Yurtal Film #1

Scattered Vampire With Mongolia Aspritation

Started 12/12/08

Okay, so maybe the title don't make any sense. Yet again, it might when I'm through. Today I went out and cleared icy snow off the top of the yurt with a snow removing device that sort of looks like a rake without tines. I don't know, I didn't really think the yurt was going to collapse, but in the weather we've been experiencing up here lately and last winter, anything could happen and it could happen right now.

Last week, for example we had an ice storm that took whole trees down at the rate of one per every five minutes. I'd driven up from the nearest town down the hill at 1 am. I couldn't make it all the way for this winter debacle had brought a power wire between me and two hundred yards from our driveway. I parked my car in the near driveway of our friendly neighbors and started the footwork toward home. The plow guy says, "watch out for the trees, one might fall on you". This seemed true enough, because every 3 seconds I heard crack and thwack and other stark sounds of nature dying. I weaved home out of the reach of any immediate trees. Lying warm in bed I heard trees cracking all night long and into the next morning. Could hardly sleep thinking this was sure gonna hurt somebody. It seemed pretty obvious that this was going to leave many people without electricity. For my in laws, this is not really a problem, since they have a well that overflows and two hearty wood stoves that can warm the house completely. They are in their seventies and they were not worried a bit, in fact, which is something I really dig about them. We lit candles the next night and read by little reading lights, played cards and visited friends, down the hill, where they had electricity.
I went out the next day to the yurt to see it still standing just fine. Actually my wife went out first and came back all happy that there was no obvious damage to the yurt. I sure was glad that I had cleared some of the trees directly behind the yurt last month. Nothing could fall right on top of the yurt. The ice had somewhat collected on the top, but once a fire was lit in there for a few hours this was not more of a problem than rain. Had I needed to wait for a day to do this I think everything would have been fine and most likely had I done nothing everything would have been fine. This is reassuring as full on winter approaches.

Last year, when we brought the yurt back from Montreal, I was anxious to put the thing up. I thought it simple since Yves had put his up by himself in one day. Whoa! Was I ever wrong. Well, it started out innocently enough. With some training, no doubt, I'd be able to figure it out by myself in a few days, however, it isn't about time, but what you do with it, to determine how easy life's gonna be for you. As in everything, nothing is truer. If you are someones grandparent this is a dam good sage advise line to slip to your eager grand kids, that is, if their not too soaked up in the video game. Anyway, we procured a hundred bales of hay and with our friend's help we formed a circle with it. The next week I bought some plywood to lay over the hay. I found some 2 X 12 s out in the field that weren't being eaten by carpenter ants or rotting in any other way, and put them to use with some plastic to create a moisture barrier between the hay and the plywood. When I went about putting this together, me with no carpentry skills what-so-ever, I found it hard to create the perfect circle with a 22' diameter surface. I don't know, maybe it is just me, but I couldn't get those materials to cooperate. Whenever Bev would come out to help, and I was angry she wasn't helping because she wanted to wait and do it the right way or at least somewhat the right way, I would tell her to get away, I don't need nobody's help and beat the hammer against my chest. Eventually, she stopped coming out to help and then avoided me all together which was the smart thing to do since I'd gone completely insane. I was becoming the daylight vampire who can't find the pure blood of a maiden. My eyes blood shot, I speak to no one. I sleep little, I eat some, I work on yurt project. Everyone looks strange to me. With the platform completed, I have to wait until the next weekend to begin putting up the yurt so I can have the help of friends if I need and maybe by then my wife would be speaking to me. Russ and Kelly whose driveway I parked my car in that ice storm night, slipped into my snare helping with getting the walls up and putting the ceiling poles in. I was really feeling bad for Russ when every ten seconds he was getting hit on the head by a pole. We should have worn hard hats. I kept saying he might suffer PTSD from it. No one got that or thought that was funny anyway. The hay bales are 2' high which make the top of the ceiling six and a half which was above our heads making it hard to do it from the outside. If we'd had a movable platform then we could have done it, I suppose, but the field is pretty lumpy. We did what we could, the wind was blowing and Russ pointed out that the pinwheel was not in line with where the poles were to go on cruxes in the walls. We finally had to give up for the day after a full, sun-up to sundown day. I could feel my head splitting open like a melon. It shouldn't be this hard, right? Well, there are a few crucial things to point out. One, we were not dealing with a level platform. It is hard to tell from any of our photos from the time, but the yurt went with this pretty drastic pitch of the field. Secondly, I had not made the platform large enough, or better, it wasn't the right shape so I was trying to fit a 22' diameter circle into an oval with the thinnest diameter being 20'. What a dumb ass right? So be it. The next weekend our friend Christopher and his mom came to help. I mention Christopher (above) because he's not only been a great help but was instrumental in finally getting the yurt up both times. He would see where things needed to be shifted, and he realized before I called Yves that the center poles needed to be lifted so that the yurt would not have a kind of torsion that made the door out of line with everything and was causing things to become impossible (I will go into this in further in future postings), and he also knew that even tension around the circle was necessary for a successful yurt. He has natural instincts for yurt construction. That Sunday evening, we had it up with the three layers of cover and ropes tightened around it. It was not perfect by any means and it made you feel like you were in a tilt-a-whirl, but it was standing and we could get some use out of it.

