Yurts on Film

 I recently watched Tulpan (Tulip) a great film about a young Kazakh man returning to the steppe after his military service with dreams of owning his own yurt, marriage to the elusive Tulpan, and owning his own flock of sheep. It is a beautiful film of a man's determination to return to live on the land, a land of extreme hardship right on the edge of life itself. He turns his back on the navy and the city, to live in this beautiful almost barren plain which almost everyone else has already abandoned, to suffer the humiliations of his brother in law who ensures that this rite of passage is not an easy one.
Other films with yurts....

1.Urga -  A Russian truck driver breaks down in the middle of the Mongolian steppe where he meets Gombo a mongolian nomad and an unlikely friendship develops.
2. Tulpan
3. Mongol - A great epic of a film about Chingis Khan's early life, lots of yurts, horses and blood.
4.The Story of the Weeping Camel
5.The Cave of the Yellow Dog

There is also Troy and The Golden Compass which use yurts albeit fleetingly in one or two scenes, there must be many more films or references so  please add any unusual, interesting or trivial  yurt stuff that you come across.

Frontier Stoves from Cornwall

The Frontier stove is made by Camping Solutions, in Cornwall, initially developed for disaster relief agencies, it incorporates plenty of features that make it a useful bit of kit for the domestic market as well. Long gone are the days of roughing it in drippy nylon tents. The advent of bell tents, safari tents, domes, pods and yurts, shows that we like our camping a little bit more comfortable than previously and if this means taking some of the mod cons camping then so be it. I personally draw the line at the kitchen sink, but a stove, that's a bit different, a stove can make the difference between misery or magic, divorce or devotion. It is easy to dream of sitting around the campfire in the evening with stars overhead, but due to the weather or overzealous regulations it is not always possible to have a campfire outside. So a lightweight stove like this is a perfect solution.

The Frontier stoves are very compact: the three legs fold up under the body of the stove, all the lengths of flue slide inside the fire box and even the small ember tray below the door can be unclipped and put inside to prevent it catching or getting lost. Packed up, it only measures length. 450mm x d.200mm x w.250mm. and assembly takes a matter of minutes. It even has its own carrying handle.

I was concerned that the size of the flue (60mm) would not provide adequate draw but in practice found it was easy to light and no problem to keep in, of course, like all fires and stoves, the drier, more seasoned wood you put in it the better it will burn. There is a baffle on the first section of flue to limit the draw and the door latch has a small catch to allow more draft through the door. The flat top is perfect for boiling a kettle on or frying up some eggs, constructed from mild steel it takes very little time to heat up to a useful cooking temperature.

There is no reason why it should only be used inside a tent or other structure, it is also just as useful outside in the same way that you might use a barbecue. The five lengths of flue are self supporting (although they would be safer supported ) and they do get hot, being uninsulated, so you would need to be mindful when there are children about. The stove itself heats up very quickly, so again you would need to be cautious with children running about, but that applies to all fires. The tripod legs are locked in place and provide a very stable support.

The Frontier Stove is unlikely to replace the wood burners in more permanent settings, but would be ideal for temporary camps especially if you were running some bushcraft or similar outdoor activities and you needed an indoor/undercover source of heat and cooking. The price of £129.99 plus £9.99 p & p from campingsolutions.co.uk makes it a useful bit of kit that will keep you warm without burning a hole in your pocket.

Low Flying Butterflies at Risk.

Although the rare pearl bordered fritillary butterfly has been here for some time we haven't been able to do as much as we would have liked to encourage it, a little bit of ride clearance here and there, some bracken control etc. However we have recently signed up to a 10 year land stewardship scheme with the aim of doing more to help it survive. This will involve increasing the stocking rate on the farm, making more rides through the bracken and brambles, cutting back some of the scrub growth and some more coppicing of the overstood hazel stands.

There are a number of reasons for the butterflies demise, most linked to the way the land is managed, among them is the decline of violets , the principle food plant; the spread of dense scrub due to an absence of foraging/browsing animals hasn't helped either, and the overgrowth of traditional coppice into small woodlands presents high barriers that the butterfly cannot fly over or around.

The english countryside has been managed by man for so long there are no pockets of wilderness left and while it is often over managed or badly managed, I am broadly speaking in favour of any kind of management that will increase rather than diminish the biodiversity of an area. It is true the pearl bordered fritillary with its reluctance to fly high, requiring low level heathland without too many obstacles like hedges and woodland to hinder it, will not be quite as versatile as its more adaptable cousins like the silver washed fritillary, but it will be a great challenge to see if we can bring a greater variety of life to this hillside and help the butterflies at the same time.

