Yurt, Yurt, Yurt!

[SawyerTed]

 :D

Apologies to Curly. 

Emily had a long weekend off from school so we made a quick getaway to Gordonsville Virginia near Charlottesville. 

We've been here before and have stayed in cabins that are pretty nice. 

For kicks and giggles, I decided we'd stay in a yurt.  It's a highly glorified tent, insulated and heated and cooled.   We do have a kitchen and bath.

It doesn't flap or move like a tent but it rained last night pretty steady.  Turned out to be like sleeping under a tin roof - rustic and relaxing. Of course we can hear the neighbors a little/they can hear us. 

Not sure we'll do it again. 

 

 

 

 

[doc henderson]

looks nice.  I love the sound of rain on a tent.

[Magicman]

Yurts were used extensively after the "Cabin" fire in California several years ago.  They provided the quickest way to establish housing for the folks that lost their homes.

FF Member Ron Trout, "Tree Bones" was very involved with his sawmill for building Yurts and I donated toward his efforts to help pay for his time and expenses. 

[chet]

One of da fondest memories I have, is as a little kid sleeping in the hay loft of our barn and listening to da rain pound on da metal roof. 

[SwampDonkey]

Can hear it here on the steel roof when raining hard or freezing ice pellets like now.  :D

I have come across one once in awhile around here where families live year round in them yurts. Only one I remember exactly where it is is on a dirt road I used to get to work on a couple years ago. Lots of young folks out there. Some even living in those tiny homes, maybe 3 or 4. There are one or two straw houses out there to. I've seen lots of abandoned gardens out there to. :D

[WV Sawmiller]

    In Mongolia Yurts were called Gers. I managed a camp in the Gobi desert for a while and we were building new "housing" with pods of gers when I left there. I went back to my journal and came across the below write up about an occasion when we put up some more gers in the camp. My wife came over and we spent a couple of weeks touring central and northern Mongolia and in most of the camps we stayed at we lived in gers. The write up below has a pretty good description of them. I hope I don't bore you with the extraneous info included. This would have been about early June 2006 when I wrote this.

Chapter Forty three - Putting up Gers

   We decided to set up a few gers in our headquarters office area to use as break rooms and as a mess hall/dining area. The ger is the typical Mongolian home. It is a round tent of varying sizes. Round is evidently the perfect shape for Buddhists and I am sure there are other reasons for the shape that elude me. We erected two large gers (about eight meters in diameter) and another small one about six meters in diameter. I had heard the term five panel ger and eight panel ger but always assumed it was in the cloth or felt coverings. I found instead it pertains to the number of panels in the sides and indicates the final size.

   We put our gers on prefabricated wooden panels. In some areas we have actually poured concrete pads for them. Traditionally the Mongolians no doubt put them on dirt and used rugs or carpets for ground covering like the Arabs did for their tents. For leveling purposes we put down a layer of sand three to four inches deep so the firemen could level the floor better. When I say firemen you probably think I mean firefighters or such. These are actually fire stokers. They come into the gers at night and add coal to the sheet metal stoves. This is what I am told is used to heat the ger traditionally. I would love to see a family of herders on the move because all this stuff they pack must be interesting to see loaded and it must take more camels than it takes to haul my wife's shoes. Anyway, I'm rambling badly. The firemen are also our labor gang as they have nothing much to do during the day. It is seasonal work and they will be done in a few weeks as the weather has warmed considerably here in the Gobi in the two months I have been here.

   First I nearly started a riot wanting to put the small ger up between the two larger ones and cut holes in the back so we can serve food out of the small ger and people could walk through to go sit in the large ger to eat. We even planned on putting covered walkways, sort of tunnel affairs, between the gers. The workers were laying the flooring but evidently grumbling among themselves. Munkhbat (Munk bat) our cultural guru came out and found the source of their displeasure was the fact that we were proposing to cut the holes in the ger. I figured it was like any other house. If you want to add a room you knock out a wall and add on. Wrong! We were not supposed to cut the ger. I found Safety once tried to burn a ger as a test to see how quickly they would burn and the work force immediately went on strike so that idea was quickly nixed.

Okay, we rotate the small ger so the door faces north and opens into the larger gers. More animosity! Evidently it is bad luck to have a ger door face north. They all face south due the prevailing Gobi winds. Okay. We reversed the positions and put the little ger in back and have the big ger doors facing inward toward each other (East & West). This is not wonderful but seems acceptable. We will build some wooden windbreaks with doors for access and maybe cover the whole shebang so we don't get so much grit in our food between the serving and eating area.

I am sure historically the gers that faced north caught the dangerous winds and the residents were injured or killed in the resulting accident and it just became known as bad juju to face the door any direction but south.

