Laurel Nest Yurts

Over the last few weeks, I’ve been apprenticing with an herbalist friend of mine. I’ve made some salves, lip balms, tinctures and oils. It’s been amazing how simple it is to go out in the field or garden and harvest some plants to make healing remedies.
Echinacea grows in many gardens and is also a wild flower.

Echinacea grows in gardens and wild.

It does great when made into a tincture. I was amazed how simple the process was. Fall is the best time to harvest the roots, so in the next few weeks is a good time to make the tincture.  I actually ate one of the flowers, and it had the craziest taste and texture, try it at least once!

Making the tincture is simple, first go find some flowers and dig them up.

Stuff the jar with roots, leaves, and flowers.

Wash and cut the roots before putting them in the tincture.

Then you will take the roots, wash them off. Then cut up the roots, and leaves.   Place the roots, leaves, and flowers in a jar and cover all of it with Vodka.   Let it sit for the next month, and it will be ready when cold season comes! After a month, strain the roots, flowers, and leaves.

At first sign of cold and not feeling good, take several drops of your tincture.

Yesterday morning, a couple who own a bed and breakfast in Texas dropped by to look at our yurts.  They were excited about our yurts and also about sustainable building.  Their bed and breakfast is “green”, and they have a goal of building several structures on their 11 acre plot that involve green building techniques.  One of the insulation ideas they shared with me is papercrete. I had never heard of it, but papercrete is an ancient and modernized insulation.  It’s an exciting idea, to create your own environmentally friendly, sound proof, and inexpensive home with yesterday’s newspaper, and today’s junk mail!  

Every month millions of tons of refuse enter our landfills. A lot of it is not salvageable. But, for office paper, magazines, light cardboard, junk mail and newspapers Papercrete offers the perfect solution, by removing tons of waste paper from the ever-growing piles, while providing useful shelter material. Papercrete is a recently developed construction material which consists of re-pulped paper fiber with Portland cement or clay and/or other soil added. First patented in 1928, it has been revived since the 1980s.  Adding the cement makes the product less “green”, but the relatively small amount of cement is possibly a reasonable trade off for what papercrete can offer.

Some of the qualities of papercrete as a building material include:

• Highly insulating (about R-2 1/2 per inch)

• Involves little cost to start. The materials are claimed to be cheap or free and widely available.
  

• Good shear strength as a block.  Lateral load involves sideways force – the wind load on the entire area of an outside wall for example. Because papercrete walls are usually a minimum of twelve inches thick, and usually pinned with rebar, they may be strong laterally.

• Machinery suitable for small-scale construction is simple to design and construct.
  

• When properly mixed and dried, the papercrete wall can be left exposed to the elements. In its natural state, it is a grey, fibrous-looking wall. For a more conventional look, stucco can be applied directly to it.

• Does not support flames.  The more cement and mineral material that is added to the mix, the more fireproof it becomes.

• Resists rodent and bug infestation

• Holds screws without cracking

As I read about papercrete online and learned some of the properties, I was excited at using “trash” for new home building.  Many people approach us who want to live in a yurt while they build they home. Some of them like the yurt so much, they decide it is their dream home.  Others are researching how to build “green” and papercrete is one interesting option. 

For those of you who want to see how it’s done: check out this YouTube Video!  How To Make Paper Crete From a Tow Mixer

Thank you to these websites that provided me with information and photos:

http://www.greenhomebuilding.com/papercrete.htm

http://makepapercrete.com

http://earthbagbuilding.com

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Papercrete

http://www.livinginpaper.com/mixes.htm

There’s a new school starting this fall in a Laurel Nest Yurt, called the Little Round Schoolhouse.  It’s a Waldorf inspired school, with lots of beautiful activities and learning for rising kindergarteners from 3-6 years old.

They recently “raised” their yurt and are making preparations to start the school year shortly.  It was a wonderful yurt-raising, the children participated and so much thought went into the children’s experience in the yurt.   Here Becca writes how much fun they had choosing where to place their door:

“The fun part of this step was actually after the octagon was finished and we all gathered around and decided which way the door should face.  What do we want our children to see when they look out the front door?  What do we want them to walk past as they come to the schoolhouse each day?  After much shifting of directions, our front door has found a way to face–the woods and beyond to the mountains.”

Their yurt raising was a community event, and they had lots of people come out and help.

The yurt raising for the school!

Their vision for the school is so beautiful, and I know the children will thrive in a round schoolhouse with such a wonderful vision for learning!  Good luck with the next school year!

