Where Did The Time Go? (Lattice and Rafters)

It is the end of January and we have been seriously lacking in the updates of the yurt progression. The last you guys know of, we haven't even finished the lattice, but have no fear, because we finished that months ago!  In fact... Here's proof!

That is only half of it, but you get the idea. I was able to fit half of the complete lattice sections in my car, so we made two trips to our house where we are storing the yurt pieces. We have an extra shed that has been a godsend. Our well used, 2 car garage is taken up by various appliances, odd and end things for the yurt, along with our  two cars. Having a garage is probably the biggest thing I will miss about our house. Nothing beats hopping in to your semi-warm car on a -30 Degree day and not having to scrape the windshield, brush off snow, and start the car 10 minutes before you leave. 

Anyways...back to the yurt. 

The next step was the rafters, which was consuming a large portion of Dave's wood shop porch. It was another item that I had summed up to be "just rip them down the middle, make a 30 Degree cut on one end, a 90 Degree cut on the other, Notch the 30 Degree end, sand and stain. Should only take us a day" I should probably be burned at the stake for how many times I have told David that it was no big deal and wouldn't take very long. Luckily for me, he knows to take my time guesstimation with a grain of salt. Time never quite adds up in my mind the same as it does in reality. Here are some pictures of the process, which I am sure you are much more interested in than my inability to gauge time.

Dave and I finished making the 30 Degree and 90 Degree cuts at 10:00pm while it was snowing and Sarah, Cathy, Melissa, and Olivia were sitting inside the warm house drinking hot and refreshing beverages. 

Although they did help during the day....

The adorable Sarah and Olivia helping with the rafters

Even Raymond helped out!

Sarah staining the rafters

We started to stack them in the garden plot area but decided to move them to our shed where they would be sheltered from the elements and have a better chance at drying out.

Here is a picture of the notch that I made for the cable to rest in.

The rafters are now safe and sound in the shed but they are not fully finished. It didn't take us long to figure out that we would be best off to wait until the spring to stain them since they were still very wet. It was also becoming t0o cold for us to work outside and time was running out. Most of them will still need to be notched and stained, but it is going to wait until we have a warm spring day. We are currently in winter hibernation for the moment. 

The next post, which will come much sooner than before, will be about our very exciting new advances in the insulation and fabric! All good things come in time, we must be patient. Until then, drink some hot chocolate, watch a movie, and snuggle some cute pets!

Hello Novembrrrr! Lattice update

Time has just been flying by since the last post. Summer has come and gone, and we are now fighting the change of seasons to get the yurt components that need outdoor space finished before the snow flies...and stays. It has of course snowed just about every morning for the past week or so, but luckily it has melted from the sun, or rained.

In the last post, we were just beginning to stain and chamfer the edges of the lattice. I may have proclaimed that it would take one million years to finish, however, much to our delight, we finished with many years left to live. The downside? Well, after many hours in a shop with no ventilation because of the frigid weather and cans of stain open, Sarah and I have lost many brain cells. It's all a part of the journey I suppose.

Here is the stack of un-stained and stained lattice pieces. It was incredibly daunting to look at the pile.

Here is half of the number of pieces needed to make the wall. We are putting the lattice up in two sections. The first section is complete, however I forgot to take a picture. It is currently resting at a friends house while we problem solve getting it to our house for storage over the winter.

The first section of lattice I put  together I used a different technique of taking half of the pieces of the half (45) and putting in the bolts in the top hole with a another lattice to make a pair. Then I attached all of the pair lattices together with the second hole and bolts. However I learned after breaking a few pieces and having to fix many sections that when they are attached, the end tend to wander and you have pieces on top that should be underneath and holes not lining up. Overall, it was he much more difficult way of doing it. 

Here is the section that we are working one now. 

This time however, we laid out 6 lattice pieces and took one lattice and attached it to the first hole of the first pieces, the second hole in the second piece and so on and so forth until all 6 holes spread out over the 6 pieces and we kept adding a lattice to the end as we added a lattice to the top. You can sort of see the pattern above. I will try and get a video next time, because it can be confusing at first.

 The lattice saga is almost complete, we just need to suck it up and freeze off our fingers to finish it this week. I have already started the rafters and problem solving the roof ring, so expect an update very soon!

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.