The Hexayurt Project

Here's an idea that came from one of my instructables subscribers. It's exciting to see people change the way they see housing, even if they are doing it within the confines of the global sustainable slavery agenda. Global NGOs are the main avenue for spreading good information, and we may have to take Gertee into the dialectical fray before all is said and done.

This whole thing about Soft Development Plans smacks heavily of British-Israeli imperialist elitist propaganda (they're going to "remake the lifestyle niche" of half the world's population):

"Our goal is simple - to remake the "lifestyle niche" of the smallholder organic farmers who comprise half of the human population into something which is healthy, prosperous, stable, environmentally benign, and includes health care and health maintenance, access to energy and education, and many other improvements. The bedrock of this transformation is appropriate technology deployed as whole systems, not as the stand-alone stepwise improvements of the past which have had such mixed success. "

http://hexayurt.com/

My personal feelings are that gertee offers more of a home atmosphere and makes for better long term housing, but I will reserve judgement until after I spend an Alaska winter living in a hexayurt. I know 4 foot walls are uncomfortable for me, a 5'3" woman, and am guessing it would be mighty uncomfortable for a 6' man. Maybe half the world's population is under 4'? I'm also dismayed to see that alternative housing is part of a "bigger" vision for people without homes... tied together with education, health care and health maintenance... it's almost an Obamination.

Dead things

This Lynx was hanging around our neighborhood all winter.

Poor Osa dog knew it. We suspected it might have been wolves too since there have been several incidents of wolves killing people's dogs this winter. One night we could hear this weird noise perfectly, right outside the tarp walls. I grabbed the flashlight and Nord got the rifle and we went out to chase it away. I followed the erie sound, and when I accidentally shined the light right in its eyes I turned and ran away, right over Nordica. As with all Alaskan stories, Nordica has her own version of this event. :)

Dead gertee roof and exterior walls.

The mold happened under the icicles. Guess I should have knocked them all off when it was still 40 below. It also would have helped if I'd have put the coated side on the outside walls. All in all though gertee did a fine job of withstanding the bitter cold and while we have to change our wall covers with the seasons, the wood frame is in perfect condition with zero problems. When the wind blows the walls don't even move, only the roof tarps flap.

Our sincerest thanks to the wonderful people who responded to our need for a new roof cover! You keep the ACL alive!

Check out what Nordica's doing at www.campredington.com!

Thanks to Pete for sending us this link to the Daily Dish:

Rowan Williams, Theocon

by Andrew Sullivan
09 Feb 2008 09:12 am

"The full text of his speech defending religiously-based, communitarian law against the secular liberal state can be read here. It strikes me as the point at which Christianists and Islamists intersect. Although the lovely English term "a complete wally" seems equally appropriate. Ruth Gledhill sees the theocon overlap:

A few days ago, the Archbishop argued also for the abolition of the blasphemy law - as long as it was replaced by something even more severe. People should be punished for daring to voice thoughts that were hurtful to others, he said, even when that hurt was unintentional. Now it seems he wants women, children, all of us in fact, to have to kow-tow to some of the strictest, harshest and most draconian laws dreamed up by any religious system, ever, anywhere in the world.

The most persuasive half-defense of Williams can be read here. I don't think it's possible to defend a kinder, gentler sharia against the secular rule of law. But then I'm a secularist."

http://andrewsullivan.theatlantic.com/the_daily_dish/2008/02/rowan-williams.html

The Archbishop doesn't use the term "communitarian law" in his article. Why does Sullivan?

GerTee gets a new logo

gertee logo by Nordica Friedrich,
2007, all rights reserved.

Plans to build GerTeeville are underway! We now have 2 carpenters.. whoo hoo! We'll start with raised gravel pads and decks and build five to ten private gertees for overnight rentals. I think a sweatlodge gertee or a hot tub gertee is an essential. This could all be ready by June 2008. We also have the go-ahead to build Camp Redington's Alaskan Homesteader Museum. I'm separating Iditarod/mushing items for ebay auctions and the museum now. I want the museum to be inside a big 30 foot gertee that sits right on the edge of the Edgerton Hwy, but we're dealing with Alaskan carpenters here, and they can't help it.. they think in logs, not sticks.

We're still not finished with 2020, we just had to buy new software to even be able to edit the file, but the next printing will have an ISBN# and some exciting additions that should make it worth the wait. I'm thinking of ways we can make it up to people for having to wait so long for us to fill their orders. We've done so much of this in an accidental and often rushed way, and now people are showing up looking for opportunities and several of them just happen to fill our needs. Our new neighbor is a professional proofreader, and we just hired her to work for ACL Books. So it will only be about two more weeks for 2020, even if we have to make them by hand.