For more information about The Little Round Schoolhouse, check out their website, http://littleroundschoolhouse.com.  They also have a facebook page, so you may want to find them there.

Many people ask us if mold is an issue in a yurt.  We live in the mountains of North Carolina, and our lovely yurts are in the middle of a temperate rain forest.

As with any structure in a climate with lots of humidity, it is important to build with good ventilation in mind.

We have some good solutions for ventilation- the skylight dome at the top of the yurt can open and pulls warm air up and out and lets the cool air from outside come in.  You can also leave your windows open, put up a ceiling fan, use screen doors, put in additional doors, and just keep a good air flow in your yurt.

Washing the yurt and keeping it clean will keep mold out.  If you have a lot of moisture, you should keep your fan running at all times.  Some people choose to run a dehumidifier or an air conditioner.  Climate control is typically used in standard homes to keep mold out, and is an option in yurts.  Personally, I prefer a nice fan.

Regular maintenance will help your yurt stay mold free!

If you do use a good fan, you probably will only need to do a general cleaning in your yurt and mold should not be a problem.  However, if mold ever is a problem, there are some natural ways to clean.  I have used lemon juice, lime juice, or vinegar for wiping off mold, and then laundry detergent for killing the spores.  The detergent is diluted in water, and then I use it as a rinse.  All-natural health cleaning products can be used to eliminate mold and mildew as effectively as more traditional products, but without leaving harsh additives and dangerous particles behind.

I hope this helps, and feel free to call us if you are concerned about mold in a moist climate like ours!!  With proper maintenance and good ventilation, mold won’t bother you and you’ll love that yurt of yours!

Below is a list from an article I found online about natural cleaning options… (the link follows the list).

Tea Tree Oil

Tea tree oil is one of the best antifungal and antibacterial remedies available. In addition to its ability to treat fungal infections such as athlete’s foot, tea tree oil can be added to a mixture of vinegar and water as an effective cleaner for mold and mildew.

Grapefruit Seed Extract

Grapefruit seed extract can be used to cut and kill mold and mildew. It can be used topically as an odorless treatment.

White Vinegar

Vinegar is the most versatile natural product. It is effective as a mold and mildew cleaner, as well as a grease cutter and stain remover.

Hydrogen Peroxide

Hydrogen peroxide is effective for treating mold and mildew when mixed into a paste along with borax and lemon juice.

Regular Maintenance

In addition to regular cleaning, mold and mildew can only be prevented by ensuring that areas prone to dampness are left to dry. Both mold and mildew grow in extremely moist areas. Clean these areas regularly and keep them dry.

Read more: About Natural Cleaning Products for Mildew | eHow.com http://www.ehow.com/facts_4869042_natural-cleaning-products-mildew.html#ixzz0w89X9wc2

One of our goals at Laurel Nest Yurts is to have a sustainable business.  There are many ways to do this, and using biodiesel is just one aspect of how we are making progress.  Our Yurtmobiles all run on biodiesel from Blue Ridge Biofuels (check out http://www.blueridgebiofuels.com)

Biodiesel refers to a vegetable oil- or animal fat-based diesel fuel. Biodiesel is typically made by chemically reacting fats (like veggie oil or animal fat) with alcohol.

Biodiesel is meant to be used in standard diesel engines and is thus different from the waste and vegetable oils used to fuel converted diesel engines. Biodiesel can be used alone, or blended with petrodiesel.

Usually, we use B100 in the summer and then when its colder outside we go with B50 or B20.  One of our trucks had 2 tanks, one was the biodiesel tank and the other was a grease tank.  Some of our friends have traveled by bus just on grease cross country! It’s the way to go.

Biodiesel has different solvent properties than petrodiesel, and will degrade natural rubber gaskets and hoses in vehicles (mostly vehicles manufactured before 1992), although these tend to wear out naturally and most likely will have already been replaced with FKM, which is nonreactive to biodiesel. Biodiesel has been known to break down deposits of residue in the fuel lines where petrodiesel has been used. As a result, fuel filters may become clogged with particulates if a quick transition to pure biodiesel is made. It is recommended to change the fuel filters on engines and heaters shortly after first switching to a biodiesel blend.

I found some interesting links about making biodiesel more sustainable.

