One month down in our little yurt on our new land! Turns out yurt living is GREAT in spring, when the shine is is still there!
It’s funny how quickly we have settled into a much more simple life. Not so much simple amenities – while we don’t yet have a bathroom or a kitchen or even hot water we DO have an industrial size espresso machine and coffee grinder and a washing machine and a hoover. (We get junked up on caffeine and have a wild time doing housework) I mean simple in terms of activities.
Since moving onto the land our days seem to have been stripped back to just staying around the yurt, looking for eels in the stream, playing with modelling clay, having a little walk. The kids are totally thriving on these days – despite the ominous start; our first morning, in bed, and I’m sooooo excited, like “Ramona! What shall we do today?! Climb a tree? Swim in the river? Make mud pies?!” and she said “How about we go to Soft Play and then the Drive Thru?”… she is an urbanite, for sho, that girl.
Tim and I are like excitable Scouts. It is basically like the best camping holiday EVER. A never ending camping holiday! It’s the stuff dreams are made of!
Things we have done:
Put up our little yurt & moved things in
Put up a trampoline
Set up our solar power
Piped water from the spring on the hill down to our meadow (BIG day!)
Found a huge slide at the dump and attached it to the tree
Carved steps down to the river (thanks to two different families who came to visit last week, who got in touch because they read my blog *waves*- we had SUCH a blast with them all. One family is doing an around the world thing -read their blog here)
Dug two small veggie patches
Things to do imminently: Build our big yurt Get hot water Set up a shower/ bush bath Dig a bigger veggie garden Move our cows, ducks and chickens onto the land Buy a puppy (OMG I know! Tim and I are probably more excited than the girls!) I did a little youtube showing you around the place. This video feels like one of the most boring ones I’ve made so far, and Crikey Jim, that FONT AT THE START *dies* but if you feel like nosing around our land, our yurt and our loo this is for you:
Yeah. So when we are not bouncing on the trampoline, watching Happy Feet, sliding down the epic slide or going to the Drive Thru we are mostly telling each other Knock Knock jokes. If anyone ever tries to tell you that only boys like poos and farts, please tell them about my family. Our youngest, Juno, is two and probably has about 100 words in her vocab these days, but her favourite by far is fart. She sings the word fart to the tune of Twinkle Twinkle and Baa Baa black sheep. And Ramona’s top Knock Knock joke is this one:
“Knock knock”
“who’s there”
“Poo”
“Poo who?”
“Poo poo!”
A classic.
Juno gets amongst the Knock Knock action too, resembling old fellas at the pub who have had too much whiskey and can’t quite get the punchline right
“Knock knock”
“who’s there”
“cow”
“cow who?”
“oh haha not cow no no no erm ahhhhh sorrrrrrryyyy…
(one minute later)
“FART!”
with the exact right tying-to-remember-but-also-a-bit-bamboozled expression on her little face.
So yes, that is us, one month in. Clock back in soon for updates… although you and I both know that from here on in it is just gonna be photos of the kids, the ducks and the puppy all having a snuggle together.
A puppy!
Wonderful update thanks!
My 3yo and I (oh, he is so down with your girls and their ‘jokes’) are reading Farmer Boy at bedtime, and your life has some lovely overlaps with 19th New York State farm life 🙂
I find your blog inspirational, we are yet to begin our adventure but you’ve inspired me to make it a reality!
Sounds beautiful – share it with a rescue dog…you can get rescue pups too. Buying a puppy isn’t an ethical choice and rescues will love the blissful second chance at life. I am a regular reader btw! Since your surname blog post on Mumsnet – I love your blog but my heart does break a little bit at puppy buying!!! Please research the puppy trade first & think about the dog that you COULD take whose life you could be saving xx
Buying a puppy isn’t necessarily unethical, they don’t all come from horrible puppy farms!
No, however it is on a supply and demand basis. The less demand for puppies, the less will be bred, the less requirement for horrible puppy farms. It is also depriving another dog of a happy life that could be put down otherwise.
