Last Weekend was LONG

Since it is Friday and Alex's parents are coming up again this weekend to help with yurt construction I figured I better post last weekends photos.  If anyone ever tells you that making a yurt is easy or fun they are lying...  Last weekend was long and exhausting and I spent most of this week catching up on sleep and work that I should have done over the weekend.  Anyway, as for photos here it goes!

Completely unrelated to Yurt Building. 
This is me with our first Zucchini

Joanne bright eyed and bushy tailed ripping out a seam that
I messed up!

Me not so bright eyed trying to decide if I should go crazy
and kill the fabric...

Shows our setup after we relocated outside to prevent
dying of heat exhaustion inside the greenhouse

Joanne taking a break to stretch her back and Trigo
doing what she does best, napping under foot.

Alex manhandling the fabric out of the supply cart

Half of our wall is now completed. That is 30 feet of fabric
it weighs about 25 pounds right now.

Joanne is very happy with our accomplishment!



Zeus was so hot in his fur coat he spent the whole day under
the outdoor kitchen only sticking his
head out for food and water

The first part of Alex's center ring.  Since this photo he
has finished all the layers and laminated them together.

 Alex has also figured out that the rafters in our yurt will be Cedar that Scott and he will be harvesting from a neighbors property.  The neighbor is going to charge us 5 dollars per 9 foot length regardless of the width of the tree.  This is an amazing deal and we are super lucky that there is enough for the fence that Scott and Alex are building as well as the rafters for the yurt.

If anyone is interested in coming out to help us build a deck I would greatly appreciate it.  The sooner that Alex and I get this yurt done the less chance that I am going to go completely ape shit on everyone at Moose Pond.  I love them but woah.  More photos after this weekends adventure with the industrial sewing machine.

-Anna

roll cage and five point harness

Well, it is official.  Alex and I are now the proud owners of a vintage industrial sewing machine.

A Weekend of Hard Work

Alex and I had a weekend of hard work on the yurt.  One thing I have learned is that working outside (or even worse in the greenhouse) when it is in the mid 90's is not fun and not really conducive to quality work.  Regardless we made lots of progress and here are the pictures to prove it!

Alex working hard starting to plan the wood for the Center Ring

Doesn't he look just dashing?

A few more action shots, each of those boards is
about 10 feet long and he has 5 of them that he is working with

Why yes, that is a Green house we have been working in. 
The plants are really thriving on the hot humid conditions,
Alex and I however are not thriving

He is focusing really hard.
 One nice thing is that all the shavings that came off the
wood will be perfect for our toilet!

Before and After shots of the wood. 
The planer really did some amazing things to the wood,
 it actually looks like what you would buy at a store now!

The next step is to trim the edges to make sure that each board is square

You might not consider this dangerous,
but there is a family of wasps that lives
in the guide bar of the saw.
 Needless to say they don't like all the action.

Alex preserved and actually only got stung by one small honey bee.

I worked hard as usual. 
The book in my hand is Overbite by Meg Cabot,
a new vampire novel.

Sometimes I sit by the wood just to make it look
 like I am working on this yurt too.

Alex took one whole picture of me working on Sunday.
 I started sewing the fabric and window screens on. 
It is going well except I am going to need at least another five spools
of thread and like 10 more needles. 
Apparently punching through multiple layers of coated canvas
and fiberglass dulls the needle on my sewing machine exceptionally fast!

While I sewed Alex put together a test octagon of what the roof ring will look like. 

He is so proud that everything fit together
and he could now start working on the big "real" pieces of wood. 

Long Break but Welcome to July

The Blog has had a temporary hiatus since Alex and I have been super busy with work, weddings, and stress this summer...

Here is the yurt update...  Thigns were obviously going to smoothly with all the wood work etc..  When Alex and I started cutting the fabric we ran into problem after problem it was unreal!  After a lot of head scratching and attempts to square up the fabric we called it quits for the night, went to bed, and decided to think about the walls later.  Well after a few days break we went back to the wall fabric with a clear head.  Thank goodness we started having success. 

One problem that we figured out was that we had been using a tape measure to do the measuring and assuming the it was straight!  The tape measure the distinctly NOT straight and that was causing some serious "warping".  Once we realized our stupidity Alex and I pulled out the level, found a nice straight edge on a piece of scrap wood and began to use that.  All of a sudden it was a miracle we suddenly had a straight edge with no problems and all of our points began to line up!  We have now cut 9 of the 14 panels that we need for the walls. 

Feeling very successful we bought the screen and velcro so that we can start working on the wondows next.  Soon we will have a massive sewing project on our hands...  It will definitly take both of us to man handle 32 yards of fabric through the sewing machine!  Alex walked off this morning holding the plans for the center ring in his hand so I hope that means that he will be beginning work on that.  Besides making the platform/deck/whatever the hell we are putting the yurt on the center ring is the last piece of wood work. 

Wish us luck, and like always if you want to come up to ME to help us get this show on the road feel free.