Why surviving in a Gertee works for me

I'm working on a new article and video of my life in a Gertee. My Gertees are going to be included in a nice English author's book on sheds, coming out this June. That honor, and the growing searches for "are yurts warm?" are part of the big push to get my Gertee Traveler business off the ground right now. I've been sitting on these PVC units for almost a year. Other people are telling my story, and I'd be a fool to not tell my own side too.

These are some of the new pictures that will be in it. I'm doing a blow by blow account of all my daily chores, describing items I use and how I've modified my entire environment to suit my own needs. I think I really understand now why the Mongolians call it a "different universe" inside. I also got a copy of the History Channel's show on The Great Khan and of the Terror he inflicted on all of Asia, the Middle East and into Europe. There are always teepees depicted in ancient Mongolian movies. Why did I ever assume only the American Plains Indians used teepees? :)

And, you know who I think the experts are on building ancient style dwellings? The set makers in movie land! I see gertees in so many historical movies it's amazing. In the History Channel version there's a big yurt on a platform being hauled by 20 oxen! And lots of teepees....

Right now I'd like to say there are 3 things I FOR SURE would hate to get caught without a stash of if the market/dollar/world collapsed. 1. plastic garbage bags, 2. baby wipes, and 3. candles.

Home Sweet Home

Using the glitter paints I got from Rebecca for Christmas!

Covering everything with fabrics!

New dining area has polyester, wool, lace and vinyl walls

View out my front door window

Put a 10' Gertee Back Yard Traveler with an all PVC roof ring up on ebay today:

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=110645486158&ssPageName=STRK:MESELX:IT

RE: 2020/TACM book orders: The revisions are really almost finished. I'm so sorry I felt I had to revise the entire first chapter. I held up the whole process. Now Nordica is reorganizing it all. I should see final copy by the end of this week and promise to make only minor edits, no matter how much I want to add or change. It's very difficult to publish a current events book and revise it 5 years later... too many new developments since 2006. Again, and yes this is practically our mantra now... but I sincerely thank you all for your patience.

Spring is in the air!

First Gertee Traveler for sale on ebay now!

Took me all day, but I finally got the auction posted for the first PVC yurt available on the market.

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=110644723111&ssPageName=STRK:MESELX:IT

The Gertee Traveler - 4 Season PVC Yurt

This unlisted video is an experiment with product advertising (and copyright negotiations) rather than my usual straight up informational or semi entertaining productions. The music is from my favorite duo back in the 70s. I followed them from their happy hour gigs in Fairbanks to their concerts in Anchorage. They were at all the music festivals too. In 1985, when Nordica was 3 months old, JoAnn's sister, Nancy Malloy choreographed a show I was in, Old Songs and Lipstick. After being a faceless fan for many years I got to know JoAnn personally. Now I'm back to thinking about having a "freedom festival" at Camp Redington this summer... with lots of music, ACL seminars and gertee building. uh huh.

Good, bad, indifferent... your reviews and feedback of this video would be very helpful. :)

Why I Quit Facebook?

My new dog team - seven females!

Last night I "deactivated" my facebook account. I planned on deleting it, but that's not an option. I "can" return and reactivate my account at any time. How's that for information retention? During my deactivation session, the fb gods insisted I explain "why" I was leaving. I chose "other" from their list of reasons and then a popup box made me go back and explain further details. So I switched reasons and chose the box that said "Privacy Reason" and another popup stopped me and directed me to study more about my fb privacy. Then I still had to check another box so that I would not continue to receive emails from my closed account!

I'm doing some notes for an article based on a woman who has been an ACL supporter for years. She's also been an active Ron Paul supporter and fights daily for Liberty. I know many people like her, genuine and concerned, exist all around our nation and probably in every other nation. We are a very small, unaffiliated group of people who have chosen to accept communitarianism as REALITY. But the similarities pretty much stop there. I have never been a Ron Paul supporter, I gave up on the Libertarians within the first year of my ACL work. I have actually been very open in my opinion of Paul and his refusal to mention the words communitarianism or Agenda 21. I don't trust him because of it. I have been watching and listening to the Tea Party people, and the way I saw it develop the last couple years, I thought Gigi Bowman was at the center of that movement. Over the past few months (and thanks to fb) I realized she is not only not part of it, she openly opposes it! I'll be interviewing her in a series of written questions, it's the first time I've tried this and I think it'll be fun.

Terrain Depot plans coming together quickly, we will be open before June 1, shooting for Memorial Day Weekend. Almost everything is thawed in the yard, only a few chunks of ice here and there. My wood supply sucks again, burning green SAPA slab, but it was 38 above when I woke up at 8am so it's not life threatening anymore. I will need to find a more reliable source before next winter. My chainsaw broke down last month and I can't describe how that felt. Then my cart's wheel bearing broke and I saw my little supply of tools falling apart before my very eyes. It's a miracle I made it through the winter without any serious mishaps. After three winters camping I've used the hell out of everything. I have depended on that saw since I bought it the first summer I built gertee here, when Fred was born. I went from being terrified of chainsaws to loving them, and learning how to use saws changed my world.

