Floors in a Pinch

Because he only had one day off this week, Jon was determined to finish our floors on Wednesday- despite the heat. So, Tuesday I finished wiping the pitch off every knot with turpentine, and then scraping away everything that was left...

We got out to the yurt at 5:30am to try and beat the heat, and tore into the floors with 40-grit sandpaper and this beast (I'm talking about the sander, not Jon):
Some particularly hard-to-reach spots required this drum sander too...
Like before, our pads kept getting gummed up with pitch...
Lots of pitch. See those flakes on the floor? They're pitch too.
We were prepared though, and we just kept going... and going... and going.
By noon, and 28 packages of sandpaper later (4 pieces to a package), we were done! We finished by palm sanding the edges that the beast couldn't reach and headed inside for lunch.
In the afternoon we swept well, and then oiled the floorboards with the oil we made (3 gallons of walnut oil mixed with 1 pound of beeswax).
Isn't it purty? The ants seem to love the oil, so Jon cut a bunch of thyme to deter them... apparently they don't like the smell... or maybe it just covers up the scent of the oil.
We surrounded the perimeter of the floor with thyme, and our work was done. Over time, the oil will sink into the floorboards and leave them with a lovely glow.
Because of the pitch, we will probably need to shellac them as well. We're looking into making our own non-toxic shellac using shellac flakes (did you know they come from the lac bug? Seriously!) and grain alcohol. But that's a project for another day. For now, we are done. Mike thinks our new floors will be a swell place to take a nap sometime in the future, and I think he's right.

One part lasagna, three parts fun (and a little hard work too)

There were little chandeliers everywhere when I woke up this morning.

Even the spider homes were decorated for a party...

It has been SO hot here, so I decided to get to work early. I started by cutting down the comfrey patch...

The leaves were piled into the old wooden wheelbarrow...
and together we walked down to the yurt.

I started by chopping the comfrey with the machete and leaving it to wilt a bit in the sun (though that's not necessary)...

I began by laying out some thick layers of wet cardboard and newspaper.

and covered them with a layer of peat moss.
This was followed by a number of loads of old decaying leaves from the leaf pile,

and the chopped comfrey.
Next, more peat moss, followed by a layer of leaf soil (from the underneath of the leaf pile), and a thick layer of hay.
Ta da! Is it what you had imagined?
I know it doesn't look like much now, but this "lasagna garden" (named this because of the many layers of mulch it is made with, like a pan of lasagna) is going to make its own lovely soil over the next bunch of weeks (you want about 4 parts brown matter to 1 part green). And the best part? You can plant in it the same day you make it! Just dig down through the layers, put your plants in, and scoop the mulch back around them. As the mulch decomposes into lovely, thick black soil it just does it around the plants. Or at least that's what the book says... I'll let you know how it goes!

Unexpectedly Pitchy

We hurried back from Readfield yesterday so that we could rent a random orbit floor sander and get going on finishing our floors. The plan was to sand them down and then coat them in a mixture of walnut oil and beeswax that we had made.
Only a few minutes into our sanding adventure, though, it became apparent that we had a pitch problem. The blaring sun and hot, humid weather over the last weeks has made all of the knots in our floors leak pitch, and even though it was fairly solid when we started sanding, it quickly gummed up the pads which then re-distributed a sticky mess across the entire floor. Ick.
We called Fat Andy's who finishes floors nearby, and they said that there's really nothing we can do except have the boards fired in a kiln to set the pitch- 24 hours at a certain temperature and humidity should do the trick- something that did not happen before they were purchased, apparently. If we don't do that, they said we have to wait for 10-15 years until they stop secreting pitch. Uhm... What? Other lumber mills told us that no one puts floors down in July or August because it's too hot and humid. I wish we had known that before!

So, we decided to take our chances and keep trying. We got out the turpentine and wiped down all of the pitchy spots and then we scraped off as much pitch as we could.

Jon tried to sand again in the newly pitch-free places, and the same thing happened again. We went through a number of sets of pads, but it seemed like we should just cut our losses and bring the sander back. So, we did.

If you have any thoughts or suggestions, we welcome them! It's surprisingly hard to find information on Google; I thought Google knew everything! So, our new plan is to get to work on other things (since there are so many) and try finishing the floors again once the weather cools down- like in September.

