazelle, I may or may not rip you to shreds over it, it fully depends on my mood. 

Now if that wasn't a weird enough yurt update I will blame it on excess rain, and cleaning up cat puke all weekend.  And now I will get back to cat puke clean up duty.  If you feel the urge to come help us Yurt it Up let me know and I will make certain that there are plenty of donuts waiting...

My parents are visiting...

A quick update on a Friday before my parents come up to Maine for a week.  Alex and I actually finished the center ring more than a week ago but I couldn't find my camera, then I couldn't find the charger, blah blah blah.  Needless to say that the photos didn't go up so here they are!

Alex putting a new saw blade in the jigsaw cutter thing.

Adding grommets to the wall fabric.

A beautifully finished grommet.  Isn't
it cute?

Ah the center ring now shaped like a ring...  It came out really
well, we sanded the whole thing and then I ran around the
Greenhouse spinning it because well, it's a giant wheel...

Close up of alex's handiwork.  That is three layers of board
laminated together to make the ring.

Of course the beauty shot...  Anna posing
with her toy ring.  Make sure to notice
the hard hat, and rain boots.  I am quite darling.

It has been a long time

I haven't posted anything in awhile, since nothing has really happened in awhile.  Alex and I received the roof fabric but can't do anything with it until we can set up the yurt (this requires rafters) and see how we want to sew it.  The industrial sewing machine is waiting patiently for us to get our butts in gear and come use it! 

Scott and Zizi needed the cart back that we had been using to store all of our fabric and materials etc...  So now Alex's car is filled to capacity with a 106 pound cube of roof fabric and another 60 pounds of wall fabric.

I was really hoping to have this yurt up and done for when Mom and Dad come to Maine this weekend, but that is definitely not going to happen.  Scott hasn't gotten his act together yet so we don't have rafters cut (unless by some miracle they did them today) and we don't have a platform built yet.  I suggested to Alex that we buy a nail gun because it would be faster for putting the platform together and he was all like I want to see you explaining that to Scott.  Then he pointed out that he was going to use screws anyway not nails. 

I can safely say that I don't have a clue what I am doing when it comes to the wood aspect of this project, all I know is that I need a house. 

I had a slight meltdown on Tuesday when I realized that we would not be done, our cabin was making me claustrophobic, and I genuinely hate everyone who lives at Moose Pond.  It is a good thing that we don't have Internet at home, or you would know the full extent of everything I was thinking, which trust me would not be good to have written down.  Alex took it all in stride though making me a nice campfire and bringing over Noodle for me to pet. 

Now that I am ignoring our unfinished yurt, I have moved onto thinking about things that I can comprehend like furniture, and spending money.  My two favorite things.  Maybe I will even get to do some very expensive shopping while my parents are up.  We need a sink and a gas cook stove that doesn't require electricity.  I need like twelve bookcases because as Alex says, "I am deeply disturbed by the number of books laying near your side of the bed."  I counted and there were only 17 including picture books.  That honestly didn't seem too bad to me but apparently it is. 

Since our yurt is oddly shaped, and an odd height we are making all of our tables and furniture custom so that it fits.  This means that I will have the worlds most beautiful bookcases and table should we ever get around to building them.  I drew Alex some pictures of what I want the furniture to look like and he burst out laughing and told me that I really should have taken a drawing class when I was in college because those are awful.  I didn't think that the sketches were so bad, and they mostly got the point across.  Now it is up to him to make furniture that is as beautiful as my drawings...

I just had a birthday and one of the presents I got was Creative Memories Digital Scrapbooking software so that I will be able to make some really snazzy yurt scrapbooks!  Thanks Mom and Aunt Mary.  Now we just need to finish this endless project so that I can start scrapbooking it with photos and snarky comments...

Yurtingly,

Anna

Yurt adventures from July 29-31

Jasper helping

Notice the always fashionable blue paint on Jaspers face

Sustenance is a key part of the yurt building
process.  In order to get ready for our weekend
I stopped at Georgios bakery in Auburn ME
after we picked up the sewing machine and
bought a dozen donuts.  Alex's mom asked me
what I was going to do with a dozen donuts,
I said that I was going to eat them of course!

You know it is ironic that all the pictures of someone sewing is
Alex since I actually did 90% of the sewing.  However, I am
also the only person who seems to ever take pictures.  Alex does
work hard though when he sews. 

Pete and Joanne hanging out in the shade cooling
off and having a pow wow about how Alex and I
can best put this yurt together and get it up and
functioning. 

In order to check that the yurt is going well Alex decided
that we should unroll the fabric and take a look at how
it is coming together. 

Alex doing some sewing machine maintenance after we
managed to mess up the tension.  Luckily I found a
manual for the machine online and Alex successfully readjusted
all of the tensions.

Alex demonstrating for his parents how his new machine works.
He was very proud that he got it all set up and working.  The
Singer easily sews through 6-8 layers of fabric. 

Alex showing off his mad muscles by carrying
all the fabric himself.

The completed wall fabric.  All that is left
to do is to hem the top and bottom and
install the grommets.

The mobile sewing factory.  Look how nicely everything
fits within the back of the Honda!  Just because the Honda
isn't running doesn't mean that it doesn't serve a purpose.

I was attacked and successfully squished by the wall fabric. 
Luckily I managed to get to a window so that I could
still breathe.

At the end of the day I still feel good and give the sewing
machine and all of our work two thumbs up!
Hell yeah Singer you are our hero!

Just the singer logo makes Alex happy

It looks good doesn't it.  We have done a lot
of work and come a long way. 

Yesterday Alex began to cut down the Cedar for the roof rafters.  He was happy to find that a lot of the cedar was actually dead and still standing so it is very dry.  All we will need to do is cut the poles down to size and slap them up on the ceiling.  We still need to buy a 100 feet of air craft cable but we are making good progress...