Been having a blast "camping" in the new 10' gertee I put up in my backyard. I love going out there at night and experiementing with ways to make heat and fires inside. Last night I dragged a 12" metal stand in and put 2 pieces of 6" stack above it. Made the fire in the inside rim of a tire with 6" sides. Tim's got a new welder coming so I'm going to ask him to cut me a 6" hole in one of my big bread bowls and weld it to the bottom of the stack over the fire. I think it will catch ALL the smoke if I do that. Seems like it wouldn't cost that much or be that heavy either to make a hanging aluminum smoke cover for an open fire. Also thinking those Mexican stoves with the short stacks would work too. I can't seem to get the smoke to flow up and out the way it should with just the wall covers. It may be that I have to seal the floor with rugs and pull the outside walls up so the dang air can get underneath it! Cut the roofhole bigger to fit the roofring better and worked on ways to use safety pins to put up my inside fabrics. Borrowed the new materials I ordered for the 20' facelift, and I'm just going to have to include interior fabrics in the basic kit. It really does change it when you cover the inside frame with cloth, and I've got to when when I see open khana and roof poles it looks unfinished to me, even when the wood is pretty. I do like the modern classic yurt look, the beige canvas and white fabrics, beautiful wood floors and finish. That kind of yurt spells class and money and so yeah, why wouldn't I like them? My gertee is just more festive, she likes wearing different colors and textures during different seasons. And just like the woman who owns it, my gertees are always changing their clothes.

A special hello! to Sylvia in New Zealand, another gertee lover who builds her own too! I was going to upload pictures of her cute little yurts during one of my no pc times. Now I'm designing an entirely new gertee website and I'd be honored if I had permission to put them in our gallery.

It's been interesting and really uplifting to meet people from the "yurt community." It seems to be a very friendly, supportive bunch. I thought they'd all be full on communitarians because of the way the enviros write about them and the appeal yurts have in the sustainable "movement." I was wrong, as usual, because I'm meeting women and men, just like me, who only want to build a sweet little space they can call their own. Sylvia says she likes to keep hers at 8 to 10 feet max because then she can put it up herself. I know what she means by that because I have a "real" 10' gertee now too! I laughed the entire time I put the ring and roof poles up for the 3rd time in 2 days. After I stood the walls up and added the tension cable, I screwed 4 roofpoles into the roofring in the 4 directions and slipped it over the walls. It's so light this was nothing! Then I walked around the outside attaching each pole to the walls. Took five minutes. Yeah.

Oh happy spring!

Gerteeville grows!

interior 10' pvc gertee for campers

neat way to heat and cook.. goes in the book!

Gerteeville, April 20, 2010

Put the new 10' camper's model in my backyard and started playing in it last night. Had my first outside pit fire of the season and burned everything not stuck in the ice still. We're making several changes to the model after this one, all the rest of the walls from now on will be riveted permanently. I can easily manage the zip ties, after 3 moves it's all holding fairly well, but I can already see how it will irritate people. Tim figured out the rivets so that's the way they'll be. Probably cut down on a lot of complaints. :)

I still want a frame-only package for the DIY crowd and plan to make them available too. The wholesale cost will be, for a ten foot wide, 77 sq ft with an 8 foot center with tarp covers (roof, walls, floor), $500.00. Please do not try to order one yet.. heh, and Sean A. and Darren K., you guys are already at the top of my list for promo testers, I'll be writing with details soon.

It's kind of funny having the "tent" model in my yard. When I went in my 16' home gertee after it got dark and cold last night I laughed because of the vast difference between the two models. The 16' just has a floor and more covers on the walls, it's really a tent, and it yet seems like a completly different unit.

Tim warned me last night to watch for bears when I'm back on the trails because there wasn't much food last fall and there isn't any for them now as they're waking from their naps. Like humans, some bears wake up grumpy and hungry. He burned all the carcasses from around the shop and I picked up the bones and scraps the dogs dragged into my space over the winter. Now that his dog team is gone there's not a lot to keep them from coming right into the campground. eep. Lock and load! :)

Finished a 4 page handwritten draft of a new article for the UK... now i just need to type it up and get it emailed to the editor. It wasn't as hard as I imagined it would be, but I haven't written anything by hand for over a decade besides my daily journals. I threw 20 pages away before I found my voice. Kept wanting to write a satire... maybe I will next time.

Hope everyone is enjoying their spring. It's amazing how good it feels to Alaskans every year, how suprisingly good it is to watch the snow melt into the ground and dry so fast if ya blink you miss it. It's hard to be depressed about the world when there's so much promise again. I've been listening to Tim's parent's record collection and singing along with GI Blues... forgot all about those songs when I made the Local agenda 21 for blonds video, coulda sang Elvis for my Nolan! - you ever get one of those days boys, you ever get one of those days? when nothing is right, from morning to night, you ever get one of those days? daysdaysdaysdaysdaysdaysdays...

"I've got those hup two three four occupation GI Blues.... GI blues..... "