Dollop of Mayo

Last Friday, there was terrific wind up in the field with the yurt barely holding it's rain jacket on. The few days before I'd noticed the yurt leaning a little more forward toward the door. I kept trying to square the door and had a sneaky suspicion that the whole thing was creeping forward with the lean. I went out on this windy day and pulled the canvas back together in the back & pulled the ropes tighter. I then went to pick Bev up and bring her home. When we arrived back home an hour later we immediately noticed something peculiar about the yurt. It looked kind of like a dollop of mayo on a crust of green bread. The stove pipe had come out the top and it looked like the old man had given up. The door was pitched forward so that it was nearly impossible to enter and it seemed dangerous to do so, but we needed to pull the stove pipe out before taking the jacket and felt off. We were able to pull the jacket and felt off with out it completely toppling over. Then we took the rest of it down with the the new intention of leveling the platform and trying again. I WILL SAY THIS ABOUT YURT BUILDING: A LEVEL PLATFORM MAKES ALL THE DIFFERENCE!

The next day was bitter cold but we went out and did our best to level the platform by jacking up the side that was low and then see if we could test it for being level. It seemed to kind of work, the platform now sort of taking on a teacup shape. We didn't have help putting up the yurt, so I went in to take my depression nap. That night, I was feeling really down about the situation, but the next morning was sunny and relatively warm, so we decided to try to put it up just ourselves, Bev's dad helping with the tono part. I worked all day to try and get the wall shape right and lay the poles in. The platform still was not making it easy and at sunset I gave up but had made some progress. The next day I saw that if I lined the back up so that all the poles were in line with there corresponding holes and the wall was even height all the way around then I had more success putting the poles in and having them stay in, though I didn't have as much time or stamina on this day or patience, so I worked my patience to the end and then went and did something else for a while. We had a plan to have our friend Christopher help us on the next afternoon with the canvas and tarp part, but the next morning it was snowing so I decided to take it down again and this time store it in the barn. Now we have decided to build a proper platform that will be both level and constructed to last. We are also going to move the operation to most level part of the field. Stay tuned......