Christmas Yurt

Well, the holidays are upon us once again, and we couldn't be happier to celebrate them in our cozy yurt.  We took the opportunity of having lots of crowded little trees on our property, to cut one to adorn our home in a Christmas fashion.  As we were getting started with our Christmasing, Tanner's folks came for a visit, assisting in the festivities.

Tanner, Bob, the pups and I, hiking home with our Tree...

Entering the yurt...

Denise and Bob, looking rather comfortable with our yurt life

Tanner, helping to decorate the tree....

Oh Christmas Tree!!

Thank you Pinterest for some great decorating ideas.  Tanner and I are loving our starry night lights in our 'bedroom' of the one-room yurt!

Even my wine is getting festive...

Bob helping to get our firewood cut

Splitting and stacking

With Bob's help, we have a healthy looking wood pile for our winter in the yurt.  Our Jotul stove is working nicely, but we really need to keep it running all of the time to keep it comfortable in the yurt.  Thankfully, we have had reasonable temperatures, and our wood is lasting longer than we thought-such blessings!!

Snow arrives, followed by a blue bird day.

With winter in full-swing, we are figuring out what maintenance we'll need to keep up on with snow removal, fires built, etc.  When we were shopping for yurts and discussing experiences with people more knowledgable, most people said that once you built a fire inside, the snow slid off the roof of the yurt; in which case you'd only need to worry about keeping snow away from the sides.  In our case, we insulated the b'jesus out of the roof of our yurt, with two layers of mylar bubble wrap insulation with wool in-between, double bubble wrap for the walls, and 2 inch thick rigid foam insulation below the floor of the main yurt.  Our final product leaves a very warm living space, but the snow isn't sliding off the roof!  Problem solved: roof rake purchased and we'll get a great arm workout keeping it clear of heavy snow loads!!

With this out the front door, who would complain?!

some major icicles around the stove-pipe

yurt glacier!

Santa brought me a heater!  This should help keep the yurt from getting in the 40's at night.

I had hoped to be a burly Montana woman who could deal with whatever elements this yurt living could throw at me, but apparently, my shivers and cursing in the morning as I was getting ready for work, was too much for my loving husband to take!  He loves me enough to make sure the yurt will have some base heat, and I am not complaining!!  The heater will hold the yurt at a base heat of 55 degrees, which will also keep us from worrying about pipes freezing when we are gone for extended periods.

First Cross Country Ski of the season!

So glad to be skiing!!

Winter is here, and I don't know Anyone who is more excited than our three fluffy mutts!

We have So Much to be thankful for this holiday season.  We are so pleased with the progress of all of our efforts, and look forward to hunkering down for a snowy winter.  We hope that all of our friends, family, and blog readers have a lovely holiday!!
Cheers!
Stephanie and Tanner