hello! well, my attempt at a blog had yet to see daylight- i thought at the beginning that i'd be able to keep up with something like this and that i'd get some good feedback about projects and problems we encounter. but, now that is almost the new year~ you can see this blog sort of fell off.

but now i'm glad i at least started it! i am editing this (1/5) as my dad pointed out that i did not clarify about a tree actually falling onto the yurt. friday, december 18th at 10:30 pm- after receiving 18inches of snow in one day, we were shaken up- although not completely surprised as ben had called the tree that would fall if any did. it was scary. aspen had just fallen asleep and we were planning on taking her back up to the neighbors because we could hear trees snapping everywhere. sort of one of those intuitive moments where both ben and i knew it was going to happen.

our most recent visit back to the yurt (1/3) brought about another surprise- a 2nd tree fell on top of the first tree- crating more tension on the yurt. ben is out there with our friend building supports holding the dome up as well as supports on the inside of the yurt in hopes that when the two trees are cut the release of tension isn't too much for the cable.

if you are able to help us at all with a donation for removing the trees around the yurt there is a link to a paypal account on the right of the screen. THANK YOU!!!!! anything helps, we don't know the amount yet- but i'm guessing we will have to remove anywhere from 6 to 15 trees. we are going to get some estimates and do what we can when we can.

winter is a great time to hibernate, and spring will bless us with new growth. thank you all, we couldn't be blessed with better friends and family!

where to begin

a bit of time has passed since my last post and lots has been happening on the land. going back to the pictures from march- we've successfully taken down 5 trees and gone forward with beginning the deck/platform. i say beginning b/c we were a bit behind schedule when our friends baron and jamie, their two boys soren and ammon came all the way from ohio to help with that feat. i am still amazed at how much help, love, and structure came out of those 5 days! we also want to graciously thank our friend fran and my brother travis for their steadfast help in getting us up and going. fran even spent three days helping us move in ohio- you rock fran :)

in addition to the deck/platform, we've arranged and rearranged our outdoor kitchen next to the airstream, set up the glass studio outside, made several fairy houses, swam in the river, visited the quaint town of burnsville, and just enjoyed looking at the light coming through the trees. aspen seems to love life outside and has had no problem adjusting to the different schedule/lifestyle. we've also connected with some great old friends in nc, and are hoping to talk our friends from ohio to come visit us soon!

festival season is here- after taking a week to move (i must say that was miserable, i tried to be pleasant, but i know i wasn't. i apologize to all who helped!) we were able to pick up the yurt with our 20' truck on the way to nc, that took a bit of maneuvering. only 5 hours to rearrange and get everything in there. once arriving we put everything in storage, which didn't all fit and have a few piles on the land... in due time...then we managed to get the truck stuck on the mountain :) ah, moving. back to festivals- so now we are working on getting life set up around that schedule, but the weather has been sunny and we've seen a lot of smilin' faces.

ah... the rock face~ the reason ben originally bought the property, and the airstream was somehow maneuvered around the rocks to a quaint location. that will be fun to clean out after sitting for years! [note that the panoramic images are not in correct perspective as they are 3 images pieced together- flared out the images would be more realistic]

our second task: marking the deck/yurt location. looks like we will have to take down 4+ trees, however the ones we marked to remove appear to be dead, leaving us with enough firewood for a long time. we hope the deck will be about a foot off the ground on the back side (up the hill a little) and probably 10 off the ground in the front- leaving room for a car and "playground" (both aspen's and for our stuff) underneath.

while exploring we found trout lilies all over the property.

our first task was clearing about 300 feet of brush from a storm a few years back. trees and branches covered the driveway and much of the area where we are hoping to put the deck/yurt.

hello~ hmm... a blog- never thought i'd do this, but i think this is a good way for us to document our new adventure and hopefully get feedback about any crazy issue that arises in relation to living in the woods. right now we are finishing up grad school- we moved from wnc to north east ohio (!?) when aspen was 8 months old- and will be moving back when she is 3 1/2. lots has changed, but our desire to be on land, in trees, and living peacefully has not- i believe it has only become more of a destination we seek after the dramatic lifestyle change of going back to school and starting a family. so to add to the adventure we are hoping to life as sustainably as possible and in a yurt.