We are building a Yurt!

The topic of a yurt came up a few years ago when I began obsessively researching yurts, how to build yurts, floor plans, and the scarce but informative blogs that others have created to map their journeys of yurt living. I quickly decided that I wanted to build and live in a yurt, my partner however was not so sure if the yurt life was for her. After some time and a considerable amount of research, we have both decided that building a yurt will be a great way for us to save money and move in to a house of our own. Since we both work at jobs we love rather than jobs that pay, we have hit a roadblock in terms of buying our own land.

I work at Green River Reservoir State Park as the Park Steward during the summer and have worked at ski resorts across the counrty as a ski instructor for the past 6 years. Although I am not sure about my future employment since I have just recently graduated from Sterling College, and currently on the search for a "real-ish" job.

                                                                     That's me in the middle. 

 Sarah is a farmer, she works at Elmore Roots, a fruit tree nursery, in Elmore, VT and has previously worked at many organic vegetable farms before she found her passion of fruit trees. I have it pretty good with her being a farmer. Fresh fruit and veggies, I just have to help with the digging and harvesting, the planning, brainwork, and weeding is all her. 

Together we have our "zoo" which is our 2 cat-daguhters Floki and Garden, and our pup Silas. 

Floki was the first child who was a birthday gift to Sarah on her 21st birthday. In her mind, she is the queen of all dog beds, water bowls, and window protector of the house. She is a princess, in Sarah's mind. 

Garden is our dumpster kitty. I found her under a dumpster in Hardwick one rainy and cold spring evening. Much to Sarah's chagrin, I brought the sopping wet, dread-locked, mucus mouth home. It didn't take long before Sarah was in love and Garden received her name after she was shunned to the garage and decided to play and sleep on Sarah's gardening equipment. from that day forward she became Garden, the most needy, always starving, butter-eating, drooling, dirty, hunting cat we have ever laid our eyes on. 

Then there is Silas, he is a New York death row pup who stole my wounded heart with his fat head and goofy eyes. We had recently lost our previous pup, my heart-dog, Sage, to cancer, when I came across his photo. Something in his look told me that he was coming home to us. Much to Sarah's chagrin (do you see a pattern?) He came home and became the goofiest, neediest, pain in the ass dog ever. 

So, now here we are, a zoo of a family, with big dreams of owning an orchard and living on our own land, with no money. So how are we going to do it? Well, we are blessed with amazing friends and family who have supported our decision, offered us land to live on, and opened up their work shop to my multiple crazy ideas. We are at the beginning of our journey, with our first purchase of a sink from a resource store and our first big purchase of the lumber needed to build the walls and rafters. We are on our way and can't wait to live in our very own yurt.