Our little yurt

One of the good things about being grown up is that time goes by much faster then you think, even if you are waiting for something awesome to come. Not like when you were five and christmas took years to come round again!
So much sooner than I would have expected we were off and gone to the Glarner alps for the yurt building seminar. I'd rather skip the whole friday until dinner because one catastrophe followed the next and I had a minor breakdown before we were even halfway there. But the place where we stayed lays in a very beautiful countryside, and after a good meal, the troubles were already forgotten. We pitched up our imaginary tent in the hay which is of course very romantic, until the rooster cries at 4 a.m. and flies start molesting your face as soon as the sun comes up.

But we arranged ourselves, and soon started working. Instead of the expected ten it turned out we would be only four people in this week's course, so we had to try and compensate with motivation.

Here the bamboo sticks for the trellis that forms the wall are carefully measured up.

It was very hot, so we had to look out for each other.

Tref proved that his knifes are very sharp on the very first day. Pheeew, there's a lot of blood in such a small thing like a thumb...

The trellis was then put together in a zig-zag shape.

Whilst experts took care of laying out the floor.


Here we fit the pieces for the upper ring that forms the center of the yurt's roof together. If you look carefully you can also see some of the thousands of flies on Claudius' right arm.

Tom and Tref seal the pieces of the roof covering together with an hot air gun.

Roof covering almost finished.

This is the top of the roof with the window part made out of foil that can be lifted to let air in.

The trellis is set up on the floor, the door is fitted in and then the top ring is lifted up to the right hight with tipi posts: The most tricky work of them all.

Then the bamboo poles of the roof are fixed into the ring and on the trellis.

Et voila: The 'skeleton' of the yurt. It is so stable a grown man can easily hang from the ring.

After so many days of hard work we took a little break to cool down.

On friday we finished the 'summer-yurt': The roof covering was brought up

And some tent canvas hung in place on the outside of the wall.
We didn't have time to add the isolation that would be part of the winter proof yurt. Sadly... we had to cut down on a lot of things, partly because there was just not enough time, partly also because the organisation was not the best. I would have expected more out of a course organised by somebody who's been building yurts since mor than ten years...
But I don't want to rant about people on the web, some of you will hear the more detailed story soon enough.
Although it was not at all what we expected, we surely learned a lot, and we have now concrete plans about all the parts of the yurt, so we only need to start organising, and then building. I know now that it won't be easy at all (well, I knew that before, but you know how it is with things you've never done: You only realise what a hassle they are when you're in the middle of doing them. Knowing what expects you often makes it hard to jump in), but I also know that we are able to do it.
The greatest thing about the week was surely to meet so many cool people and make connections that surely will be helpful in the future.