dragonlady7

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so. this morning i woke up and went to change my clothes and discovered that i had a tick like totally embedded in my boob, so that was gross.

it left a bruise, i’m not pleased.

the rest of the day was good though. Older Sister picked us up in her van and six of us– her, me, Mom, Farm-BIL, Oldest Nephew, and my Dude– rode over to Jamaica Cottage Shop in Vermont to look at their tiny house models.

I took disappointingly few pictures, like an idiot, but here’s one:

not a great photo but it gives you an idea. that’s farm-BIL from the back and he’s like six twoish.

The model I like best is this one, the Vermont Cottage C https://jamaicacottageshop.com/shop/veromont-cottage-c-living/.

I was figuring I’d have to get financing to do the pre-cut kit but BIL thinks the kits are not worth the savings in effort of doing the cutting. He figures he has the time to do the cutting, and the skill, and we could do it for about a quarter the price if we buy the raw materials ourselves. Which, for me, is the difference between taking out a loan and putting it short-term on a credit card or possibly managing to pull from savings in a short-term kind of way. So that’s hopeful.

I’d figured on building from just plans with Dad, but I knew he’d have the time to spend on it, and I couldn’t ask that of BIL. But he figures he can do it and can spare the time, given the quality of the help they’ve got on the farm this year.

Anyway that all feels very hopeful. It’s nice to feel hopeful about something.

After that we drove over to Salem NY to pick up some more wholesale half-gallons of milk for the farm store, since people suddenly bought all that was there. They also sell ice cream, so we got to get ice cream sundaes for lunch too. Nephew was especially delighted.

He’s a fairly handy young chap, and Dad had planned to have him build the tiny house with us, so I buttonholed him and asked him if he still wanted to be involved. He teenagered at me, at first, and said he “wouldn’t mind”, but I said well you don’t have to, I just thought you might like it, and under this pressure he admitted he’d like to be involved. So I said we’d try to schedule it with him in mind.

Ironically enough I may not be able to spend as much time at the farm this year because I’ll have to work more at the job that actually pays money, to afford to buy the raw materials for the cabin, but it’s a much more attainable goal if it’s like, five thousand dollars than if it’s twenty. So we’ll have to see about that.

(My criteria for “tiny houses” was that there’s room to have Farmkid over for sleepovers, since she specifically requested that, and I figured it’s probably worth building it big and sturdy enough that if I someday stop coming they can repurpose it into apprentice housing and put in a tiny kitchen or something. Ideally I want a porch where I can practice banjo in a rocking chair, too, but like. We’ll see.) (Your picture was not posted)

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back online!

This morning after doing a small assortment of farm work I took a walk through the woods on the other side of the stream from the yurt.

There’s a nice level bit of ground there, in the woods, pleasant and lovely, and would be suitable to build a sugar shack or small house of some kind on. I scouted it out, and thought about it. You could get equipment in there, if you wanted to dig a foundation or use a tractor-mounted auger to dig down to put in poles for a pole-built structure– a ways down, the stream goes through a culvert under the farm road, and you could get something in there, though you’d have to take trees down. Most of the trees are small, though; it’d be a fine time to do a bit of careful forestry, and make that a deliberate planting. It’d also be a great place for a mushroom-cultivation operation, in deep shade and near water like that.

But you couldn’t get power over there, really; it’s pushing it to even get it as far as the yurt was, and to cross the stream with some kind of extension cord, well. You’d be lucky to power a lightbulb without tripping a breaker, at that distance. 

I continued my walk and went up through the woods, across the level bit of the farm we call the “gravel bank”, and over to the big level area where we have the compost piles. VM had mentioned seeing a boar skull there, and I followed the directions he’d said and sure enough, right there in the grass, I found a skull it was easy to tell had belonged to Peanut Butter, the boar on duty from probably, mm, 2016-2018. Last year it was determined that he’d outlived his purpose, since the sows weren’t pregnant, and so he was despatched, neatly and respectfully, and his remains interred in the compost heap. But the coyotes can’t let that sort of thing go, and clearly at least his head had gotten dragged out at some point.

