recurring yurt dreams and an idea about seeds

I've been having a lot of dreams lately about yurts.  There are three or four different dreams, that have been repeating themselves almost every night for the last two months.  Perhaps my subconscious is trying to yell something at me.

These different dreams share a similar theme, they all address food security issues.

For example, one dream occurs in the near future.  There has been a breakdown in the long distance food supply for some reason.  Lack of fuel, major strike, political unrest, all or none of the above, I don't know.  Dream doesn't say why.  But it happened and it didn't happen yesterday.  It's been several months, approaching a year without the major industrial food supply and people are slowly starving.  There is an intense interest in Victory Gardens (small home garden plots where once there was emerald green lawn).  But what does all this have to do with a yurt?

In this dream, some philanthropist has hired me to give free lessons to the community on how to harvest, process, dry and store seeds, which I give in my yurt.  Yurt is awesome for this because the walls can be adjusted to let more or less air in, depending on the weather.


Another yurt dream involves a time when it has become illegal to grow or even cook your own foods.  3D printed soy and corn based meals are considered the only 'safe' alternative, for some reason.  Maybe the bees finally bit the dust, or some major food safety scare, or whatever.  But it's considered not only illegal but impossible to grown your own vegetables.  Yet, here I am, living off-grid in my yurt, blissfully unaware of this known fact, that it is impossible, and have a lush garden filled with tasty things from grain to flax, to mangel wurzels for my goat.


The third yurt dream that really stands out is one where I live where I do now, have the garden I have now, save seeds, raise sheep, grow and cook my own foods, all things I do know.  Only difference is that I have a yurt.  A lovely large-ish yurt.  In this yurt I host small tutorials on how to do everything from plant seeds, to ferment wine, to bread baking, to miso club gatherings, to curing and smoking meat.

This dream is my favourite because it could be possible.

Maybe that's the motivation I need to make this yurt happen.  Maybe it needs to be less about me, and more about teaching self sufficiency.  That is what a yurt symbolizes to me, self sufficiency - and to use the yurt for teaching those skills to others.  Now that would be wonderful.

I have the skills to teach, and the love of sharing what I know with others.  The act of getting my arse in gear and organizing actual events - and getting the word out - that is my major shortcoming.  But here's motivation to remedy that.

But then again, I need a yurt first... catch 22.




How can I use these dreams to inspire me?  One of the biggest obstacles to having my own yurt is funding.  Why not take the idea of food sustainability and monetize it slightly?  I can sell seeds!


Yurt Seed - what do you think?  Good name for a line of seeds?

It could look something like this:

Burgundy Grain Amaranth
A. hypochondriacus
Open pollinated
Grown by me since 2012, plant has grown true every year
Seeds harvested in 2014 for planting 2015-16
Germination test (in progress)
Beautiful bright red plant, grows 1.5 to 2m tall.  Useful in floral arrangement, or mature for seed which can be used in cooking, ground for flour, or for planting.  Young leaves also tasty and cook like spinach.
Includes instructions on how to grow, how to harvest, how to save seeds, and three recipes for cooking.
$6 for 5g seeds (roughly 3000 to 6000 seeds)
$2 for 1g seeds (roughly 500 to 1200 seeds)
shipping not included

I imagine the price is okay.  The local seed company charges a couple dollars more for the same amount of seeds and includes minimal growing instructions and no recipes.  Or maybe I should charge the same amount as them because I'm harvesting and sorting by hand instead of mechanically like they do.  Then again, I also want to encourage people to grow their own food, and if I price it too high, it becomes prohibitive to those who need it most.  No, I think I like this pricing.  It is what I would feel comfortable paying for the same amount of seeds.

So far the only seed I have ready is the Amaranth, but as I sort through my seeds, I may find more ready to sell.  I don't know if it's a good idea or not, but it's worth a try.  Especially if it stops the nightmares I keep having of a dwindling food supply.

Sketch for a cob cooker

Modern day cooking has it's joys, instant heat and temperature control being among the top of the list.

Though I worry that people forget that most of the people in the world don't have access to microwaves and electric hobs.  They cook with fire or not at all.  For us, fire is a luxury, for others an existential necessity.

I love cooking over fire.  Be it smoking bacon in the BBQ or a week long adventure to the middle ages, I simply love it.  Fire cooking can be slow or fast.  In the end, it gives infinite more control and variation than any modern appliance.  The smoke flavours the food.  The nature of fire encourages slower cooking and more thoughtful meals.  Less food, but more value.  It's not about chard  hamburgers, it's about dancing with natural power and coaxing it to match your desires.  Given the right equipment and set up, cooking over fire on a daily basis would cause me no hardship.

Although some set ups would be easier than others.

Here's something I dreamt about last night.  Please forgive the drawing skills, and note this isn't to scale.

A stove, oven and hearth made from cob.  An outside setting or somewhere with good airflow (like a yurt with ventilation so the air can get in) would be the perfect setting for this.

On the left of the built up area is a stove like setting.  It could be one burner or two, this picture I just show one.  I could also do like a rocket stove and instal a chimney.  The fire goes in the hole at the side of the stove, and I put a pot on top of the hole above the fire (the burner) to boil or fry my food.

