Sunday, September 1 was a beautiful, sunny, still-summery (albeit with autumny leaves in the background) day. We found a cup we had bought in Japan in 2009 and had NEVER USED! Who packs up a mug for 4 years? Apparently us.

People in our church community have definitely invested themselves in our yurt adventure. Either by helping with the set up, giving us building advice, bringing over guests to visit, or simply seeking out yurts on their holidays to take pictures of then bring them home for us. “See, you aren’t the only strange ones out there. They have yurts in America too!”

Can you figure out what Joel is doing in the above picture? He is spreading out food to dry in the sun. Sort of like we would see in Korea and Sudan during harvest time.
Remember the sunflowers from August 1st? They’ve grown.

Our yurt is in transition. We are unpacking kitchen boxes we haven’t used since 2006, prepping for winter with window installations and a stove, building a “bathroom”, we are processing food, and brewing meed, we are settling in – which always looks a bit messy and crazy right before you are actually settled.
In the afternoon we went to the wedding of Joel’s band mate. It was nice. And in between wedding and reception we shopped and ate chinese food.
The reception:

July was cold and August has been hot and dry. Our garden hasn’t been as successful as last year but it is only partly due to the weather. It is also about not having great time management over these summer months. It is about having a yurty distraction. And perhaps even about taking some vacation days during the wrong weeks. But finally finally we are starting to see some almost ripe tomatoes (those green ones are green zebra tomatoes. they are riper than they look). And this makes me happy.