First off, there’s one idea to use it for cleaning up the oil spill. (see http://www.biodieselmagazine.com/article.jsp?article_id=4281 for the whole article)

Some of the same innovators who produce biodiesel are hoping their product could soon be used in the Gulf of Mexico, cleaning up the beaches and marshes ravaged by the BP oil spill.  Methyl esters, the chemical yielded in biodiesel production, can be formulated into a biobased solvent that is federally listed as a shoreline washing agent for oil spill clean-up.
The process starts with crews spraying the biosolvent from shallow draft boats onto oil-covered marsh vegetation or small beaches normally unreachable by land, said Randall von Wedel, founder and principal biochemist of CytoCulture International, a company that pioneered the method in the 1990s.

Randall von Wedel has been working tirelessly to get his biodiesel-based solvent, CytoSol, approved for use in cleaning up the oil-soaked marshes and beaches in the Gulf Coast. PHOTO: CYTOCULTURE INTERNATIONAL

After the biosolvent is applied, it is followed with a gentle “rain” of seawater to rinse the dissolved petroleum mixture off the plants and shoreline for recovery on the water, using small mechanical skimmers.

Another more sustainable source for biodiesel is algae. Check out this article for more information about how they made biodiesel from pond scum…  http://www.renewableenergyworld.com/rea/news/article/2007/01/making-biofuel-from-pond-scum-47237

For industrial production, the researchers are designing enormous growing troughs, wider than two trucks side by side, as long as a football field, and grouped by the thousands around processing plants. In this way, Sears says, algae could supply all the U.S. diesel power on a fraction of the nation’s farmland, just one percent of the 400 million hectares now under cultivation.
“Actually we wouldn’t have to convert any of our arable land,” [Sears] observes. “We could use desert land to grow this algae. It doesn’t require good soil. Just flat land, carbon dioxide and sunlight.”
Carbon dioxide helps algae grow fast and fat, so the team plans to siphon it from fossil fuel power plant exhaust, which will reduce greenhouse gas emissions. And Sears says there are other ways to get the gas. “It would actually start with biomass such as switch grass or wood, where in some countries are the only type of fuel that they have anyway. In that case, the grass, the trees, the wood is pulling the carbon dioxide out of the air, then we burn it as fuel and feed the carbon dioxide to the algae.”
He stresses that no carbon will be added to the atmosphere during all these energy conversion steps, making biofuel from algae is a truly carbon-neutral technology. “It’s essentially solar powered fuel.”
To conserve water, the growing troughs are sealed. The algae grows under a clear plastic lid that allows in plenty of sunlight, but keeps the water the plants are floating in from evaporating. “It is about 1,000 times more efficient to produce fuel from algae than it is from an irrigated crop,” Sears says. “There’s enough water even in the desert from natural rainfall to support this technology.”

How’s that for inspiring a sustainable, green energy?  There’s lots of articles online about making your own biodiesel from Waste Vegetable Oil and Algae… and the more of us that work towards a cleaner, greener earth, the better for all of us!

Thanks to the websites I used for the information! I pasted and paraphrased, and I encourage anyone who is interested to go to the links in this blog entry.

This summer, one of my goals has been to explore more water holes and swim spots… One of the most popular ones around is Sliding Rock, which if you’re in the WNC area, this is a can’t miss, must do!

Emilia went down the rock twice, and loved it! She was braver than me, screaming the whole way down! Brr… cold water… and I can’t wait to take my family out there in a few weeks!

Here I am, sliding down the rocks...

Hal and Emilia going down the rock!

Sliding Rock is a naturally occurring 60-foot waterslide with a seven-foot deep pool that has been developed by the US Forest Service into a recreation area.  You can either slide yourself or watch others do it from an observation deck opposite the slide or above the waterfall.

This water is cold, so come on a smoldering hot day! Enjoy!

Hal, Emilia and I had so much fun at Sliding Rock!

There is a small fee to enter the recreation area.  The recreation area is open year-round, but the bathrooms and changing rooms are only open from Memorial Day to Labor Day.  Lifeguards are on duty during that time as well.

A few weeks ago, we built a mud oven at our home.  We had a lovely girl, Julia, who was woofing (see WWOOF.ORG), with us.  She came to work on the oven, and got most of her information about building from some books we have and various internet sites.  While she was working, she played around a lot with the mud, and shared that making a working oven is a lot of experimentation… so get out there and try one. (And please, invite me over for pizza whenever…)

The first step in making the oven involved getting the foundation ready.  We had to dig a pretty deep hole and then filled it with sand a gravel.

Once the foundation was ready, we arranged some blocks in a roundish shape, and made sure they were level… This is important, you would do better to use a level of some sort, not just eye balling it.

Once everything was nice and level we chose a piece of granite for the main base, and then more cinder blocks and fire bricks.  Any part of the oven that will touch fire needs to be fire brick.  We purchased this brick from a local chimney supply store.

