Yurt Appliances on the Fly...and cheap!

One of the fun new activities we have added to our daily lives has been keeping an eye out for items we will need in the house. We are by no means rich, so going to a store and picking them out is not an option. We also enjoy the fun in finding them for a good deal and have met some really nice people.

As an example of keeping our eyes out is when we were returning from Maine, I was doing 60mph on the highway and Sarah tell me to stop and turn around because she saw a woodstove for sale. We turned around, found the woodstove siting in a wheelbarrow ouside of a swanky bed and breakfast place. They wanted too much and ultimately we didn't buy it, but I now know that she has eagle eyes.

We did end up getting a wood stove from a really nice guy in Glover. He was selling two, but had only advertised one at the time, so he showed us both and explained each one in detail. One of them was an antique and absolutely gorgeous, but wasn't airtight at all and would burn wood quickly. We were very tempted to buy this one despite that, but when he said that if we went to bed around 9:30, we would most likely need to restock it around 2:00am. That was when practicality set in and we passed it up.

The other wood stove is fairly non-descript, it is black, heavy, and has a glass window, the emblem says "king" and he said that it will work much better than the antique one as far as needing less wood and attention. It is no "all-nighter" wood stove, but for $100 we are very happy. So here she is...

hanging out in the garage until next spring when we put up the yurt!

She isn't the only new addition to our appliance family, we also have a stove! No wood needed for this one, just propane. Believe it or not, we also bought this one from another really nice older guy. He hooked it up and showed me everything. He did warn me that the oven may or may not work, but he wasn't sure since he never needed to use it in the sugarhouse. I took the risk and bought the stove thinking that even if it didn't work, it should be a quick,easy, and cheap fix. Besides, I only paid $25 for it. Unfortunately, I haven't been able to really test the oven, but it doesn't seem to be flowing propane to the oven and wouldn't light, so I called an appliance fixer and found out that they will basically fix the oven after they rob you of all your money. If we had a really expensive stove, I could understand the cost being nominal compared to the cost of replacing, but ours cost $25 and is a million years old. We will wait until we stumble upon someone who might know and be willing to help us fix it. Until then... here is our stove with a complimentary storage box!

And finally, we found a sink at our local resource store for $5, and boy does he shine! There are no faucets yet, but all of our new yurt appliances are quickly taking up space in our garage. Tada!

Please excuse the spare tire pedestal

So, that is where we are at! We are continuing to keep our eyes out for the remaining things that we need, but we aren't in too much of a rush and we are enjoying every minute of the search. I am especially enjoying the game of how many things can I fit in my subaru. So far, the wood stove, the ovenless stove, and everything else aside from the lumber has made it in my car and arrived safely to its temporary home. Hell yeah Subarus!

Tonight after work, Sarah and I will be heading over to the wood shop to work on the yurt since our week and a half hiatus, more updates to come!

Back from Maine

The day we all dread, the first day back to work after vacation! There has been no progression on the yurt, however our energy has been re-invigorated after a lovely trip to Maine. Sarah's birthday (month) is now over but we celebrated it well. We decided about 3 years ago that we would rather plan a trip for each other on birthdays instead of gifts. Since then, we have gone rock climbing, a cabin retreat on an icy blue river, downhill mountain biking, a long weekend in a yurt, and now our most recent trip to Maine staying at a dear friends beautiful second home. It would be easier to tell you what we didn't do, but I'll summarize it for you sake :)

Well, we left after work on Wednesday to maximize our time and after a short burst of panic as I wrote down the wrong route and had us going on a small detour, we made it to Barbara's home that she so kindly allowed us to stay in. It was perfect.  Quaint house, with an amazing view of a lush green pasture, and the most comfortable leather sofa and surround sound home movie theater. Ah, the luxuries! The next day we visited a convenient store/diner that we used to go to, Melby's. If you are ever in the Stoneham, ME area and looking for a great place to have breakfast, check it out.

   

After our exhausting, delicious breakfast we returned to the house and promptly took a much needed nap. It was just what we both needed. After we made up some of our deficit sleep hours, we received a call from our gracious host, with bad news. She owns an alpaca farm, and one of her yearlings was down and not able to move her hind legs so she would not be able to come to the house for dinner. Instead, we ended up driving to her home and having the dinner there with Julia, her daughter, and Bill, her husband, who we had never met before. We know Barbara through working at Sunday river. she was our supervisor, I worked as a ski instructor, and Sarah sold tickets. Therefore, we saw plenty of her and Julia, but Bill works elsewhere and we never had the chance to meet him. He didn't make it in the photo either, since he went to bed early. We may never have proof that he exists!

Now, back to the alapacas. First things first, we "helped" or hindered the vet in getting Laura, the baby alpaca, set up in the barn with some hay and a friend. She was so stinking cute, and her buddy Silver Star, or as I liked to call him, Silver Fox, was as handsome as could be! 

Baby Laura in her nest recovering. She had some kind of parasite that could kill her, but the vet gave her some serious antibiotics and a vigorous dose of some stuff that should hopefully help her. (My vet lingo is sub-par, sorry)

Silver Fox, her caretaker and friend.

Needles to say, the alpacas were very cute, but I have decided that they are very cat like, and much too cute for their own good. They enjoyed being just out of petting range and would huddle together and stare at you. Try having a dozen little eyes glued to you, when all you want to do is rub their little hair poofs. I did however, make away with their best asset, a couple bags of fiber! 

It was a fabulous night, but we had to leave and get back home since the next day we were going...SURFING! I wish I could attach pictures of the flailing that both of us did, or how we both were able to successfully stand up, but much to our dismay we were too busy surfing, so no pictures were taken. We went to Ogunquit and the surf shop was Liquid Dreams, we highly recommend them. Of course, we enjoyed some delicious seafood while we were there.  I am assuming that you guys might not want to see another picture of us eating.. Sarah wouldn't love the picture either. 

To finish off our trip, we went on a short hike to a natural waterslide, glacial waterfall area. It was absolutely amazing. The views were incredible. The waterslides were pretty fun too :)

So that was our vacation! 

We have now returned to the "real" world and an update on the yurt progress will come soon!