Greetings- Welcome to my ongoing diary about living in my yurt this summer on our homestead. I should have a name for this diary but I don’t. Not yet.
The electricity that is lighting up this computer comes from a portable 600 watt solar electric system that I built along with the help of my friend and solar guru David Nighteagle. It’s been seamless so far. It serves my needs perfectly.
Out back towards the ponds I have a sawdust composting toilet that I built. This is my third time using this simple humanure technique. Clean, sanitary. I highly recommend it over commercial composting toilets. And it’s portable.
I use propane to heat my yurt. The heater is a 3 burner catalytic ceramic heater. It puts out 18,000 BTU. Small, but efficient. It’s not suitable for winter use though. I could heat with wood, but the propane heater is light and portable and works for now. In September I will move into the farmhouse for the winter anyway. I could get along well into October, but we’re taking this building up to Telluride in mid September for the blues and brews festival. It will be used as a break room for the bands. So I have to move out. We could put it back up. It only takes us about 3 hours. But the following weekend it goes to the “Wines of the San Juan” festival over by Ignacio, Co., so I might as well move into the farmhouse with Isaac and pack the building away till Spring. Or set it up closer to the house and use it as an office or retreat on nice winter afternoons. It can stay up all winter just fine. I don’t worry about snowload. Snow slides off easily, and the strap around the top of the walls that holds everything together has a tensile strength of around 6,000 pounds. It’s more about heat. This yurt is our 3-season model. Not our year round insulated model.
Because we’re such new kids on the block with our unique yurt offering, and because we’re trying to do this as a community offering that supports us, we’re not following the traditional business model. We don’t have employees. Never will. Everyone who works to build a yurt is a part of our extended community; which is large, and grows larger everyday. I intend to introduce you to this larger community as this diary continues. That way, you will also know what’s up in the four corners country of CO, NM, UT, and AZ, as we come together here to promote interdependence, and the 4C’s. Conscious, Creative, Cultural, Connection. This is my ultimate goal in writing this diary. It is about living in my yurt, but it is really about something much bigger; which is a cultural statement, “Our future is now”. Together.
Till we meet again,
Be of good cheer
Bodhi