One thing to remember & you can pass this too onto a grandchild, we all swim in the same pool, some of us have teeth.

Canada, Mongolia & Other Destinations

If you are curious, the Groovy Yurts website is http://groovyyurts.com/ I would make this guy a fortune if I were so inclined, but ain't my forte. So we travelled up to Canada on a Friday and arrived in this rural village 30 minutes out of Montreal. It was becoming dusk. This tall rugby playing son of a Swiss lady greets us at the driveway. He plies us with brew and shows us the compound. In the yard he's just finished putting up a 19 footer. This is his demo version. We intend to sleep in it. He seems genuinely happy for that. On the grounds is an ancient looking board and concrete house, that is big thick boards squashing layers of concrete between them. Inside, he'd begun the remodeling project. It is what I imagine the rural french come lately would like with ample amount of natural patina. Bev & I both understand his love for the place though it was probably only somewhat inhabitable by harsh winter standards. Maybe the yurt might even stand up truer to that. Out at the end of the driveway stood a 25 foot high stone barn. Inside was like a treasure trove with hand carved chests, hand woven and dyed rugs and tapestries, all of an informal but supremely noble looking design. I imagined that in here is the handed down craft skill of an old and nomadic culture & you know it is not just imagination. Oh, and yes, the various ingredients for constructing a yurt was there too in droves. There were also beds, stoves and tables. This man, Yves, then showed us the yurt he had just finished putting up. Just before we had shown up he had shaved the plywood sticking out from the hay bails which were the foundation and floor insulation. He wasn't sure how the hay would stand up to years of weather, but it seemed like a suitable foundation, though the plywood was a bit squishy when you walked. We helped assemble a table for the stove to sit on and another table and tried putting together a few beds he pulled from his truck. They were untested and needed some work before being suitable for sleep. The general idea was that you could set up the inside of the yurt for easy comfort in under an hour. We then rushed off to the grocery store for food to prepare, wine and beer to tide us over until slumber. Yves treated us to a simple fish, cheese, salad and bread meal he prepared on the Mongolian cook stove which also heated the October night up inside. We also had store bought custard pie that brought my hungry wolf fangs down.

As we sat around drinking copious amounts of wine and beer, Yves told us of his initiation and encounters with Mongolians. I do believe he feels it a prerequisite to understand a little Mongolian culture to fully appreciate the bounty we were about to receive. His first foray into the steppe life of this ever ebullient and soulful culture was when he and a fellow adventure and philanthropist minded friend decided to drive from Switzerland to Mongolia with a truckload of school supplies. Yves told us that the Mongolian people could very well be 90% literate, as they do not have TV and the ills of consumer culture breaking down their doors like so many big bad wolves. By his description they also are not weighted down by and oppressive fundamental religion, they do thirst for knowledge. Now, it is true you can't generalize about a whole sector of people, but how Yves tells it, they are very clan oriented, and so make it there purpose to watch out for the whole. My little knowledge of that part of the world and how the Chinese and perhaps even Russian governments look upon nomadic people, not to mention Western society (for example, Berlusconi's draconian laws recently drawn up against the Roma population), wanting to displace them from anywhere they might want to settle, makes it hard for me to know for sure what it is like there. At this point it seems that a democracy has taken form in Mongolia, though the predominant Tibetan Buddhist religion would not bode well with a Chinese neighbor. Long distance horse racing seems to be a national craze. From what Yves told us about the families he stayed with, music and family with the love of jovial partying seem to be the past times. From our perspective the yurt is the optimal party hut. From their perspective, and I'm sure of this, it is home.
Well, anyway, we are hanging out in the yurt drinking, trying to break the language barrier, him speaking three or four languages us speaking one, of course, being American and all, when we got on to what Mongolians like to do after dark, beside the obvious adult activity of the boudoir.
Oops! There's no boudoir. A Mongolian family lives together in one studio apartment. So how do you riddle that one out little man? In Yves mind this is another reason the literacy rate is so high. More attention is giving to the child. Love making would more likely happen when there was event or reason for the children to be with relatives I suspect. The Mongolian nights are often clear, and in the winter, crisp. I imagine them taking advantage of the wood stove heat or an open fire, decked down with wool and fur, singing songs to keep the demons away. We too sang some songs that night. Well, Bev sang one of her songs and maybe I accompanied her, but Yves was coaxed into singing his Rugby songs at full volume and with much gusto. This guy is our kind-a peeps.

The next morning before we drove back to Western Massachusetts, passing through beautiful Lake Champlain, across Hero Island, we set up our yurt on the driveway, that is we set-up the door, walls, tono (center piece) with ceiling poles set in place. We did this in under an hour. The driveway was level and Yves is an expert at setting up yurts, but still, this was a remarkably short amount of time to see a dwelling go up. I only wish he could have been with us to set it up on our land.