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...