My Wet, Hot, Off-grid Summer
And Opinions on Yurts in New England
The last six months I took a break from writing in order to transition myself to off-grid living. Of course, this post and many others I have waiting in the wings would have been written much faster if I didn’t have such demand avoidance…even demand from myself, doing something I want to do. Thanks to folks on Merveilles that have been pushing me to write this one in particular.
However, some environmental, personal, and political crises got baked into the pie - some of which are currently being added as final toppings as I type (see note at the end of this post). Vermont experienced another 100-year flood an exact year after our last 100-year flood. Then it experienced a 1000-year flood a mere two weeks after that. Climate change is alive and well, lest we forget.
And climate change is specifically what I want to discuss - because a lot of the decisions I’ve made in the last several months have been in preparation for (and response to) the rapidly changing world.
I will be clear from the outset that I experience a great deal of privilege. I had a well-paying job for a few years before a mental health breakdown, and this allowed me to save up a little bit to take some risks with my living situation.
The first risk was that I commissioned friends to build me a tiny house, because I was too overwhelmed at the idea of doing it on my own. They began a tiny house building collective that specifically focuses on simple housing for queer/trans folks in rural areas.
I chose, due to limited finances and maintaining my values, to do a tiny house without water or electrical connections. It is entirely off grid, with a wood stove and a bucket toilet.
So with the first risk came the first problem. I had only camped before. I hadn’t lived off the grid.
With that came in a second risk to tackle the first problem:
Friends in northern VT were kind enough to not only let me park the eventual tiny house (still in progress) on their property, but they were also generously going to let me stay in their yurt for the summer while the house was being built.
This brings me to the yurt, which is really what I want to focus on because I hear a lot of people in New England idealizing yurt living.
Wait, you might be saying, but didn’t you want to talk about climate change?
Yes. They are intimately related.
Off-grid living, with the gracious advice of my landmates, was actually not as difficult for me to adjust to as someone who already lives pretty simply.
It got dark? I lit some candles and switched over to using my headlamp for intricate tasks. My bedtime naturally skews earlier so this didn’t bother me so much.
I was hungry? I cooked on the camp stove, which I hooked up to a propane tank that sat just outside the yurt.
Needed the bathroom? Walked to the outhouse during the day, then had a bucket for my pee at night, which I then gave to my plants the next morning.
Phone running out of battery? My partner lent me her small camp battery to try out.
Water? I brought my tanks to the hose that connected to the well and filled them up and hauled them the less-than fifty feet back to the yurt.
Showering was difficult because I really liked doing that, but ultimately had only done it once a week anyway. So, I take a lot of showers at friend’s houses, marveling simultaneously in the beauty of on-demand hot water and deep gratitude for my community.
For a relatively abled person with long covid, this was very doable for me. However, there were some yurt-specific things that made living difficult for New England:
For one, it was fucking hot. Yurts are like ovens, with the oculus sending in light to the whole space and cooking you alive. When it got above 80, I was roasting and sweating indoors. The vents on the sides had nothing on the heat coming in, nor did the little fan running off of the camping battery.
Those who live in New England know that it isn’t really the heat that gets you but the humidity. Because of climate change, areas like Vermont are getting increasing amounts rain - and with that comes flooding. It is humid all of the time.
And the yurt got wet. It remains damp despite starting the wood stove to dry things out, now that things are cooling off. You will find mold on everything you love if you don’t put it in the sun to dry out every few days to once a week. (Or keep everything in tupperware and keep it sealed.)
I have MCAS, so this summer has been one big build to a flare up, being in a wet space that cannot dry itself out due to the materials it is made of, because traditional yurts are historically meant for dry and arid climates.
This bears repeating: Yurts are meant for dry and arid climates.
At least with the materials they are often built with.
The friend building my tiny house knows someone whose yurt has gradually gone from “soft sided” (with tent material) to “hard sided” (wooden). (Something else to think about if you are dedicated Northeastern US yurt living.)
If the oculus on the one I live in could open (like some models have), then perhaps it would be somewhat better, but in visiting other yurts with top vents, I haven’t noticed a big difference. Eventually I bought the moisture absorbing tubs that they recommend for basements.
My original plan for food preservation without refrigeration also suffered due to being in a yurt. Because the air is wet, the cooler I had (which is a high-quality one meant for camping and canoeing) immediately became a mold fest on the inside after a day or two. My landmates do not have this problem in their traditional wooden house and use the same system.
Speaking of food, because of how some yurts are made, you will have mice. They can worm in easily. I keep all my food in jars and tupperware and out of the way, but they started munching my clothes too before I hit on a happy medium that kept them out. Consider a cat if you’re going to live in a yurt. I have one that visits me occasionally that I will have sleep over if I find poop in the typical spots.
Overall, though, I’ve been at ease with my decision to move off grid, even if living in the yurt wasn’t the right move. It continues to feel like the lifestyle matches up with my values. I’ve had some older folks say that some day I’ll want a shower or to turn on a light switch. Yet after personally being “islanded” in town after the floods and hearing friends describe hellish adventures of running through the woods at 1am with flashlights to escape a roaring brook that was tossing boulders into their yard and road, I wonder whether or not I will see that kind of luxury when I hit that age.
I should be clear too that there are things I elected to not do this year due to time and resource constraints. The first was growing all of my own food, which my landmates do. I buy eggs from them and snag some of their veggies when they have too much. My little garden focused on herbs this year, due to how late it was by the time my lease had ended. This is something that I want to try to do next year, though.
Ultimately, this was a great lesson in what the changing weather brings us here in places like Vermont, especially now that the threat is not just flooding, but also the mosquitoes and the prevalence of EEE. (Another thing is that you get a lot of mosquitoes in yurts, so leave the spiders be to do the dirty work for you!)
As I finish drying my musty clothing yet again at my partner’s place, I am grateful to have had this experience because it showed me that not all off-grid living options are created equal. Research into your area’s flavor of climate change is really important before making the jump - especially since whatever you live in will literally be your basecamp while you explore other methods to aid in living off grid.
End note: I hate doing this, but my partner and I are currently in a financial bind. She needs to move due to her unsafe housing situation, which includes the compromised safety of her therapy dog, and the cost of moving is pretty prohibitive right now, because the only places we can afford to go are out of state - so that is what we are doing. If you’re in a financially privileged position, if you could donate to me via PayPal or Venmo, it would help us greatly, especially now that her therapy dog was seriously injured last week due to said unsafe housing situation. I’ve moved in with her for the time being to help with care, but I’ve not been able to work as a result. My Venmo/PayPal is @eejum. Thank you for understanding and your consideration.