I looked about two feet farther and found his lower jaw, as well. There’s no other individual it could be; he was enormous, as pigs keep growing their whole lives, and had noticeable tusks, and this skull had those. So I collected the skull and jaw, and brought them back to the house.

[image description: a large pig skull with curving tusks, sitting on the steps of a house]

We had a lovely lunch to celebrate the end of the season. Tonight was the last Wednesday CSA pickup of the season. Saturday’s really the last pickup, but Saturday’s always a smaller day. One of the two apprentices has already gone, and the other’s only working a half-day Friday, then leaving; today was a particular part-timer’s last day as well. So we had a lovely pie, baked by VM, and assorted other treats, and sat around reminiscing, and such.

After lunch my mother and father came over. Dad’s always concerned about leaving a mess, places– the property I grew up on had been rather badly disrespected by previous generations, and he spent my entire childhood picking garbage out of places. Right by the house, there had clearly once been a structure that had burned, and they’d just bulldozed the remnants into the woods and left it to rot, so there was broken glass, mattress springs, pounds and pounds of nails, and assorted other hazardous trash, so I could never play over there. (Farmsister, conversely, has many fond memories of playing over there; she’s 5 years younger than me, and I think by the time she was playing alone in the woods Dad had it mostly cleaned up. I just wasn’t really allowed over there. She doesn’t remember that.)

So Mom and Dad and I went and sifted the yurt ashes, finding the metal bits and piling them for later trash collection, and salvage, and such. Dad spent the time pounding nails out of burnt bits of wood, taking apart the few remaining bits of the platform beams, and sifting out bolts and things.

I found the remains of a few things I recognized. Part of a pair of pants. A rolled-up towel. And books, two books– one was a borrowed one that’s going to be expensive to replace, and the other was my bullet journal, which was the longest time I’ve ever kept a bullet journal going. Alas. I kept the soggy mass of burnt pages, in a box, and I’ll throw it out later, I just wanted to leaf through and see if I could find anything amusing still written there. 

I recognized a number of fragmentary objects. My computer chargers, both of them. The interior of my battery pack. The base of the awesome vintage Coleman water cooler I’d been using for drinking water. Bits of candle lanterns. The tips of stick lighters, two of the three I’d had.

[image description: a hunk of grungy metal, covered in dirt but recognizable as the power brick of a charger for an Apple laptop]

We salvaged a number of S-hooks, and a few clamps who hadn’t lost the temper in their springs. One plastic clamp, that had clearly fallen off the edge of the platform before the whole conflagration started, was also intact.

It was super depressing, and I said so, and my mother said you know, you’ve been very upbeat about all of this but you know you’re allowed to be sad, right? And I did manage not to cry then, I’m proud of myself. I’m not– I mean, I’m sad, I’m really sad, but I’m not finding it particularly tempting to dwell on it. Sometimes wallowing in a tragedy feels good in a hurty kind of way, and helps you process, you know? but I’m not getting that from this, I think I’d just get sucked into dwelling on whatever I lost, and be more upset. It’s all right, I’ll make something better and move on, and I’m sad but I’m not going to roll around in it. It just isn’t that tempting to roll around in, it seems more like it’d be the shitty ouchy kind of hurt than the good press-on-it-to-get-it-out kind. 

In the end, spending time in that site, I started thinking that actually I think I’d rather build the tiny house right where the yurt had been. I don’t think I want to go back farther into the woods. VM agreed that a rope bridge could be fun to build, and to make a little mushroom grove over there could really be a treat, but having the sugar shack accessible from the road on a stretch that never gets too muddy/frozen/snowy to use, and having the building able to have power and possibly plumbing (!) laid down, would be far more convenient. If we were more deliberate about the trees, maybe cut down the one big one that’s pretty damaged, there’d be less shade on the house but we could landscape the whole area, maybe move some of the perennial stuff (rhubarb, etc) over there near the building, maybe make the parking areas for the various tractor equipment more deliberate and less haphazard and just nicer all around. 

And if there was plumbing, there could be a bathroom the apprentices could use there, instead of going all the way back to the house to shower in the bathroom everyone there has to share. I don’t think we could get a sceptic system in that spot, but we could retain the composting toilet concept and just have a gray water sump thingy instead, that’s not beyond possibility. I’d really, really, really like having access to a shower out there, instead of having to go all the way to the house.

