Day of Rest

Today is Saturday, and I have to get back to my other job for the next few days. So while I drink my tea before work, and listen to Erin critique my first post for not giving enough background, I'll try and give you the set-up.
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At some point, mom decided she wanted a yurt. And at some other point, we decided we wanted to build it for her. And at some other point several months ago, she got her act together and ordered the yurt from Colorado Yurt Company. After consulting with her crew (Erin & me) and her biggest critic (Maddie), she decided on a 30 foot diameter yurt. I'll post more about her color choices and add-ons later. After placing her order with CO Yurts, she discovered that the structure wouldn't be delivered for many weeks - phew - giving us more time to procrastinate and change around decking plans. Estimated shipping date would be August 22. Meanwhile, I asked for an extra day off at work so I could spend more time outside on the construction site, and Erin promised 5 days per week to the project. It will still be a few weeks before I'll actually have 4 days per week to dedicate to the project, but three is good for now.

So August 22 comes and goes, and we get a call from CO Yurts stating they're two weeks behind shipping schedule! They want to know if we have our deck/platform finished yet. Ummmm, almost! we say. Not. And so began Day 1 of work.
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Last night I couldn't sleep - thinking about piers, girters, holes, dirt, plexiglass yurt top-bubbles, mosquitos, concrete and sun burn. So exciting ~ The best thing so far about digging holes, laying lines and mixing concrete is that I am part of the whole process of building something really big! It is a great feeling to know that progress won't be made unless we get our butts up to the property and get to work.

There seems to be a fair amount of 'give-and-take' at this point, according to Bill...we may have dug our holes a few inches too deep, but it just means we'll be using extra concrete and thereby making the yurt platform more stable, strong and secure. The soil isn't all that hard, so the extra concrete will be welcome in the rainy season. The addition of the fourth girter (and resulting extra piers) means more square footage on the ground and will help with any settling of piers in the softer soil. We also haven't scrimped on SQUARE-NESS and PERFECT MEASUREMENTS! Erin's favorite saying is "error multiplies", so the corners of our rectangle are perfectly square (using diagonals and the pythagorean theorem) & our piers perfectly level and plumb (using our trusty bubble level and our friend Plumb-Bob).