The website http://www.forloveofyurts.com is now live!
Monday, October 26, 2009
Tuesday, October 13, 2009
Source of New Book
An ebook of For Love of Yurts: Building an Ultra Simple Yurt Home for Under a $1000 will be available at the website www.forloveofyurts.com in several days. The ebook price is $12.95 for a downloadable version. The site will be taking advanced orders of a paperback version that is $19.95 and will ship November 1st at the latest. By November 1st I expect that the book will be available at Shires Press website and at the Northshire Bookstore in Manchester Center, Vermont, as well as at Scribd and at Amazon.
Introduction to New Book
Introduction
Ten years ago, at Spirit Hollow, a shamanic school tucked back in the
Taconic Mountains of Vermont, I fell in love with yurts. I was bedazzled
by an exotic tent, with a framed door, wooden floor, diamond latticed
walls and rays of rafters, arching out from a central sky light. I was
dumbstruck by the complex beauty and warmth of a tent in Green
Mountain winter.
We fall in love with people and things that invite us to live an unlived
aspect of ourselves. All my life, I’ve longed to live outdoors, close to
nature and yet I have found myself laboring to survive. living in a
mortgaged house, driving a bank owned car to commute to work that
allowed me to live an indoor life that I didn’t really want. I was forever
running short of time, energy and money. Getting to the mountains
became a chore. When I did get to the mountains on weekends, I didn’t
want to leave them and return to work when the weekend ended. If I
had known how, I would have run away from civilized life and lived with
deer.
In the yurt my divergent worlds came together. Conflicting life needs
and intentions found unity. My natural world and my civilized world
intersected. A yurt was more beautiful than any camp, house or even
mansion that I had ever seen. Light beamed in from a center circle in the
roof, through radiating wooden rafters to fall on a familiar wooden floor.
In a yurt I was warm, dry and comfortable and yet open to the sounds of
the wind in the maples and water in the nearby stream. I loved the
experience. I wanted a yurt. I wanted a Pacific Yurt like the one at Spirit
Hollow.
Later as I worked in Boston, seventy hours per week, at a Fortune 500
company, making more money than I had at any point in my life, I daydreamed
of yurts. I sketched yurts set beside a roaring brook, in
Arlington, in Vermont’s Kelly Stand. I made calculations of the cost of
acreage, cost of a bridge to cross the river, cost of a floor and the cost of
a Pacific Yurt sixteen feet in diameter. I would calculate the month of
next year that I could afford to actualize my dreams.
In the next year, down-sized by life, aching for simplicity, living in an
attic room and tending an organic garden belonging to friends, my head
was still full of yurts. Purchasing land and a Pacific Yurt was now out of
the question. I obtained books by Len Charney, Paul King and Dan
Kuehn and down loaded a paper by Charles Lokey, works that would
comprise the books of my yurt bible. I studied with religious fervor.
Could I build a yurt, bit by bit, over the next several years?
How hard could it to build a yurt? Could I drill six holes in an eight foot
stick? Could I drill six holes in sixty-six, eight foot sticks? Could I tie a
knot at two ends of a cord after threading the cord through holes that I
drilled? I knew I could do all of this and build a yurt wall, and from this
place, I believed I could take on the rest of it. But could I really?
“A year and a half to complete everything”, I thought, but could I design
and construct something that would fit and hold together, would actually
work? To my amazement and joy, within two months, I moved into a
new sixteen foot diameter yurt, my “ger” (Mongolian for “home”) all at a
cost of less than $1000 or about one tenth of the cost of a Pacific Yurt.
Baku, a Japanese friend of mine said, “It wasn’t that God helped you
build a yurt. It’s more like you helped God build it.”
How this all happen, step by step, the ideas, the calculations, designs,
construction ideas that led to the simplest plan possible, the good
fortune and blind luck that completed my yurt-home is the story that follows.
Ten years ago, at Spirit Hollow, a shamanic school tucked back in the
Taconic Mountains of Vermont, I fell in love with yurts. I was bedazzled
by an exotic tent, with a framed door, wooden floor, diamond latticed
walls and rays of rafters, arching out from a central sky light. I was
dumbstruck by the complex beauty and warmth of a tent in Green
Mountain winter.
We fall in love with people and things that invite us to live an unlived
aspect of ourselves. All my life, I’ve longed to live outdoors, close to
nature and yet I have found myself laboring to survive. living in a
mortgaged house, driving a bank owned car to commute to work that
allowed me to live an indoor life that I didn’t really want. I was forever
running short of time, energy and money. Getting to the mountains
became a chore. When I did get to the mountains on weekends, I didn’t
want to leave them and return to work when the weekend ended. If I
had known how, I would have run away from civilized life and lived with
deer.