Thank you so much for posting 😀 We have done a hug amount of research and not finding this an easy one – on one hand we really want a dog that can roam on 25 acres but respect and guard our boundary, yet also be a family dog for 4 people who aren’t very used to dogs – on the SPCA sites all the dogs require “dog savvy, confident” kids – which ours aren’t. But of course, we would love to save a dogs life 🙁
*Waves back* Thanks for the shout out lovely!
Coffee, then hoovering for they cannot happen at the same time
[…] researching more natural ways to clean ourselves. I get lots of inspiration from this blog https://lulastic.co.uk/yurt-life/come-and-see-our-yurt-our-land-our-loo/ (This is the first time I have added a link, I hope it works!) about a mother from England and her […]
What? You can bounce on a trampoline? 😛
I’ve often wondered (and I know it’s truly none of my business so feel free not to respond) but if one or both of your girls is more interested in ‘conventional’ living as they age, would you consider trying that again per their request? I know you and Tim are so very big on children’s rights and their autonomy so I’ve been curious what you think you might do if one of them desperately wants to live in a house or go to school or live in a city. Your mention at the beginning of Ramona being an ‘urbanite’ piqued my interest.
Also, your yurt is beautiful. 🙂
Yes! Absolutely 😀 At the moment we spend a lot of time in town (more than I would perhaps choose on my own) and would consider a big change one day if it became obvious one of us needed that 😀
Wow looks like our ideal life and what we dream of. The only thing that stops us the money.. How do you afford to live and get set up in the first place.? I understand you are living a much more frugal lifestyle but just wondering how you made the move and sustain it financially? Most people I know who live in a similar way in Portugal had inheritance, another property they rent out or do some sort of job they can do from a computer anyway. My husband is a decorator but would like not to be doing that so much for his health. Would love to make it happen for us so bad! Modern life is way to hectic and hard on everyone!
If I’m remember right from a long ago post, I believe that both Tim and Lucy left full-time work and also sold their house (?) I’ve always assumed they used the proceeds from the sale and any savings they had accrued.
Ooh sorry, didn’t respond! Yes, we were incredibly lucky to sell our London home and that allowed us to buy this land and two yurts (our big yurt cost £15000!) however going halves on the land with friends made it far more possible. We live on the money I make from writing, and hope that eventually our self sufficiency will mean big savings- which is why we justify spending so much time on the and 🙂
Bloody brilliant! You guys rock…… I love your yurt too. One day….. one day….. she dreams sitting in her two bedroom flat in Surrey. Doing a fab job – I’m enjoying your updates. Sarah
Ah I love that you are always posting balanced glimpses of your lives….loos, giant insects and all. You are so very inspiring Lucy. I’ve been reading your blog since my boy was a tiny babe in arms and I struggled to find others who were cosleeping, breast feeding on demand and generally following their wild instinctual selves. Now 3 years in I feel that I have found a circle of women to share this journey…and you have somehow been amidst this community…helping me answer the call of my wild self….Mothering intuitively and respectfully…putting heads above the parapet and taking our place as artists and writers….connecting with the sacred feminine…rewilding womanhood, Motherhood and childhood. My husband Matthew, 3 year old son Henry, sproodle Teacake and I are in the process of selling our east London home to move to the Blue Mountains in Australia to immerse ourselves in nature, build a house, send Henry to Steiner school and start a feminist healing practice. Thank you for your beautiful, authentic and inspiring posts which have played a role in guiding me back to a wilder, simpler, more creative self. Love to you four.
Kumari xxxx
Ah, wow. That is amazing! So loved reading this – read it to tim too. Your adventure sounds incredible- please visit when you holida y in NZ!
I just love your set up how wonderful. I have a 4yo boy obsessed by farts and all that lovely stuff must admit it often makes me chuckle. I wish I could get my arse in gear and get into getting out more, I ised to live in the countryside and it was amazing now I’ve lived years in the town and its sapped so much from me. They’ve built houses on the land near me that was the only place remotely like the country with ponies blackberries and nature oops offload done!
Ah that sucks 🙁 I hope you find another foraging, pony watching place xx