Once all the brick is assembled, we made a form for the oven out of sand.

Then comes the fun part! Time to get your feet dirty and mix up some Mud!

On top of the sand went wet newspaper, then our cob clay mixture.  At this point an insulative cob base was built.  This holds the heat when you’re making your breads and pizzas…

Once the proper shape for the oven was created, and it had dried a good bit, the sand got emptied out of the oven.  We made several layers- a cob/clay layer and then another layer with straw and then a final layer of cleaner clay.

As you clean out the sand, you need to be careful and take your time.  Once you touch newspaper, you know you’ve gone high enough. The newspaper is your signal that you have emptied all the sand out.

At that point, we decorated the oven and put beads and other decorations.

Thanks Julia for all the hard work! And home cooked pizza, here we come!

We just finished a project in Swannanoa, NC.  This yurt is a 24′ yurt that has solid walls, and is well insulated.  It’s right on a river, and it was so peaceful listening to the water as we worked.

We put 4 real windows and 2 doors in the yurt.  The yurt was painted with a Therma-insulated paint.  It was much like many of our other yurts, hand-crafted and the owner of the yurt participated in the building process!

We used the wind/ snow load kit as a frame for putting tongue and groove wooden walls.  2″ thick insulation went behind the wooden walls, in an effort to make the yurt have a higher r-value.

The view on the river was so beautiful, so we made it easy to relax in the yurt, and enjoy the water.  We connected 3 real windows and 2 doors as one panel, which made up about 25′, almost 1/3 the circumference of the yurt.  The owners chose to have all real windows, and no vinyl windows in this project.

There is lots of benefits to using real windows.  The biggest one is that you can open them from the inside.  We recommend them when you are building your deck on a steep hill, and you will have challenges in opening your windows from the outside.  Some people have done this for yurts placed on a 2nd story, and built a usable space underneath.  People who want all natural materials choose to have yurts with glass windows as well.  We love them, they add elegance to the yurt!  

Have you met my new pet yurtle?

This weekend we went to a 4th of July Party at Deerfields, our neighbors’ land.  It was a fun-filled weekend of swimming, camping, fireworks, and good ol’ fashioned fun.  We all wished each other a Happy Interdependence Day…  isn’t that what the world needs?  All of us people coming together for what is right and helping make the world a better place.

We had a blast camping in our “Yurtle”.  We got a 12′ trailer and made a beautiful round cedar deck on top of it.  We then put a 12′ cedar yurt on top of the deck and “glamped out at the 4th of July party.

My favorite part was sitting on the steps of the yurtle eating chocolates with my friend Lisa. “Life is like a box of chocolates, you never know what you’re gonna get…” We’re one step closer to our dream of returning to the classic Mongolian lifestyle– our style…. Think biodiesel van (to haul our veggie oil and a complete kitchen) and lovely peaceful round yurt space for sleeping, meditating, and portable shelter!  All we need is some land we can hunt and gather from…

I thought I’d share some interior pictures, to give you an idea of how nice it feels inside our traveling yurt…

This year, our garden has a lot of food in it, but we’re still learning.  We decided to participate in a local CSA at our friends’ farm.  It’s been great. I just had the most mouth-watering lunch: kale and chinese cabbage salad with fresh corn, braggs, apple cider vinegar and tomato tahini dressing. Yum!

What is CSA?

CSA is short for Community Supported Agriculture. It is an opportunity to bring together local people with local farmers. Members of the local community make an annual commitment by purchasing a “share” of the anticipated harvest. Payment is made in advance to help purchase seed, fertilizer and soil amendments for the upcoming season. In exchange, the farmer plants, cultivates, harvests, and prepares boxes of fresh organic vegetables, flowers, and herbs each week throughout the growing season.

Local

A typical carrot has to travel almost 2,000 miles to reach your dinner table. An enormous amount of energy is wasted and valuable nutrition is lost during this transit time. Local food is fresher because it is picked and delivered the same day. Our produce doesn’t have to travel thousands of miles before it gets to your plate. The 3,000 mile salad just became the 3 mile salad.

Growing organically is more in line with the way nature intended food to grow. Organic practices ensure that the produce is healthier for the farmer, the consumer and the environment.  Compost, crop rotation, and cover crops are all used to prevent erosion, reduce the risk of plant disease, and fix valuable nutrients into the soil. This provides healthier, more nutrient-rich soil and food. 

Thank you Gladheart Farms for the wonderful food and community you bring to us!!

http://www.gladheartfarms.com