   Okay, back to ger construction. We have the floors laid and the next step is to put up the sides. This is where the panel issue comes into play. The sides are lattice like panels that fold up like accordions. They are opened up, held upright and tied together. A regular wooden door and door frame, all slightly curved to keep the structure round, are tied in to close the last section. Next two uprights or ridge poles with a crescent on top of each are tied to what looks like a wooden wagon wheel. For the small, five panel ger the "wheel" is about a meter in diameter. For the eight panel ger it is about one point seven meters. Our "wheels" have glass panels to make a skylight. We also have a four inch diameter hole surrounded by sheet metal for the stove pipe. No doubt traditionally this was open and the cover could be removed to allow light inside when the weather permitted. While two firemen held the "wheel" which was tied to the two ridgepoles upright the other firemen began to put spokes in the wheel. These spokes were about 12'-13' for the small ger and maybe 16'-18' long for the large ger and are equivalent to trusses we would install on our house or barn. These spokes fit into holes in the wheel just like wagon spokes. The other end was laid across the top in the X formed between two strips of the opened lattice panel and tied in place with rawhide or cord. At first spokes are placed with one in each direction and tied to hold the framework in place. Many spokes were installed – at least one every foot.  With each additional spoke the structure becomes more secure and when all the spokes are in place the whole thing actually stands up on its own.

   The next phase is to install the felt. The felt is made of camel hair and pretty musty smelling if not properly washed. Evidently it sheds water pretty well on the rare occasions when they get rain and is well insulated against the cold which is the major threat. I guess the felt must be three quarter inches thick or more. It is pretty heavy. The felt is precut to render the round shape the right size. The felt is laced together and drapes down to the ground. Once the felt is in place a thin covering like a big white sheet is placed over the entire affair leaving flaps of both felt and covering that can be pulled by ropes to cover the center hole in the roof of the ger.

   The next step is not traditional. The firemen stretched out a big roll of black plastic and place around the edge of the ger. Dirt is piled up against this plastic to seal the bottom against the cold and possibly certain small critters. There are snakes including poisonous vipers in the Gobi but it is beyond me how they survive. I am sure the dirt piling is traditional but not the plastic. Traditionally in the summer months the sides would be rolled up from the bottom to allow ventilation and cooler air inside the ger.

   Once the cover is done strong ropes are tied around the ger and it is staked securely in key points to resist the wind. This has to be done very well as we have had a couple of gers collapse on us here just in the short time I have been here. I would not want to be in a severe Gobi sandstorm in a collapsed ger.

   In fact the second day we were trying to put up these gers the winds picked up so badly we had to secure the work and wait till the next day when the winds had abated.

   Once we have our gers up our firemen roll out and cut up linoleum to cover the entire floor. This would have been carpets traditionally. After this we even have electricians come install lights and wall plugs for us to enjoy all the modern conveniences.

   Our planned expansion is actually a big ger camp with the gers erected on concrete pads with in-floor heating. We plan on swamp coolers and putting them in four ger pods with bathrooms in the center. I am not sure how this is going to fare with the north facing occupant. I guess we can just have ex-pats living in them and that will be okay. Maybe since we are buying the gers already installed and materials pre-cut we can avoid the ger cutting heresy.

   Well, enough ger engineering for today. I'm packed and on my way home for R&R. I have a convoluted route through China and round and about but this is not an easy place to get to. I have a full schedule laid out with trips and cutting next year's firewood and building a fence at my daughter and son-in-law's place in Charlotte, one weekend in DC with Becky and her band kids getting a chipped tooth fixed and maybe squeeze in a shot at an old gobbler on coax a bluegill or two into the boat. We will see. My overriding question has to be will my two month old granddaughter enjoy hunting and fishing with me. I am sure she is not too young to learn even if she is a bit small to run the motor. That will come with age.

   My R&R trip was an adventure in itself. I landed in Beijing and left my recently renewed passport at the first station. I got to the gate for my connecting flight and realized it was missing and thought I had left it on the plane so returned to that gate but found it had already pulled away from the gate. Finally I went to Airport Security. Needless to say losing a new American passport in a Communist country is a little unnerving. Airport Security made a few calls and finally a lady Security Officer who was somewhat socially challenged took my by the hand down to Lost and Found. At that point they returned my passport. I was very relieved and my impression of the PRC just ratcheted up many notches.

   I was also very late! By the time I got back to my departure gate I had missed my flight. My luggage had not, however. My new best friend from Airport Security told me since I did not have a visa I would have to buy a new ticket on a China Airways flight and leave her country. I checked with them and a ticket from them was around $800. I told the Security lady I would have to wait till the next flight on my original airline which was tomorrow. The security lady told me I had no visa and had to leave. I told her I guessed I would just have to stay in the airport. She took my visa and left me standing there. I figured she was going to come back with a couple of big burly helpers. A little under an hour later she returned and angrily thrust my passport into my hand and said "You go 'way." I told her I could not leave because I did not have a visa. She replied "I get you visa now you go 'way!" I looked and sure enough there was brand new PRC visa in my passport. I went to the baggage claim/departure lounge and checked out the hotel numbers on the courtesy phones. I found about a three star hotel for around $50 with airport pickup and they sent their driver over. I checked in then, being the excessively curious if somewhat imprudent tourist, I immediately went for a walk around the area.