Maybe during a cool spell we will scrape the floors down again in the evening, and get up early in the morning the next day to sand the heck out of them (with tons of pads and a coarser grit like 40) before it gets too warm. And then we'll shellac it quickly before the pitch can come back. Apparently 2-3 coats of dewaxed shellac should do the trick. It will look different than our walnut oil finish, but at least our toes won't stick to the floor any more!

Creating a Yome

On Sunday and Monday we headed up to Readfield to help DJ and Kathy start building a platform for their yome. What is a yome, you ask? It's a cross between a yurt and a geodesic dome. Theirs is 19 feet in diameter, has 8 sides, and is made of a series of triangular canvas panels. It's quite cute.The weekend was full of fun and natural wonders. This was a rather large exoskeleton of some hatched creature who left it behind on a tree trunk near the water. Who did he become, I wonder?
A parasol in case of rain? Jon found this on the lawn.
The yome platform consists of 8 identical triangles fixed together, so the platform is held up on 9 piers- one at each of the 8 corners, and a big 'ole one in the middle. We started by clearing the dense forest site they had chosen, and then went to work measuring out where their posts would be, marking them with pegs.
You remember this drill, right? A whole day of digging... I have to say that we had a much easier time digging our yurt holes in the field than we did digging these forest holes. We had to pull out tree stumps and giant rocks... it was a good adventure!

Two painted turtles spent the weekend being surprised by us as we accidentally interrupted their attempts to lay eggs in the driveway. We were trying to give them a wide birth during all of our comings and goings, but we still managed to scare them away a number of times.

Hopefully they found a nice, sandy, peaceful place to bury them. How cute would it be to see them all hatch in a few months? They must be so tiny!

Enrobed

This morning we packed up the insulation and followed DJ and Kathy into the field.(Apparently this guy isn't much of a friend- since he eats our pine- but I secretly like that he hangs around anyway.)
We rolled up the white cloth ceiling, and DJ headed up onto the scaffolding, unrolling it down to Kathy and I below.
We each walked around unrolling it along the bottom of the roof line.
Once it was lying open over half of the roof, DJ just pulled the second half up to the center ring, and we finished pulling it down over the remainder of the roof. It was a hot day, and the shade from the sun was welcomed!
Layer one complete, we got to work on folding up the roof insulation in the same manner. We first had to tape it closed, and then turn it inside-out before rolling it in toward the center from both edges to make a pie shape.
This was also threaded through the center ring, and allowed to unroll on its way down to the edge of the roof. Like before, we walked around the outside unrolling it in both directions until it covered half of the roof, and DJ pulled the second half up and over to the other side.
And then there were two layers of the three...
The heaviest piece of the yurt, perhaps, is the top weatherproof roof layer. We first tried tying ropes to it and hoisting it from the ground up to the center ring, but it was quickly apparent that wasn't going to work. So, after folding it into a pie wedge (with the bottom center of the pie set to roll over the door frame with its oval grommets), it took four of us to lift it onto the scaffolding,
up onto the roof,
and then to hold the center in place while the rest rolled down to the door frame.
Because it is so heavy, it pulled our perfectly-placed insulation layer with it. But we decided the best thing was to unroll it first before trying to get the insulation back in place. Truth be told, we didn't have much choice because the insulation would not budge under the weight of the cover, which was too heavy to move or lift. So like before, we unrolled the first half...
And then helped hoist the other side up to the center ring, over the top...
and pulled it down the other side with ropes. It was so fussy and difficult to get it into place, and then moving it just a bit would move the insulation and we'd have to go back and forth until we finally found all layers in the right place. We fastened the roof outer-layer to the door frame using twist locks, and then started on the sides.
We first strung our sidewall insulation panels loosely in place using S-hooks...
and then we stretched the sidewalls into place and attached them to the roof cover.
Our windows consist of three layers: screen attached to the green outer-wall, clear vinyl that velcros in place if we want to 'close' the windows, and a green flap that zips and clips down when we really need to batten down the hatches.
While some of us screwed the sidewalls to the weather board on the bottom, other members of our crew helped to hoist the dome roof up into place (we pulled it up the roof on a tarp using a rope).
It took a few tries, but we finally got it clipped in place and figured out how to attach the screw that enables us to raise and lower it for ventilation.
We moved the inner side wall insulation panels so that they fit the spaces set by the green outer walls, and at long last we were done, thanks to the help of our friends and family! We certainly couldn't have done it without you, and we are so grateful for your help!
So, here's where we will be living, across the sheep pasture in our own little slice of amazing.
We hope you'll come visit!