Anyway. Lots of thinking.

In other news, we got the big tractor unstuck. I say “we”, but really, BIL just called the conventional farmer who does the huge cornfields across the street, and asked if he happened to have a moment to come by with one of his big double-wheel tractors. The farmer was free, as it happened, because the corn hasn’t dried down enough to harvest, and so within ten minutes he was there with a truly enormous John Deere, and had pulled the 806 out of the muck-up-to-its-axels in literally the amount of time it took to get the tow chain connected. He was scornful of BIL’s offer to give him money for the assist, and horrified that he and my sister had given themselves blisters trying to dig out by hand. He said, “Next time, you just call me, don’t even get out the shovels, that’s just crazy.” 

(The 806 is a late-60s-vintage International Harvester with weighted wheels, and a gross weight of around 10,000 pounds. Which is huge– but if you’re a conventional corn operation, you’ve probably got several tractors at least twice that size. Which this guy did, so.)

We’re trying to decide if we could give him a Thanksgiving turkey, or if he’d turn that down too. It’s a huge weight off everyone’s mind; that tractor was stuck for a solid week, and it is the only piece of equipment on the farm capable of doing various important tasks (like turning the compost or moving the hens’ eggmobile), and every day it sat in that muck it was pulling itself in deeper.

And then, in the late afternoon, several packages arrived, including a new Kindle from Farmsister to me, so I could keep reading to Farmkid, and a box from Dude, in which I’d asked him to put my laptop charger and any bras he could find, since I had only one left here. “Maybe,” Farmkid said slyly, as I retrieved the box, “he sent you a surprise too?” 

“Maybe,” I said, but I didn’t expect so; it’d be nice if he’d sent along some kind of consolation gift, but I know he is not the sort of person who’d think of what to send. He did not, in fact, but there was a scrap of paper upon which he’d drawn a heart and signed his name, which Farmkid thought was quite sweet, and so did I. I was delighted to plug in my computer, to be sure. 

The final thing of interest that happened is that BIL decided that he needs to get a backhoe in order to repair the drainage in the livestock barn, and also do a large number of other tasks that need doing around the farm (including redo the water to the greenhouses and while at it, possibly dig a trench to lay power and perhaps water out to the site where the yurt was, while one is digging, y’know?) and my father decided that he’d always wanted a backhoe and has a few but not quite enough projects around his house to justify it (and nowhere to store it if he did), and so what’s going to happen is that he’s going to buy one and store it at the farm. So that solves that problem, and also opens up some potential avenues for the potential tiny house construction project.

Also my eldest nephew is obsessed with tiny houses and has been talking about almost nothing else ever since it was mentioned in conjunction with the yurt needing replacement, so. 

I just want it to be something that’s fun for other people, and probably a thing that I’m not really in charge of, y’know? Anyway. So that’s the haps, in yet another ridiculously long post.

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yeah, i’ve got hideous blisters in a few places, including my forehead, but what’s surprising is that i have no smoke inhalation or red eye problems or anything.

i am really starting to think the radiant barrier insulation i had been using in the yurt must have been extremely flammable, because the more i think about it, the more there’s no way that fire should have been that violent. i mean– canvas burns, but it doesn’t, like, explode. that was nuts. i burnt my thumbs, forefingers, one palm, the top of one boob, one forearm, and my forehead, but my hair has nary a single singe in it, which is kind of amazing. 

anyhow. i am fine, really i am, and i am slightly embarrassed about all of it– really, who burns down a tent?? two different fire companies and two other different police forces showed up, it has been the Talk of the Neighborhood, but everyone’s been nice. 

I had the yurt because it was portable because the purchase of the farm was uncertain, in 2015. now it’s 2019 and they’re stuck with this property until they die. so i don’t need a thing i can fold down and fit into my car and roof rack anymore. 

so i’m considering my options. a cheap camper is probably like, numero uno, but. i could also build a tiny house, apparently my nephew and my brother-in-law (not related) are both obsessed with them, so maybe it would be a fun project to make one. i might sign on to participate in that, but in the meantime i’d need somewhere to sleep, so. i’ll keep my options open. i’ll think it over. we’re still waiting to hear about various things for next season that will affect how much time i need to spend here; if a lot, then it’s more urgent, if less then well, there is a guestroom, i don’t need my own place at all really, it’s just been nice. 

i also do have a home that’s fine and intact and needs my attention, so. 

i sort of want to go home but it’s Dad’s 75th birthday and the party is Friday, so no way in hell am I leaving early.

