For the first year in this little off-grid yurt of ours, our sole light source was six small, inflatable, solar-powered Luci lights from MPOWERD. Now we’ve upgraded to two strings of LED lights, powered by a solar-charged battery. Though the Lucis were great and we still use them as reading lights
Category: Practicalities
How to Find Yurt Insurance
So you spend thousands of dollars and countless hours building your yurt, and then move everything you own into it. You want to insure that yurt. It’s your home—your life! the things you love! But you start calling around to get quotes from home insurance companies and the response is…disheartening.
Yurt Living in Winter – The Practical Aspects
Small talk is easy when you run into us in the winter. When we see friends at the local Vermont coop (real crunchy), when we talk to family on the phone (less crunchy), the question is common: How’s the winter been? Are you staying warm in the yurt? Of course!
What to Consider When Designing a Yurt Interior (or Tiny Home)
After hours and hours of building the yurt platform, and slightly fewer hours setting up the yurt itself, we had a big, round, empty space to make our own. I think this fact is often understated and underrated when considering what yurt life might be like—when you move into a
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Perils of a Frozen Hose: Getting Water in Winter
Luckily, the spring is still running. Unluckily, the last couple hundred feet of the water hose froze. So far this has been only a minor inconvenience for getting water in winter months — much better than the alternative of a completely frozen water source. (Knocking on so much wood right
Yurt Tasks Before Winter: A Post-Snow Update
We posted a couple months ago a short list of the yurt tasks and chores we wanted and needed to get done before winter came and put a practical pause on many of our activities. Well now winter and snow are here. How’d we do? I’d confidently and proudly say that
I Love Luci: That Yurt Featured on the MPOWERD Blog
We recently spoke with MPOWERD, a great company that makes affordable solar-powered lanterns (called the Luci), and the interview is now posted on their Bright Ideas blog. We’re so grateful for their interest in what we’re up to and how we’re getting by. We’ve been using one of their products, the
Read More I Love Luci: That Yurt Featured on the MPOWERD Blog
Tasks and Homestead Chores to Complete Before Winter
Fall is in full swing here in Vermont — the woodstove firing, the hills and mountains alight, the leaf peepers swarming — and our work over the summer has put us in a good position. But we still have a number of homestead chores and yurt tasks to complete before
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The Creek Goes Dry — Well, One of Them
Mark the day! On Monday the creek went dry — the seasonal one, that is, that we’ve been using for collecting creek water. The second small seasonal creek, which meets up with the now-dry one just below where we’ve been filling our buckets, is still flowing (“trickling” is maybe more
How to Clean an Aquacera Ceramic Water Filter
The Aquacera Traveler XL water filter is ridiculously easy to clean and maintain, and the ceramic filters themselves are easy to replace when it comes time. For starters, the filter is sturdy and solid but easy to deconstruct. The lid sits atop the top (unfiltered) reservoir and this top reservoir