24th February 2012 Yurt living

We’ve been busy tweaking the yurt the last couple of weeks, alongside trying to get a few jobs done on the site as we open this Thursday!

As the yurt settled into place we had to tighten the tension topes a couple of times, and the fleece lining dropped a little bit so we had to jiggle that about but it seems to have found its natural resting place now.  Dean has also run a hose pipe around the outside between the fleece and the canvas to act as a water defence for the rain. He attached it to the wood with sealant  to form a waterproof barrier and it worked really well when we had the downpour the other week.

The people we bought the yurt off have done this on all the yurts on their campsite, so we adopted the idea. They have been great with advice and we’ve tried to act on every piece, with great results as we’re really pleased with it.  Even though we say it ourselves, we’ve done a grand job!

As the wood base has dried out, the 4mm spacing we left has expanded slightly so we now have the desired amount of gap to allow for airflow.  Dean has also put some chicken wire around the base….to stop any animals making a nest under there, and more importantly to stop the chickens roosting there!

The lovely ladies came back to site today, so we now have seven bantam chickens as our neighbours.  They are real characters and we have two new additions this year in the shape of two Lavender Silkies, who are yet to be named.  Any suggestions?

A week ago we took a trip to IKEA and spent a bit of money buying a bed, table and chairs.  We had to take the motorhome so we could transport everything back, but we managed to get it all in including a king size mattress.  That was our main worry but as we drove home we suddenly had a thought – how were we going to get this mattress through a four foot high door?!  Luckily with a bit of persuasion it went in, and after a day of building everything (inside the yurt) we were able to spend our first night in there just over a week ago.

It is such a lovely, tranquil place to be in.  You can hear more noise than when in the ‘van but that means we can also hear the owl at night, the church bells ringing every Friday evening, birds singing and the cows mooing.  Not a bad trade off is it?  As we write this up, the church bells are chiming 9pm.

We are still figuring out the ideal set up for cooking and came back from Oxford today with our old camping gas stove and table so hopefully we’re nearly there.  Some solar lights are being delivered this Tuesday so we should finally get some bright lighting in the yurt, then the reading, cooking and knitting can begin in earnest. Our next aim is to get everyone who works on the site round for a ‘yurt warming’ drink.

That will be lovely, despite the both of us making a pledge to give up alcohol for Lent!  We’re not sure this is a good idea as we open up for the season on Thursday and we have a new computer system to contend with…