Feeling The Yurt

---

---

A few weeks ago as I was hiking with my two best buds, one of them hurled a question at me that to be quite honest, is not one I thought I'd ever be asked,

"Kat, do you want a yurt?"

A yurt! Heck ya I'd like a yurt! Those portable domiciles of Central Asian design are super excellent! My friend who was offering said yurt has a place with a bunch of them, as it was formerly a yurt B&B.

She continued,

"If you take it down, it's all yours."

I might admit I got a bit more spring in my step, the idea of having a yurt nestled in the little four acre pine patch on the west side of my farm really does intrigue me, especially so because I have all the utility services there for it to be a cozy little retreat for guests.

Also, I might go stay in it myself on occasion, a yurt writing studio has a nice ring to it.

Anyway, my other friend's sister volunteered to remove and rehome the other two yurts, so all three yurts had new homes to go too. Sooner than you can say efficient military spouse planning, we had a yurt removal work party day lined up.

Well, it changed a couple of times because my friend's hubs is an airline pilot and there's kinda a shortage of those, so his schedule is a bit extra these days.

However, yesterday arrived and it was finally Yurt Removal Day!

I woke up early yesterday morning, fed my livestock, and spoiled myself with an espresso from the local girl's drive-thru coffee joint. I rarely do such things, but I felt like I might need that extra dose of oomph to get my carcass through the day as this past weekend was a bit full and I was a bit diminished in the energy department.

For the next ninety minutes I hurtled north, singing at the top of my lungs, and sipping a lovely pulled brew of roasted gloriousness. The yurts to be removed were all were sitting on top of a mountain overlooking The Pack River Valley, and I will admit, I never get tired of this view:

We started work at 9AM sharp, and there was quite a few of us present which I must say I appreciated, as we really didn't know exactly what yurt removal was going to entail. The more hands the better for sure!

As I meandered down the trail to the yurts, I giggled a bit at the sight of the outhouses. Even though the former B&B had a building at the top of the hill with full bathrooms and a kitchen for the yurts, the former owners still put in a few privies for the guests. I guess some people like the outhouse experience?

We started on the red yurt first. The yurts were designed and constructed by Shelter Design Yurts out of Montana, and it was a good thing we had a handful of power drills because holy wingnuts are those things constructed well, my friend's kiddos and I removed screws for a long time before we even got down to taking anything down.

On the top of each yurt is a polycarbonate dome to let in light. After the opening number of Let's Turn The Screw played out, we used the most gigantic teen among us (he's 6'8") to do elevated removal work. He climbed up a ladder, popped the plastic piece off, and slid it down the side to his equally tall father.

Then we took off the very heavy duty vinyl top covering and very nice insulation before getting down to the bones of the yurt. Also, that insulation was brighter than the surface of the sun when the rays of our giant gas ball hit it. I am pretty sure I have a fried retina yurt removal disability now.

Anyway, then came the trickiest part of the removal, made easier because there was like twenty of us. The big polycarbonate dome sat on a round piece of wood that all the spines of the yurt were connected too. I am sure there are proper terms for the purling/framing, but I don't feel like looking it up, so spines it is!

We loosened everything, removed the top cable that circled the top of the lattice wall which secured everything together, and then completed a well-choreographed spine removal that honestly made us look like we knew what we were doing. I started joking that we could put Yurt Removal Consultants on our resumes after the job because after three yurts we would definitely be professionals!

I kinda felt for the two guys who had to stand at the top of the ladder propping up the big stabilizing circle while we removed the spines. The commentary from the circle stabilizers was most amusing though, plus we fed everyone a tasty hot dog roast and smores lunch so I feel like their tribulation was worth it.

After removing the upright and ceiling support spines, we moved on to the lattice, it was super easy, we just had to squish it together like an accordion and ratchet strap it shut. Pieces of cake.

Then we discovered that the floor is going to take a bit of creativity. Not only is the tongue and groove, sixteen feet in diameter, floor glued together, it is also glued to a subfloor. As in the dang floors are so awesomely built that they bent a floor jack when we jacked up the floor a bit to see what we are dealing with. I've got a bunch of people working on a solution to remove the floor, it might involve cutting it down the middle, hinging it, hauling it, and blocking/regluing it before yurt reassembly. I'll report more on this topic later!

Another bit of fun was the cast iron propane stoves in each yurt. They are super cute, but dang are they heavy! I am in fairly decent physical shape, like I lift stuff all the time, but I couldn't even budge one of those stoves. It took me and two very buff teenagers to get those stoves moved.

And speaking of moving, we could only get the trailers that we were hauling the yurts on within about a hundred feet of so of our worksite, so we had to haul everything....uphill.

So on a very uncharacteristically warm and humid spring day, I hauled yurt components straight uphill, my phone said I marched up forty-six floors and over five miles of steps. No wonder my tail's dragging a bit today!

But I'm not deflated even if my carcass is a bit on the tired side, because I'm just so dang excited about my new little forest green yurt of awesomeness!

---

And as most of the time, all of the images in this post were taken on the author's thankfully not dropped in the dirt near a yurt iPhone.