In the yurt my divergent worlds came together. Conflicting life needs
and intentions found unity. My natural world and my civilized world
intersected. A yurt was more beautiful than any camp, house or even
mansion that I had ever seen. Light beamed in from a center circle in the
roof, through radiating wooden rafters to fall on a familiar wooden floor.
In a yurt I was warm, dry and comfortable and yet open to the sounds of
the wind in the maples and water in the nearby stream. I loved the
experience. I wanted a yurt. I wanted a Pacific Yurt like the one at Spirit
Hollow.
Later as I worked in Boston, seventy hours per week, at a Fortune 500
company, making more money than I had at any point in my life, I daydreamed
of yurts. I sketched yurts set beside a roaring brook, in
Arlington, in Vermont’s Kelly Stand. I made calculations of the cost of
acreage, cost of a bridge to cross the river, cost of a floor and the cost of
a Pacific Yurt sixteen feet in diameter. I would calculate the month of
next year that I could afford to actualize my dreams.
In the next year, down-sized by life, aching for simplicity, living in an
attic room and tending an organic garden belonging to friends, my head
was still full of yurts. Purchasing land and a Pacific Yurt was now out of
the question. I obtained books by Len Charney, Paul King and Dan
Kuehn and down loaded a paper by Charles Lokey, works that would
comprise the books of my yurt bible. I studied with religious fervor.
Could I build a yurt, bit by bit, over the next several years?
How hard could it to build a yurt? Could I drill six holes in an eight foot
stick? Could I drill six holes in sixty-six, eight foot sticks? Could I tie a
knot at two ends of a cord after threading the cord through holes that I
drilled? I knew I could do all of this and build a yurt wall, and from this
place, I believed I could take on the rest of it. But could I really?
“A year and a half to complete everything”, I thought, but could I design
and construct something that would fit and hold together, would actually
work? To my amazement and joy, within two months, I moved into a
new sixteen foot diameter yurt, my “ger” (Mongolian for “home”) all at a
cost of less than $1000 or about one tenth of the cost of a Pacific Yurt.
Baku, a Japanese friend of mine said, “It wasn’t that God helped you
build a yurt. It’s more like you helped God build it.”
How this all happen, step by step, the ideas, the calculations, designs,
construction ideas that led to the simplest plan possible, the good
fortune and blind luck that completed my yurt-home is the story that follows.
Table of Contents to New Book
Contents
Introduction 6
History and Traditions 9
Words and Meanings 10
Sky-Blue Yurt-Home: The Love 12
An Ultra Simple Yurt-Home 14
Plans: An Overview 17
Tension Band 19
Site Preparation 23
A Flat Spot is a Floor 26
Door Frame 29
Walls 33
Rafters 49
Roof Ring 51
Some Assembly Required 56
Scaffolding 59
Roof Ring Supports 61
Covering 63
Insulating 65
Custom Doors 67
Snow, Wind and Rain 69
Dome Covering 72
Heating and Cooling 73
Spirit Hollow Yurt-Home 75
Math 78
Understanding 16 Foot Plans 82
Understanding 12 Foot Plans 84
`` A Story Ends/ A Story Begins 86
Photographs 88
Bibliography 102
Resources For a Yurt Life Style 103
Index 104
Links 105
Introduction 6
History and Traditions 9
Words and Meanings 10
Sky-Blue Yurt-Home: The Love 12
An Ultra Simple Yurt-Home 14
Plans: An Overview 17
Tension Band 19
Site Preparation 23
A Flat Spot is a Floor 26
Door Frame 29
Walls 33
Rafters 49
Roof Ring 51
Some Assembly Required 56
Scaffolding 59
Roof Ring Supports 61
Covering 63
Insulating 65
Custom Doors 67
Snow, Wind and Rain 69
Dome Covering 72
Heating and Cooling 73
Spirit Hollow Yurt-Home 75
Math 78
Understanding 16 Foot Plans 82
Understanding 12 Foot Plans 84
`` A Story Ends/ A Story Begins 86
Photographs 88
Bibliography 102
Resources For a Yurt Life Style 103
Index 104
Links 105
Monday, October 12, 2009
Cover for New Book on Yurts: Final Proof
Today I drove to Manchester Center Vermont to meet with Debbi Wraga at Shires Press. Things are moving forward and I hope to have copies to sell on Oct 22. An ebook will be offered at Scribd at about the same time. After I went to Arlington Vermont's waterfall and spent a sacred moment.
Wednesday, October 7, 2009
Mongolian-Yurts.com
Mongolian-Yurts.com, with locations in Columbus, Ohio, USA and Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia is the source for beautifully made Mongolian Yurts/Gers and is a fantastic site to visit for yurt lovers everywhere. Don't miss visiting this site!
Monday, October 5, 2009
Proof Book Cover
Above is a proof of book cover. Final will have background picture in geater detail and will loose the word "the" in the title.
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