yurt update Nov 22-23

On Monday, November 22, I return to my regularly scheduled work programming, but E stays home to begin piecing together the outer waterproof vinyl. Instead of sewing, these pieces will be glued together (hallelujah). E sends me videos throughout the day of cutting, laying out, and gluing the pieces together with a roller. He makes significant progress. 

Tuesday is our deadline day for canvas and vinyl since we are traveling to my parents’ for Thanksgiving early Wednesday morning. We’ve decided to wait for insulation until after the holiday. While I am at work Tuesday, E puts up the canvas and works with his father to fix some wiring in the old cow shed to give us working electricity. The canvas installation is an impressive one-man job as the canvas is heavy and bulky, but bit by bit he hangs the wall and lays the roof, alternately climbing the scaffolding to the center ring and making adjustments from the ground below. 

I arrive about an hour before sunset after finishing the workday and packing for our Thanksgiving travels. After some communication kerfuffle, I come to realize that my sewing hours are not over. In order for the vinyl roof to have a smooth brim that overlaps and sheds water well, it needs to be sewn on. This is a low; we work together for two and a half hours on the freezing concrete to get 75 feet of vinyl through our trusty loaner sewing machine. Finally; completion. We run another rope through loops on the top of the vinyl wall and hang it; E rolls up the roof and strong-mans the bundle up and through the center hole to lay it out down a rafter. Together we unroll it around the roof. Thankfully, the freshly sewed brim acts as it is supposed to, although later we will have to seam seal the stitches with silicone caulk. We tie two more ropes around the vinyl to hold it in place. We top the whole thing off with a square of canvas with a rope on each corner to cover hole formed by the central ring, wrestle a mattress into the yurt next to the scaffolding, wrap ourselves in sleeping bags and try to grab a few hours of sleep before waking up at four AM to catch our 5:30 flight to Thanksgiving. It is very cold – 25 degrees when we climb into the car the next morning - though we figure it might be 40 degrees inside the yurt.

To be continued…