Because I adore baking bread, I figure a small oven would come in handy.  Place it to the right of the stove structure and make it like the old medieval ovens.  You place a fire inside the oven to heat up the surrounding walls, scrape out the fire then put the bread inside to bake with the residual heat.

As cob heats up and retains heat nicely, this little cooker could easily heat up the yurt long after the cookfire has gone out.

Not just the burner would be used for cooking, the large flat surface, would give different temperatures depending on where I put something.  So furthest away from the fire would be a nice warm place to rise bread, closer might be a good place for melting cheese or rendering fat.  I suspect with a lot of cooking, the oven area would get warm on it's own.  Not hot, but warm enough to dehydrate fruit and veg.

But what's the big area in front of the cooker?  A big, flat and partly walled area made from cob.  Like a tray.

Actually, it's exactly like a tray.

The biggest thing that worries me about cooking with fire, especially inside a structure, is...well... fire.  Fire is a um... fire hazard.  It sparks.  One needs to shovel ashes, sometimes hot ashes with glowing embers inside (like for the oven).  Having a large, practically fire proof place around where the fire lives is a good idea.  The walls would be higher near the oven and stove to protect against sparks and mistakes, but at least 4 inches around the whole tray space.

This tray area could also be used as a hearth space for roasting meat over a spit, or cooking larger amounts that need several different pots.  Or cooking in the summer when it's too difficult to cook outside but I don't want to heat up the big biomass that is the cob cooker.  Or it would make a good storage space for non-flammable items like cooking pots.


I don't know, it's a thought that came to me in a dream.  In theory it would be a marvelous setup that matches my desires and skills.  But a bit luxurious and not at all portable.

The quest for yurt love

I love yurts.  The idea of something so stable, yet temporary and portable.  

The goal of this blog is to encourage myself to build a yurt.  As an investment in the future, my future, I think a yurt is the structure for me.  Certainly, I live in a house now, but one day my situation will change and instead of seeing things as being hopeless, if I have a yurt, I will always have a home.  A place that is mine during hard times.  A strong home, yet temporary - as in to remind myself that troubles are temporary and things will come around again.

The first picture is from Groovy Yurts.  They specialize in imported Mongolian yurts, and when I came across their website years ago, my heart leaped.  How could a tent, nay, a home, be so beautiful?  It was then that I made the resolve that a yurt would be mine.

Over the years, I took the opportunity to get to know some other yurts.  Here's one in a park that people can stay in.  

The construction style is yurt style, mostly, but it's a very modern version.  It has a thin, plastic wall that resembles a tent more than a home.  What I liked most about it is that it kept the wind out, had extra light from the windows and is built on a raised floor.  The elements I didn't like were that it was too tall at the walls, so it didn't keep much heat where one needs it at night.  On top of that, the plastic-fabric didn't breath, so the air inside was stale.  It was hot and stuffy during the day, and cold and clammy at night.

Here's some photos of my friend's yurt.  We set it up in the backyard and I stayed in it for about a week while we painted the house.  I do poorly with certain chemicals, specifically ones made from soy and petroleum, so I need to avoid paint while it offs gass.  But after a week or two, I can go back in the house.

I hesitate to call this homemade because the wooden structure was made by someone with a small cottage industry of making yurts for friends.  The heavy cotton canvas was sewn by the owner.  It's a beautiful yurt.

The wooden walls are about 4 foot high and the centre maybe 8 or 9 feet.  Excepting the door, all the joints are tied with leather cordage or cotton string.   The interior of the yurt was more comfortable than the park cabin version because the natural fabric allowed the air to flow slightly through it.  So it was fairly cool in the daytime, and not terribly cold at night.

The yurt was about 10 foot across, and I found it just right for temporary dwelling, but I really would want something larger if I were to stay there for any serious length of time.

The only thing I didn't like about this particular yurt was the walls didn't reach all the way to the floor, so there was a gap at the bottom that raccoons and wind could get in.

With this small amount of experience under my belt, I am convinced more than ever that I wish to live in a yurt.  I have a general feel for what I want from a yurt, though I imagine that will change as I progress on this project.  

I very much want the mongolian style, with felt walls and perhaps a canvas cover for winter.  Natural ingredients are a must.  Reclaimed and local materials are prefered.  Though I don't have the skills yet, I wish to make each part myself - or at least help someone else make the parts I can't do on my own.  I seek enough room for sleeping, cooking (even if it's just a fire pit), storing food, daily necessities, and if possible my spinning wheel and loom.  

It's an awfully big project.  I worry, an expensive one.  If the beautiful mongolian yurts cost several grand, how much would it take to make my own at home?  At the moment I have $20 and enthusiasm.  It's not enough.

I wonder... though I hate to ask for help, I don't think I could do this alone.  Maybe if I price this out, and ask the internet, maybe I could find some people with skills and spare change to help fund and assist with my dream?  I know there is great kindness on the internet, but is this a worthwhile cause?  What could I do to make it less selfish?  What could I offer the global community?  

Posting my experiences, success and failure is a start.  But I would record these anyway.  

What skills do I have that I can exchange?  About all I'm good at is back to the land skills.  Textiles, growing things, cooking in unusual situations and making full use of all ingredients.  I don't like to beg, so maybe there is something I can make to say thank you to kind strangers.  

These are my major obstacles: funding and finding people willing to share their time and skills to teach me how to do the bits I don't know how.