Unbelievably enough, it's officially spring. As with most of the country, the "wild winter" of "clime and punishment" predicted by the Farmer's Almanac never materialized here in northwest Montana. While Whitefish received much less snow than usual, Polebridge did see its typical two feet on the ground, but the temps were mild—relatively speaking. I guess…
We're off to Nicaragua and that place where the Bay of Pigs happened. See you in three weeks or so!
A Note from Chris: Finally, a toilet. We are so excited that we have a composting commode installed that we just have to share. That’s the good news. The bad news is that I finally read the operating instructions, and it turns out this contraption requires constant daily maintenance, so we're still debating the separation…
Well, it’s not as exciting as the mystery of Bo and Deb, but life at the yurt continues at its own mercurial pace. Living in Montana is sometimes like living in Mexico, or, as Chris says, Anguilla. When we order anything through the Internet, it rarely arrives by the estimated delivery date, if it gets…
Without a composting toilet, dry sink, or sufficient source of heat at the yurt yet, we decided to head back home to Whitefish rather than stay the night. As Chris closed the gate to our lane, I took one last look at the cabin, far off in the distance. There had to be more to…
Happy 2012! Chris and I just returned from a traditional Austrian Christmas vacation, where we visited Vienna, Prague, and Salzburg. We had a wonderful time seeing the sites and traveling by train through the Czech countryside—but no matter how bucolic the view outside the window, our minds were never far from Polebridge and that day…
"Get ready for a wet, wild winter in 2012!" says the Farmer's Almanac. It'll be "clime and punishment ... a season of unusually cold and stormy weather." With that in mind, and knowing that the yearly snowfall here is normally about 100 inches, we put a dent in splitting, storing, and tarping several cords of firewood today. We also,…
It’s our first night at the yurt. It gets dark here early, so we work by the light of our only lantern and the glow of the wood stove. As I’m typing away, buried in two sleeping bags (with a cast iron “iron” heated on the wood stove tucked inside), Chris is building a stand…
Here it is, the beginning of December, and it looks like we just might get the yurt fully furnished by January. What we thought would be a simple project has turned into what we jokingly refer to as the million-dollar yurt. After weeks of dealing with a very methodical builder and his crew of four,…
Postcards from Polebridge 