We stop and "monkey around" the yurt...

We just had a successful yurt building workshop weekend.  Our goal for the weekend: build a yurt frame and sew the cover.  The participants in the workshop were able to see all parts of the yurt building and left the weekend prepared to build!

“The workshop was very hands-on.  Hal and Charlie were super nice and helpful and inclusive.  I love how ideas were shared and suggestions taken.”

Our agenda for the weekend was pretty lofty, with our participants going through the entire process of building the yurt.  In the woodshop, they made a rafter, assembled khanna, and assembled and finished the ring.  The ring they worked on is the ring that they will use when they put up their yurt!

“I loved the hands-on options. Thanks for the background, so that personal modifications [to the yurts] can be made… I would recommend this workshop to others!”

Sewing the yurt cover at our workshop...

In the sewing studio, we taught how to make windows, assembled the walls, and cut sewed an entire roof!  Some of the participants helped with the sewing, and our new demo yurt is truly a collaborative effort!

“I got to learn, then actually build many parts of the yurt in 1 day! I recommend this workshop to others!”

All yurt workshop participants assembled and finished their roof ring."

We had some other positive feedback, and testimonials, and they are below… thanks to everybody who made the workshop a success!

‎”I don’t know where I could find a better value in a sustainable shelter or a more helpful group of people to facilitate my dream of building my own yurt, then at Laurel Nest Yurts.”

“The workshop was awesome! people had a great time and learned a lot..no matter what level of know-how they came in with. There were people who already knew a lot, and people like me who were total beginners, and everyone was comfortable and got a chance to learn. Thanks Hal, Charlie, Asia and everyone for a great weekend!”

We will plan to have another workshop sometime this spring… we’ll keep you posted.  Possibly for this workshop, we’ll have it over three days, starting on Friday afternoon, and going to Sunday…. hope to see you there!

I feel like my mind and my being expanded and grew so much, and gave me so much to work on, learn about, and stay inspired about. We started the weekend with a circle, imagine all of us singing together, “we put our roots ….. down into the earth. We put our roots down, down, down into the earth…”

From there I went to a workshop by Jeanine Davis about the top 10 herbs for the garden. (Think:echinacea, basil, sage, mint, comfrey… After that, I joined Corina Wood for an herb walk. (Corrina is director of Red Moon Herbs and the SE Wise Woman Conference) There is so much we can eat in our native lands! After that, dinner, which was made with local and organic ingredients. The whole weekend was full of wonderful meals based on the cookbook, “Nourishing Traditions”. That evening, Rosemary Gladstar shared some wisdom and then we listened to the songs of Rising Appalachia (whose music I totally fell in love with!!) In the morning I woke up for yoga with Sierra Hollister, my favorite yoga teacher ever, and then went to the most incredible drumming workshop with Kristen Arant, who is the founder of the Young Women’s Drumming Empowerment Project.

Rising Appalachia sisters

I took an amazing class with Rosemary Gladhart on Sunday about Planting for the Future. She urged us to make sure that any herbs we used are ethically harvested. 35 years ago when she started her work as an herbalist, there was not nearly so many herbs being harvested. Now some of our most powerful native plants (like Goldenseal) have been over harvested and our in danger. How can we help? Start your own herb walk garden and plant some of these varieties. She recommended 2 books to help in that journey: “Growing At Risk Medicinal Herbs” by Richo Cech and her book “Planting the Future”. I am so inspired… and I will start an herb garden and also try to share some of this information on the blog.

The rest of the weekend was full of so much learning, song, ritual, drumming, and learning… I wish that I c an connect in my daily life more with women who honor their own wisdom and sacred from which we come.

Some helpful links:

Red Moon Herbs http://redmoonherbs.com/

SE Wise Woman Herbal Conerence http://www.sewisewomen.com/

Rising Appalachia http://www.risingappalachia.com/

Sage Mountain (Rosemary Gladstar) http://www.sagemountain.com

Kristen Arant http://www.drumlady.com/

Young Women’s Drumming Empowerment Project http://www.youngwomendrum.org/

United Plant Savers (protect native medicinal plants) http://unitedplantsavers.org/

Our most recent upload, (a free download once you register) is an instructable for building a platform.

