Finally, we have a yurt in it's rightful place.

Well, after the veritable disaster of realising that we had built the base too small for the yurt (my fault) and after putting extensions and reinforcements on to the base to accomodate the sudden dawning of the laws of scale, we have success, the yurt is up!!!

It seems much harder to dress a raised yurt than one that is at ground level, the felt layers were particularly pesky, but it's all up and once the fire is blazing away, it's easily the cosiest place I've ever been. The woodburner that was included with the yurt is rough and ready (hardly surprising given the lack of TIG welders in Mongolia) but is ferociously efficient. a handful of broken pallet and a few pine cones to get things going will bring the temperature from 15c to 30c in 15 mins, and will keep the inside cosy warm for a good three hours. Hardly surprising when you consider that none of the covers are particularly good conductors of heat and that each one has a layer of air next to it.

Weatherproofing the bottom of the door has been tricky, but was finally sorted by using a baton of wood and some thick PVC sheet/silicone, to create a slope away from the door.

The steps up to the door are just half round posts hammered into the ground with what appears to be reclaimed hardwood for the platform, the first step is made from a couple of bits of telegraph pole that were left over from making the base and a lovely lump of wood left over from the joist we chopped up to reinforce the base extension. It's solid as a rock and really adds to the vibe of the yurt, it's somewhere to sit and just watch the rabbits or listen to the owls (you can hear them from inside too). It's real quality time, a couple of storm lamps for light, a lovely warm fire and good company, you can't beat it.