Dude is mailing me the sole remaining power adapter for this computer, since I burned both of my spares. I am trying to figure out what else i actually lost in the fire, but i don’t know, and i’m so tired. tomorrow’s a slaughter day and i’m going to have to spend the day in gloves, because my hands are so blistered, and it’s not going to be a picnic. but heck, i spent last slaughter day in gloves because i’d cut my finger turning off a hose, so it’s not like this is new. my middle-little sister loaned me clothes, so i’m fine, and my slaughter jeans were inside because they’d been in my sister’s laundry from last time, so i’m all set. 

i have 30% battery to last me until the mail comes on Wednesday, so i have to wind this up. in short, i’m fine, thanks for the sympathy, i gotta think about what to do but in the meantime i am in a guest room and everything is fine. 

i went out to the burn site and looked around. we salvaged the wood stove; it’s fine and it wasn’t its fault. it needs new legs and a new door gasket. 

i also salvaged an enamelware cup. i had used it to try to throw water on the fire when i realized i couldn’t find the fire extinguisher, and i dropped it when i slipped on the wet plywood platform running out the door to try to pull the roof off. 

that’s all that’s left, nothing else is recognizable. springs from the mattress, bolts from the khana walls, S-hooks, and a single half-melted tube of lipstick to show where my backpack was. The firefighters kicked through and stirred up the ashes, so it’s all a big scrambled up jumble of nothing.

god, i can’t imagine if that was my house, if that was everything i owned– oh god! i’m so sorry to anyone who’s ever had a house burn.

but no, i’m fine, i’m going to think of something else. it’s fine, i needed a new start. i hope i don’t remember anything else i loved that was in there, is all. 

i did lose my bullet journal. that was the longest i’d kept one going. oh well.

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Yesterday I put up the insulation in the yurt– not the quilts, but the radiant barrier insulation sheets I use to block wind. It was only in the 50s last night, and so I woke up comfortable enough, but it’s supposed to be in the low 40s tonight, so I might try to get the quilts in tonight, and block off the last few holes, and such. We’ll see. 

I also would like to get the chimney set back up but I’m not sure how the best way is to go about that. I could have a fire! It’s just. The chimney’s not very steady, so I take it down whenever it’s not in use. But then I’m not about to go groping around in the dark to set it up, so. I need to figure out a way of bracing it so that it can remain up for a whole night, for example. It sure would be nice to be able to have a little fire in there, though I haven’t managed to secure myself a good supply of firewood yet. i figured I’d work something out this summer, and here we are. Whoops.

Spent today doing odd jobs around the place to get ready for chicken processing tomorrow. I got to put Farmkid on the bus. Did you know, it’s now a policy, at least locally, that they won’t let kids off the bus unless an approved adult is present to meet them? Apparently it matters! I’m sure there were enough abductions by non-custodial parents etc that it’s had to become a policy, but the very idea that someone’s not only got to be home but got to demonstrate that they’re immediately present– I mean, I had to haul a lawn chair out and sit by the mailbox, because it’s a long driveway and Sister explained that they won’t let the kid off until someone’s there, and that’d mean blocking traffic. I don’t know, do they just make the kid go sit back down and continue with the bus route otherwise??

In the early afternoon, though, I drove up to the area near where I attended elementary school, to pick up a part for the combine from the tractor shop a family friend started up there. (Not Tractor Supply, of course; if you actually need tractor parts you need Telco, I guess.) It was a lovely drive– it was only in the 60s today, but brightly sunny, and the route to get there took me the back way around the Tomhannock Reservoir. (Oh go look at it on Google Streetview and see if it isn’t lovely. Now imagine it’s just starting to get kissed with the first blush of fall– the maples are green, and the oaks, but the sumacs are starting to go red on the fringes, and there are yellowed leaves in the canopies here and there, a few flashes of orange just peeking out from the overwhelming green, and the hillsides are spattered liberally deep gold yellow with goldenrod and the yellowing foliage of daylilies and other sensitive plants.)

