A hard week

I blame my recent absence from posting on the weather, the weather and the weather. I wake in the middle of the night from dreams of our large 40'x60' blue tarp torn to shreds and billowing through the orchard. I picture soggy planks of bamboo under inches of water. I imagine the rafters and canvas waterlogged and stained beyond repair. Yes, we are all losing sleep over this ordeal.

Let's start off by giving loads of credit to Mom and Erin for busting through the flooring project in just over two days. It looks awesome! The planks are straight, the seams well planned and the tops smooth.

This was just in time for the Tuesday arrival of Manda direct from Seattle. Unfortunately, our plans to erect the yurt over the following three days were becoming less and less practical as the weather report worsened (rain, thundershowers, 25 mph winds, etc). We didn't panic, but spent Wednesday cutting the bamboo circle with the router in just two passes. It went off (almost) without a hitch, and as the day was drawing to a close we packed up shop before cutting the plywood circle.

our new stand-up routering rig - much easier on the back

Manda sweeping the deck after the routering

On Thursday the panic started to set in. Without a real plan for how to protect the new flooring without a roof, we all threw in our best efforts at designs for tarping. We rented a ginormous 40'x60' tarp and several metal stakes and proceeded to spend the next 5 hours trying to cover the yurt platform. I will spare you the details, but just know that a lot of sweat and tears went into this.

We each laid in our respective beds that night listening to the wind howl and the rain hammer the roofs over our heads, wishing the platform had a roof over its head as well.

Friday found me baking fresh huckleberry scones for the group before we treked back up to the prop to asses how our handiwork of the previous day had survived. We were in for a depressing and dismal realization ~ the floor was soaked. We carefully towell-dried the whole floor and then painstakingly dried the seams with compressed air. With heavy hearts we called Bill onto the scene and started from scratch. This time we created a structure resembling a circus tent using 2x4s and lots of rope.

During this time the sun came out and taunted us to shed our raincoats and smile. So we did.

That's when the wind picked up. I mean seriously. The decision was made to get the tarp on before the real rain came and we struggled to pull the giant blue monster over our frame. As we secured the sides to the stakes we heard a gut-wrenching 'rrrrrrrrrrrrrriipppppp" ~ the grommets we'd used to tie down had been ripped from the tarp, and several holes now gaped along the edges. We quickly reconfigured our plan to include rope tied around knots tied in the tarp and lost our inhibitions about screwing holes directly through the tarp. Again, I can spare you a long list of detailed attempts that failed, but just know it was another long, wet day.

And the rain picked up again just as we got home. Trick-or-treaters were scarce - maybe a handful compared to the usual onslaught. I lost even more sleep thinking about the potential detestation to the beautiful floor.

This morning we repeated the same process as the previous two days ~ arriving yet again to a soaked floor. 15 more full sized towels dried the floor up and Erin spent the rest of the day applying a layer of .6 mil plastic to the top of the floor and stapling it to the perimeter. It's hard to imagine what a drag all this has been, and unfortunately it's becoming more and more obvious the bad weather will continue for at least another week. We're probably going to end up at the prop three times a day to towel dry the bamboo floor and pray for three sunny days in a row so we can erect the yurt!

yurt parts awaiting erection