I'm trying not to be overwhelmed by all the things that keep popping up. I'm learning to "roll with the punches," and I am not going to waste another second worrying about what's going to happen next. I'm going back to my old idea that all I need to do is show up and do what's right in front of me. I took on a lot lately. I buried myself in work for the next three months. So to all the people who email me, please understand this is why I don't always respond right away.

My current project list includes:
1. ACL Books: 2020 revisions, print books and mail orders
2. Contract/ACL Books: edit book for Jack
3. Contract: research markets for Johnny
4. Contract: ebay auctions for Iditarod items
5. ACL Books: write/collaborate on: How to build a GerTee with $500.00 (or less)
6. ACL Books: print hardcopy of the Anticommunitarian Manifesto
7. AKN Webwriters: campredington, kennylake.com, ACL, primitivwerks, GerTee
8. ACL: write article Hegels' Big Idea, Part II
9. Camp Redington: plan and build museum
10. GERTEEVILLE: plan, design and build an Alaskan experience campground
11. ACL Books: write Cooking and baking on top of a woodstove
12. AKN Webwriters/Primitivwerks: Build shops

Man, if I finish all that I'll be totally amazed. Then maybe I'd get to work on the vacation packages that Sharon was hoping we could set-up. Just this past week a guy talked to me about bringing people out this way. There's already a local driver who can provide van service between the Wrangells and Anchorage, which will make it a lot easier to plan entire vacations for visitors who want to be picked up in Anchorage. Lots of opportunities to involve small, local businesses in something like a "poker run" vacation package. There is a trail almost all the way to Chitina now (and City Electric hasn't given up on their drilling, so there may be DSL too!)

GerTeevilles's residents have been discussing the kinds of visitors who we think would be attracted to this kind of an Alaskan vacation, and we pretty much all decided that (if we're right) those are the kinds of people we'd like to meet.

Then there's all the sad people who write me lately, the ones who live in so much pain because they found out too much about the Plan. I know that for me, I had to walk away from the work in Seattle and take a breather in the mountains to get my sense of self back. When we fight the communitarians alone, after a while it takes a toll, and there's usually nobody there to help us deal with it. Not that I want to start a recovery camp or anything of the sort, but maybe this could also be a place where anticommunitarians can come to rejuvenate their spirits. I learned the healing power of sharing our stories in 12 step meetings.. maybe we could even build a little empty church GerTee, where our visitors could go to pray. That could be taking it too far, but while I'm back into my "fun" mode I can't help but remember all the years I too was SO totally freaked out to learn the truth about our system. If I hadn't of gone to the Big Horns in 2003, who knows what my state of mind woud be today. I'd like Barbara and all our other suffering (and not-suffering) friends to know we'll be happy to make space for them to build and stay in whatever they want to here. If things go well for us, we could have some real nice, uptown plumbed GerTees, with decks, silks and woven fabrics, and gorgeous furniture for our visitors who will pay us big bucks not to have to rough it. Could be something for everybody.

There's no reason anyone in the world should be homeless when there are so many ways to build a ger/yurt/hut out of local wood and recycled materials. Even a homemade 18 foot gertee is better than a cot inside a fenced stadium, school, or military fort. Obviously it's not something people think will ever happen to them.. but it does. I just read that almost 200,000 U.S. military veterans are homeless in the United States every night. If that's true, then maybe it's past time to start taking this whole gertee idea to the streets. Do Katrina victims still need housing? One man who contacted me thought it would be a great idea to take our yurt concept to a depressed area of the world and use it to stimulate local people to rebuild their own neighborhoods. Maybe a homeless vet wants to come up; we'll show him how to build one and he can take it outside.

GERTEE means "at home" in Mongolian!

For months Nordica has been looking for a "formal" translation of the word gertee. She's seen it used to imply it meant "at home." But she couldn't locate it in a dictionary for me, and so, being the picky researcher that I am, I wouldn't use it. But now I can! This is really an amazing discovery for me. I combined construction concepts for a ger and a teepee to create a "gertee." A ger uses a roofring-poles-lattice walls=tension, a teepee/tipi uses leaning long poles and an inside liner that creates an upward draft/smoke flow allowing for an open, interior fire. In my first gertee design I considered making a short teepee and putting it on top of ger's lattice walls because I didn't know how to make a roofring. I still think it would work in an emergency.