I drove home through Schaghticoke, past my old elementary school, and didn’t stop off to visit my parents but only because I’ll see them Thursday. Farmkid beginning kindergarten has freed up two days a week they used to spend caring for her, and I’m sure they’re off doing something wild with their liberty.

I’m going to go bundle the yurt up and try to get that chimney on it. I need to find something to stand on so I can affix it. I’ll just have to hope it doesn’t blow over in the night. I slept wretchedly last night, for no reason, and I really hope I can make up for it tonight because chicken day is always a long hard day.

[photo: yurt insulation, in progress, yesterday: visible is the wooden lattice and rafters of a yurt, with silver-coated bubble wrap laced through it, and a green outdoors beyond where the canvas has not yet been flopped back into place]

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am at the farm. finally ordered a tent stove jack so I could put the stovepipe of my new woodstove out through the roof of my yurt safely. I’d dithered over how to attach it, did I want to cut a hole directly in the roof, or what, what was I gonna do, and I decided I’d attach it to a separate bit of canvas and at first fold the roof back, and then once I figured it out, I could cut the roof canvas and either stitch it, or not worry and figure the canvas underneath could catch any rain. But I was dithering over whether I had any suitable canvas, or how to waterproof it, and then I remembered that when I first bought the yurt, Scott had made a door out of a flap of canvas, and i used that for a while before I moved on. Now that I have a screen door with proper hinges and all, I don’t need that door anymore.

So I cut a hole in the fabric, and sewed the stove jack to it, and went out and rearranged the rafters slightly in the yurt so it’d fit, and got it all aligned and then bungee’d the door to the rafters so it’ll hold in place and serve as a brace for the stove pipe. Then I tried to get the stove pipe set up, but couldn’t manage to cram the crimped end of the pipe into the spark arrestor. So Mom and Dad came out to help. (Dad used to be a sheet metal worker, so he seemed like the likeliest person to ask.) 

Eventually Dad and I got the stovepipe set up correctly enough, by omitting a segment. (The pipe needs to be long enough to go above the peak of the tent roof, and the stove came with one more section than I needed to achieve that.) We even managed to get the spark arrestor and rain shield top onto the thing, so. 

Now I can finish setting up the yurt. I haven’t had the furniture in its final arrangement because I wanted to get the stove in place and figure it out. 

I also think I will have to cut the roof somewhat to make it work, but I’m holding off just a bit until I can really get the furniture set up and figure out once and for all if that stove needs to move at all, which it could since the stove jack panel is just attached by bungees through the grommets in the former door panel. But I think I’m going to make it work where it is, and in that configuration, the roof can’t quite fold out of the way without exposing a little area where there should be roof to the sky. So… 

Last night my sister, VegManager, and I made ourselves a pitcher of French 75s, walked the dog, and then came back and spent the entire evening putting strawberries by. There was a miscount somehow, when they put together that day’s share, and everyone took the number of pints they were supposed to take (3 pints per family! not bad!), but there were a lot leftover at the end somehow, along with two big totes full of seconds that had been harvested wet and were deemed too likely to go moldy to hand out to customers, and while the excess vegetables all get donated to the food pantry, the strawberries absolutely wouldn’t keep long enough to be distributed. 

And the strawberry season is so short on a farm like this where we only grow one variety as a tiny component of a full CSA, and the rest of the year we yearn for them.

So. VM made a batch of jam, Sister made a batch of jam, we froze quarts of whole berries, and we froze quarts of crushed berries. And I set up the dehydrator and filled it with thin-sliced berries. This took me less time than you’d think, because– an egg slicer will absolutely slice a strawberry!! (If you don’t own an egg slicer, what are you doing with your life???)  (I made a video and it’s the last video in my Instagram Farm Stories 2019 highlight section <https://www.instagram.com/stories/highlights/17943760684276332/> , which means it won’t disappear. I thought it was cute.)

Dehydrating strawberries smell goddamn fantastic, by the way. The whole house has smelled amazing the whole time.