   There was a sort of market on the block behind the motel. On the corner I saw lots of modern day rickshaw with a small motorcycle pulling a two wheel cart. I figured if I could find one who spoke moderate English I'd hire him to give me the grand tour the rest of the evening. Unfortunately none of the drivers I talked to spoke English at all so that plan was quickly shot down.

   I walked the street checking out the open air grills and went into the shops I saw. I did see lots of people on bikes and the air was pretty thick with smog. The area I was in was apparently just a local market and I enjoyed the trip but did not come away with any serious souvenirs or such. I returned to the hotel, had a decent dinner and turned in for the night.

   I got a good night's sleep and got up, had breakfast and caught the hotel limo back to the airport. This time I got through my check-in process with no problems and caught my scheduled flight home a day late. I don't recommend it but if you must get stranded overseas Beijing is not the worst of places and certainly not the most expensive one in which to get stranded.

[Corley5]

Our neighbors have one that her sister lived in next door to their house. Not sure if she still lives there. The yurt is still there. The wind hasn't blown it away  ;D

[SawyerTed]

Howard, that's an interesting read, your first hand experience with real yurts and the indigenous people sheds light on the origins of these things. 

I believe these yurts came from a company in the PNW.    Of course these are Americanized-engineered for building codes and creature comforts like insulation and electricity. 

[WV Sawmiller]

    When I linked up with my wife the first night we stayed at a camp owned by an Internationally renowned Sumo Wrestler who was from Mongolia. I remember in the not to far distance we could see a grove of dead pine trees on the mountainside and when I asked the guide what killed them he said it was insects. They first had the bottom foot of the ger rolled up as it as warm and that let air in but they rolled them down at dark. That whole night it sounded like the canvas on the roof sounded like it was being pounded by handfuls of buckshot. The next morning when we got up there were thousands if not millions of dead beetles about the size of a Black-eyed pea all around our tent and we were told they were the ones that had killed the pines.

    Here is my Journal entry for 3 July 2006 of the event:

We finally pull into Har Horin to our tourist camp for the night. Har Horin used to be the capital of Mongolia several hundred years ago. The Tourist Camp is called Dream Land and appears to be a new camp. There is a large log lodge which turns out to be a ten room hotel. The restaurant is a large ger shaped affair. We find the owner is the Mongolian who is the reigning Sumo Wrestler in Japan. When I learn who it is I remember seeing him wrestle in years past and he is very strong and very impressive to watch. He doesn't have the bulk of the Japanese wrestlers but he makes up for it in speed, agility and strength.

We check into our ger which is a five panel affair. It has lattice walls and the felt was rolled up along the sides to allow air to flow through. The lattice looks like typical lattice panels you will find at Lowes or Home Depot only with bigger squares. Instead of nails the strips were connected with rawhide. The rawhide string is placed through a hole and a knot is tied in each end. This design allows the lattice to be folded up like an accordion when moving the ger. I have asked to see a ger manufacturing site where people are making them. Families evidently make them instead of factories. We are told the sides will be rolled down at night to keep the snakes, insects and hedgehogs out. I would hate to step on a hedgehog in the middle of the night. The ger is nicely appointed with four single beds with innerspring mattresses. Becky says she saw one before I came with only a sort of foam pad there for a mattress.

Horseflies and gnats are plentiful. We kill several before we get settled in good. Several took a nip out of me and they hurt just like the ones in Bluff Springs used to hurt.

There is one bare 25 watt bulb in the center of the ger and one European two pin 220V outlet I am able to use to plug this computer in to type these notes. It is good the computer's power cord is dual voltage.

The attendants have to turn on the hot water for us. The showers turn out to be large open affairs with a sauna in them too. They have little stools like milking stools you can sit on for your ablutions. I am sure this is the Asian impact. There are two ladies there with towels and soap and amenities. I think for a bit they will accompany me in to the shower. That would be taking the Asian culture a little beyond my comfort level.

   We have dinner at 2000. I have an excellent green salad and what the menu listed as a "T-Shaped Steak." It is quite tasty. Portions here are generally very large. We order for breakfast before leaving. It turns out we are the only guests in the camp. That is a bit overwhelming as there must 12-15 staff here all wanting to wait on us hand and foot. It was like this in camp in the jungle in the Central African Republic many years ago when we were the only occupants of the camp there too.


   We return to our ger and go to bed. The staff comes and rolls down the sides but there are many openings six inches in diameter or bigger the critters can get in. At one point the bugs sound like raindrops hitting the felt outside. They are some kind beetle and, obviously, some come in our tent. There are thousands, if not more, hitting our ger. Becky is not thrilled as she hates bugs.

On a midnight trip to the toilet (What is Jeff Foxworthy's Redneck joke about going to the toilet at night involving shoes and a flashlight? It sure applies here!), we meet Boldick, our guide and he warns us to put paper or cotton in our ears so the earwigs as he calls them do not get in and cause great problems. I have to draw the line at that. I left my foam earplugs in my other bag. I had used them in the past when sleeping in transient rooms in Iraq with heavy snorers. Once in Mosul I did that and the next morning friends were asking what I thought about nearby mortar attack. I didn't think anything about it as I had slept through it. With Becky's nighttime music I could have used them again.