Nothing better than a birthday yurt outing. For Annette’s birthday we returned to the Whispering Pines yurt for two nights. The weather was wonderful and once again we have re-confirmed our belief that yurt living might be the way to go in the not-too-distant future.

For anybody unfamiliar a yurt is a soft-sided but hard-framed dwelling popularized by various nomadic tribes of, among other places, Mongolia. In their native lands they are constructed of a wooden lattice and then covered in many different fabrics including yak felt. They are sturdy, comfortable and portable enough to be carried up into the high pastures of the Mongolian plain where livestock can graze throughout the summer. The body of a yurt is a cylinder and presents no flat square face to the wind. They are the Mongolian version of the Teepee. However where the traditional plains native american teepee favored portability the yurt favors living space.

Here in the high-tech United States yurts are fashioned from kiln-dried teak and sheathed in a high-durability polyester-based woven-yet-sealed fabric. Pacific Yurts of Cottage Grove, Ore. makes many of the yurts in use today. Another yurt builder i’ve only recently learned of is the Colorado Yurt Company.