VM also made a batch of strawberry ice cream, and I made a batch of strawberry basil lemonade, and we all gorged ourselves the whole time. We’ve saved back a couple of pints for eating fresh once Farmkid gets back from her trip to Illinois (she and her dad are flying back tonight), and there’s a big container of them macerating in maple syrup to make strawberry shortcake with for dessert.

And then strawberry season will probably be over, here, and will fade into a memory, bolstered by all the preserved and put-by berries… 

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In the yurt, so on mobile data, so I’m not going to use up the whole allotment in one night like I have in the past sometimes. I posted an update on Pillowfort, in the meantime. 

Let me know if anything earth-shattering is going on. 
(Your picture was not posted)

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Well I just had to turn the music I was playing off because it’s thundering and raining so hard I literally couldn’t hear it, but– mostly, there aren’t any leaks through the canvas roof, and I seem to have a correct enough assemblage of shower curtain and vinyl tablecloth and 2x6 and so on at the door to keep that from pouring water in across the floor, so all is well in yurtville at the moment. The thunder and lightning are mildly terrifying but fortunately I’m not particularly afraid of that sort of thing. 

Let’s hope I sleep okay. It’s another slaughter day tomorrow. I cleaned the whole area today, and since the Assistant Livestock Manager wasn’t done washing eggs when I got out there, I lavished a lot more time on the kill room than I normally do. (The evisceration room is the one that’s all stainless steel and plastic walls, and I always scrub the bejesus out of it and bleach it super good, because I eat those chickens too. But I like the kill room to be spotless too, it’s just harder to do.) 

I got back to the house after much longer than I’d meant to spend, but had consoled myself by nabbing a pitcher full of ice out of the ice machine, and made margaritas. And then, since it was 90, and Farmbaby wanted to go in the sprinkler, I grabbed my swimsuit and went out and joined her, to her very great delight, and we had a fine time, and I didn’t have to take a shower after all. (I hate to shower right before slaughter day; slaughter night is like, my one guaranteed day I’ll actually wash on the farm. The rest of the time, the policy is only to wash if someone’s going to see us, OR we’re so offensive no one can stand to be in the room with us. I was approaching the latter category after all my scrubbing– I put on a rubber apron to keep bleach off my clothes, and then sweated through my clothes from the inside, of course– but a trip through the hose sorted that acceptably. A trip through the hose is fine for human odors, but not for chicken-internals odors. Soap must be employed, for those.)

So. Margaritas, and then a lovely dessert (local-harvested blueberries, in a pie! a neighbor is ill with Lyme disease so his crop is going unharvested, and he has called upon neighbors to help him out, and we’ve obliged; he gets a slice of pie in return, and wouldn’t take any more than that)– and then I sprinted out the door as the rain started, so I could get out here before it. Not just to avoid walking in the rain, but also in case I’d left anything unsecured. Which, somewhat, I had, but it was mostly fine. 

Anyhow. I thought this thunderstorm was going to pass on, but it’s lingering. I ought to look at the radar but I’m resisting. 

Sleeping in the yurt is like… one night I lie awake the whole night for no reason, the next night I lie awake a lot because there’s a leak or sound or mosquito or something, the third night I sleep twelve hours like I’ve been tranquilized, the next night I get a totally normal 7ish hours of sleep, the night after that I sleep like the dead again and almost miss my alarm, then I lie awake staring at the rafters the night after that for no reason… It’s annoying. Clearly, I can sleep out here just fine. Clearly, the space is comfortable and to my liking, and even the shitty air mattress is comfortable. (It’s developing some… quirks, but it holds air for the nonce, so I won’t complain, but my next one will be a futon mattress or something.) But I’m just a miserable middle-age-approaching cuss, and my sleep is apparently Delicate.

I can hear the stream now, over the rain. It’s lovely but not all that restful. At least I know, 1000% certainly, that this bank of the stream literally never floods. (It didn’t flood during Irene or Sandy, it didn’t flood last month when a random thunderstorm higher up the mountain dumped 2 inches in 2 hours and almost took out the culvert by the granary… we may lose the opposite bank, and the basement, and the picking garden, and the yurt might blow the fuck over, but this bank won’t flood.)