With only 2 months left before the nesting season starts we start work this week. If you live locally and would be interested in helping out for a day or two please get in touch.

10 Years On.

It was touch and go whether we would get it ready but the Ash Field Yurt finally had a new deck and a new pod in time for the opening day of the season. As it turns out it’s our 10th year running Cornish Yurt Holidays, an anniversary that has crept up on us, as it doesn’t seem that long ago that we started with one yurt  on the top of the hill. After that blew away in a gale we moved lower down the hill in 2005 and slowly increased the number of yurts from one to three plus the recently added Pod. After many successful seasons and two successful planning applications along the way I hope we have found a good balance for us, the land and for those who come and stay.

However when I recently had an enquiry for a possible order for over a hundred yurts for a holiday site in France I realised that we haven’t grown very fast at all. There are now so many new yurt holiday businesses cropping up all over the place, each one bigger, greener, more sustainable,  more luxurious than the last.Trailing through the directories, the web site homepages and the newspaper reviews it sometimes gets hard to tell one from the other.

Where does it all go from here? There are already multi pod yurts, yurt villages, yurt tree houses, yurts on boats , and at least one two storey yurt, so the possibilities go on, but despite the media’s obsession with what’s new, and a clear commercialisation of the alternative holiday market I’m not sure it’s about all that. Yurts work, which is why they have been around for so long, and in the right place with the right approach they can be enough in themselves. We have made Cornish Yurt Holidays the place we would like to go on holiday and very often this is the only place we go on holiday. It is always very special, even 10 years on, so we are going to keep on keeping it that way and let the place work its magic.

New for 2011

With the weather turning warmer in the south west at least and the new year just round the corner, the idea of spring doesn't seem so far fetched. Although wary of new year resolutions the plan is to have a few more useful entries on the blog in 2011 and to put out a newsletter every quarter...

Although there are now yurt camps with 10 plus yurts, we are keeping it small just three yurts each one in its own field, one toilet/ig-loo for each yurt, and the bathroom yurt and solar shower to share between them.

Although it was up for the last part of the season the solar shower is the most significant new addition, part up-turned boat, part gothic archway the distinctive shape and big view of moss covered hawthorn trees is a very different type of shower.

The 10ft yurt pod attached to the 20ft Ash Field yurt will be up for April 2011, giving a separate but attached yurt for the kids and space for the adults to relax more comfortably in the evening. In the bathroom yurt we have finally found a suitable comfy chair and a place to rest your cuppa or glass of wine.

We are also installing a washing machine and dryer (not anywhere in earshot of the yurts), to make it easier for to those with young families to keep on top of the laundry without traipsing off to Wadebridge or Bodmin.

Although doing very little seems to be a popular past time for many who come here, this is rarely an option if you have children. In addition to the swings and hammocks we will have a sandpit, and a big pile of sticks and stuff for building shelters. There will also be a slackline ( a kind of low level tightrope ) for the adventurous or foolhardy of all ages.

For more details of the facilities and other ideas about what to do click here

To see the 2011 calendar and tarif click here.

Wood and Rush

There is no doubt that making a chair from a tree is more difficult than it sounds, more difficult than yurt making too I am sure, but despite the obvious complexities, the notion of starting with a tree, felling it, cleaving it, axing it, drawknifing it, etc. until you have nineteen or so bits of wood that go together to make a simple chair, is a wonderful thing.

I am more proficient with the wood than with the rush seating which is how I came to spend an excellent weekend on one of Linda Lemieux courses on the edge of Dartmoor learning how to weave the rush into a chair seat. A woman of many talents and endless patience Linda grows her own willow for her beautiful baskets and harvests her rush for chair seats. The hospitality and excellent tuition makes for a great weekend . For more details see www.woodandrush.net

World of Interiors

 Ed Osbornes hand made stoves are featured in this months issue of World of Interiors.  They have one picture of the gas bottle stove which is one of many of the full range of stoves and ranges  that he makes. Portable and efficient, easy to light and  good for cooking on we have used them for years in our yurts and have supplied them to many of our yurt buying customers.  To find out more info about Parp stoves phone 01363 860001