Yurt Platform Building

This is useful for all people who are setting their yurt up on a deck, whether you are a DIY builder or you purchase a complete kit.

The next upload that is available is about the pre-hung door.  This is helpful for people who purchase a kit or a DIY builder.  It allows you to install your new (or used) pre-hung door.

The last upload is a revision of our complete setup manual.  We also have a setup DVD available for those people who are more visual!

We are anticipating our next workshop in August.  People who attend the workshop will learn everything they need to know about building a yurt.  They will go home with some yurt parts and The Complete Yurt Manual.  E-mail or call us if you are interested in signing up.

We look forward to seeing some of you there! The workshop will include working on yurt building, some delicious meals in our community kitchen, and nature walks.  We hope it will be an inspiring weekend for us all!

Please let us know if you have any questions or if we can help in any way.

Lakeside view of the yurts at LEAF

This last weekend, Hal and I and 28 of our loved friends (and my mom!) came out and helped us roll sushi, make organic coconut carrot ginger soup, local home grown Asian greens, home grown salad, tempura and lots of other yummies…

For all the simplicity we love in life, we didn’t travel light, we brought four yurts with us!! One yurt was for the international booth, another one was our vending yurt, another was a grillin’ hangin’ and partyin’ place, and the last yurt was the prep yurt (with lakeside views…)

Our yurts were really unique and stood out from the EZ-UPS.  Lots of people asked questions and were interested in the yurts.  They wondered how long it takes to set up (when you get good, goes up in less than an hour) and how it handles wind (we weren’t fazed by the large wind gusts).  We fit all four yurts in our truck, as well as picnic benches, and lots of other random vendor related stuff.

The yurts were great to work in, and we felt like we were at home.  Yurtin’, glampin’, it’s the good life!  Best of all- it was Mother’s Day weekend, and my mom came! So my little girl Emilia got her mommy, and I got my mommy too…  Smiles all around!!

DIY with LNY

We’ve been getting a lot of interest in our Do-It-Yourself manual. I just thought I’d take a second to write and update on our progress in this area. We are working on a comprehensive manual that will teach suggest ways to build a yurt frame and sew a cover. Our first part, the section about building the frame will be available soon. We’re working on making it more comprehensive right now, adding pictures and better instructions so that it will be very user-friendly.

Why are we trying to teach people about building their own yurts? Our goal is to help people get into yurts. Hal learned how to build his first yurt from a download by Ellisif Flakkari (Monica Ciello) “Construction of a Yurt”.  See this web page for the dowload… www.pbm.com/~lindahl/articles/yurt/yurt.ps Since then, he’s been building more yurts for people all over, and trying to improve the design.

Hal, Emilia (our daughter), and I live in a yurt he built for us. In fact, when we were still talking about committing to each other and our relationship, he told me he would build my yurt for free, as long as I paid for the materials. Now I’m sold on yurts and I love ours so much. I hope my love for yurts and the wonderfully simple lifestyle will encourage others to try it out.

For now, if you are interested in building your yurt, we are happy to offer any information that would be helpful. As far as the manual, we are hoping to have it out at the very end of this winter or early spring… in the meantime we are always happy to help you build parts of your yurt yourself.

To the rest of us (me, included) what is another option? There’s lots of “yurt building for dummies”, areas where if you don’t have any carpentry skills or power tools, you can still participate in building your yurt. These are mostly “finishing options”. It’s the more mundane work, sanding and staining…

Putting together khanna is a great way to build part of your yurt.

Everyone can sand their own yurt. This can be done by purchasing sand paper at your local hardware store and spending a day sanding all the yurt parts. When you’re done sanding, you can spend a day treating the wood parts. You can stain, oil, or paint your yurt any color… The last thing you can do if you are interested in saving money is assembling your yurt. You can put your door frame together (hopefully with the help of a friend), your khanna (walls) together, and these are easy to do on your yurt floor/ deck.

Now you’re ready for a yurt-erecting party! Call all your friends, and download our set-up manual (on the downloads area at the bottom of the page). I recommend some live music, drinks, and tons of snacks… then you can keep having fun in your yurt when it’s all set up. Good luck!