Many thanks to author Radigan Neuhalfen, www.TheSteppe.com:

In Mongolian, "ger" means "home."

"Gert" is "ger" declined to mean "at home." The concluding doubled vowel simply adds emphasis: "gert" and "gertee" both mean "at home."

So, "gertee" is not really a thing in Mongolian, but a grammatical construction. Incidentally, this Mongolian "e" (in Cyrillic, a very different letter) is pronounced like a Scottish long clipped "a," such as in "nae." Doubled vowels are pronounced the same as the single vowel, but sounded longer in speech. The pronunciation of "gertee" is approximately "gaer-taeae."

Photos of standard models from Mongol Yurt
http://www.mongolyurt.mn/en/yourtegb.html#yurt

Just the frame.

The Mongolians make beautiful doors, don't they?

These kids are from Nomin2007's photo blog.

Mongolian interiors are usually very colorful.

Mongol Yurt's roofrings are way larger than mine.

American Yurts for American Homeland Security?

At Homeland Security, No Money Left Behind

By Dana Milbank

Wednesday, April 12, 2006; Page A02

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/04/11/AR2006041101397.html?sub=AR

"Vendors at this week's homeland security convention have the answer for any catastrophe. They will sell you body armor, vehicle barriers, nuclear detectors, manhole-cover locks, unmanned helicopters -- and Kyrgyz yurts."

Why didn't Milbanks mention American Yurt manufacturers, like Spirit Mountain, Rainer, Pacific, Nomad Shelters, etc? Mongolian gers are lovely, but hey.. we make them here in the good ole USA too. Maybe the Department of U.S. Homeland Security would prefer to use U.S. tax dollars to purchase U.S. made products for U.S. disaster victims. Plus, Milbanks' article says a 14 foot high yurt is $10,000 (which tells me nothing of the floor space) and U.S. made 14 foot yurts start around $5000.00 (and of course emergency GERTEES can be made out of scraps and a couple hundred bucks).

GERTEE December 21, 2007.. still standing!

Nord and Freddie waiting for the fire to get going.

Our woodstove burns out after about 4 hours. Now we just learned that a smaller stack, like a 3 inch wide one, would make it last TWICE as long!!! Funny how many things there are we still don't know. We can't wait to try the battery idea we learned from the Mad Hausers, and now Daniel's working on a design to bring cold air in to feed the fire through an "ice box" that makes an inside freezer/fridge. Like Nord said the first time she saw me modify the tent over in Hannsville, WA, "Wow, necessity really is the mother of invention, huh mom?"

I'm getting some notes together for "cooking on a woodstove" since so many visitors are coming in for that search. Seems I'm not the only person who wants to know how it's done. I do all my baking in metal stovetop containers, and I think it's a good thing to know how to do. But, my dream is someday I'll have a real wood cookstove in our cookshackgertee, and I'll fill Gerteeville with the smell of baking bread and cookies! It's been just too cool to look at this gertee through Nordica's eyes, and her contributions to organizing an 18 foot wide space to accomodate 2 adults and one child are invaluable. This is both of our first time living in one, and we absolutely love it in spite of the freezing mornings (which happen to people with cabins and houses too.. duh) . We really had to spend time inside it to know how it wraps around you like a mother holding a child.

We've found a local interior designer, she's a daughter of a great gal I worked with at Tonsina last year, and we can't wait to see what kinds of fabrics and sewing ideas she brings. The idea of GerTee is to encourage people to become inspired by the simple, ancient way to design and make their own space, and lately we've seen a lot of interest in the concept.

It's "sustainable."And, for those who are wondering, a fully equipped (plumbed to code and elect, etc) yurt is approved by HUD. Ger/yurts/GERTEES can be anything from an overnight playhouse-tent to a luxurious full scale home with ALL the modern amenities. The KEY is you can build one based entirely on your budget. Gers can be made from ALL scrap materials if necessary, just look at the pictures of disasters, see all that scrap lumber, windows, doors and curtains laying in heaps.. much of it that's not too water damaged is useable.

Nord wants to design a kid's gertee with rainbow roof beams and padded walls and floors. I want a grandma gertee with lots of room for sewing projects. What kind of gertee do you want to build? We're building gravel tent pads on the back part of the property this spring for our friends who want to come up this summer and build their own. Come visit us in GerTeeville. We'll show you how to make a 14 footer to take home with you for under $500. If there's a lot of interest I'll plan a building seminar-music and arts festival for late August, 2008. We'll open the first live Primitivwerks Bazaar and invite handcrafters from around the world to come show us how to make things. We're into it.