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uh i wrote a whole long thing and was like in this photo you can see– but i only took the photo, i didn’t post it.

i might be more tired even than i realized.

yeah you can’t see shit in that pic, but it’s nicely atmospheric. 

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YURT! Not my usual quality of photos, these were mostly taken very hastily on my phone as i tried to direct setup. I’ll take proper camera pictures once I have some more time. I’m sorry, this is long, and photo posts don’t let you insert a read-more. :(

Friday I left work slightly early so I could get to the yurt-maker’s house before dark, and there, in the slight drizzle, he spent about an hour taking down the ger (as it’s more properly called, I guess; yurt is a slightly-offensive foreign word if you’re Mongolian, and so the sorts of people who appreciate Correct Terminology prefer to call them ‘gers’, so I try to respect that but most local people know what a yurt is and not what a ger is so it’s more locally-useful to call it a yurt, so I mostly do. Not to be offensive to those who prefer correctness, but it’s hard enough to explain what I’m doing, but I do understand there’s an element of cultural appropriation here and I am sorry for that.)

Anyway, he took down the ger and showed me all the parts, explained what was important and what was only important over the long-term and what was critical to adjust correctly and what was only cosmetic and could be changed according to preference. So, above, the hands taking apart part of the door frame are his; I took some reference photos of how he tied things in case the knots were important, as neither of us knew what the knots were called.

It fit into my car, though some of that was because I am very, very experienced at loading this car in particular– my old Impreza had precisely the same proportions inside, so I know exactly how far the seat goes up and so on. So a couple times, I knew things would fit without further disassembly if I just wiggled things around. 

I managed to get the entire yurt, plus a duffel bag, my camera bag, three pairs of boots, assorted small items, a sleeping bag and a pillow and an industrial coffeemaker salvaged from work into my car. I declined to bring any of my copious amounts of awesome glam-camping gear (I’ve done Pennsic for years, people, I have everything from outdoor carpets to hanging lanterns to collapsible storage chests that double as seats) or any of my great cold-weather gear due to a combination of space concerns and just plain absent-mindedness. (I didn’t bring long underwear or even a winter hat!)

So Dad and I got a platform built, out of scavenged timbers from the fallen barn on my sister’s farm, and some plywood Dad had, and some scraps, and then everybody got home from the farmer’s market and we came out and set up. 

The issue we had was that the platform was built to be a 12′x12′ square and the yurt was… bigger than that. I feel like a 12′ diameter circle should fit pretty nicely on a 12′ square but it Did Not. So we had to… squish it, and tighten the bands down correspondingly, which you can do to an extent– it makes the roof a little higher, you just have to stay within a certain angle for the roof rafters so they don’t pop out– and it then made everything a little bit wonky from there on out. So today I have to find some more timber and shim out the platform to be a little bigger, wiggle the whole thing around to see if i can get it to settle better, and then try to tighten up the canvas everywhere. I also had bought rolls of radiant-barrier bubble insulation that I didn’t bother fussing with when I had all these people standing around waiting for me to tell them what to do, so I’ll put that on.

As soon as we got the thing all the way up, one of my sister’s cats came and investigated, including going inside it. Another of her cats came and there was some mutual stalking going on (they aren’t enemies, but they’re not soulmates either), including a romp through Dad’s Jeep and over its roof. We persuaded the shy, claustrophobic family dog that it was okay to come inside, and there was much wagging. 

And then the child came, and had to be talked into going inside (I think she thought there was some kind of trick), but then she had to play hide-and-seek in it, which at her age is mostly going and standing in a spot and waiting for someone to feign surprise. 
At some point during this process she filled her diaper, so my ger is officially a home now, having been pooped-in. Relatedly, the farm’s interns (the two farm-hands are interns who are paid a stipend and given room and board and their labor is structured to a curriculum designed to teach them organic farming) have been working on building projects, since a large part of farming is building things and working with tools. One of them has been constructing an outhouse, to hold a composting toilet to serve the fields and greenhouses– and my yurt. So that’s going up soon, close but not stinky-close to me, and I’m very pleased. 

Anyway. That’s my yurt story so far.