Is a half a yurt better than no yurt at all?? Well, yes, but only if you're willing to make the investment to acquire the other half of the yurt; otherwise, no. This is the predicament we currently find ourselves in. We had BEAUTIFUL sunny, warm weather last week, and I took the whole week off of work to tackle the job of cleaning and inventorying yurt parts to ready them for assembly. It was then that I discovered we are missing one half of the exterior wall. Bummer. Considering we have already invested a sizeable chunk in building the deck the yurt will sit on, we are definitely going to continue the investment and order a new half-wall. I just spoke with a delightful representative of the Pacific Yurts company, and he informed me it will cost about $910.00 plus shipping. I wasn't shocked as I had already figured as much. Oh well, it's just money, and then we'll REALLY have a yurt! :)

The good news is the rest of the yurt pieces looked pretty good. The HEAVY-duty vinyl roof has a few spots that need repair, but they will be shipping me a repair kit with the wall. Some of the interior wall linings have some stains on them, but the delightful representative supported my decision to paint over them. All in all I'm feeling pretty good about the whole thing.

Of course, the inventorying process required unstacking Joe's very neatly stacked and well protected yurt pile, the pieces of which we then spread all over the deck where the yurt will soon stand. Several of the wooden pieces need some repair, and I'd like to give them all a recoating of tung oil, so we've left them spread out for the moment. We purchased a huge tarp (was I the only one who did not realize how expensive tarps are??) to cover the whole kit and kaboodle. There is apparently no amount of weights, logs, boards, etc. that will hold that tarp in place. Last night, anticipating two days of rain and wind ahead, I went out for the umpteenth time to recover and resecure the tarp. This time I have used bungee cords to tie the tarp to the deck posts, and I'm keeping my fingers crossed.

In other news, after only a few strokes of the pen from a judge happy to see so many smiling faces in his courtroom, Logan Samuel Harding has become my legal nephew!! Two days later he celebrated his first birthday!! As a party gift to the supporting friends and family in attendance, the proud new father gave everyone a stomach bug. Oh well, the family that vomits together stays together, isn't that what they say? Totally unrelated but also exciting - my chickens are now laying 4-5 eggs a day!!