Yurts, Yaks, and a very rainy June

For Context:

Summer is my absolute favorite time of year. I am obsessed with the sunshine, the green, the water, the flowers, the late evenings. Energetically, physically, and emotionally, Summer is the season where I feel most alive, inspired, and vibrant!!

We’ve had a super rainy start to our summer here in Kansas. Like, flash flood, leak in your basement, turn around don’t drown kind of rainy! I had to rescue my potted plants in on the back patio a few times before the water went over them, the trickling creek by our house turned into a cresting river with rapids! We have had several flash flood warnings in May and June, much more rain and cool weather than we are used to

hello from under the water!!

My sister had planned the most kick-ass kayak trip for The Weekend Sisters (my sister, myself, and one of our good friends, Bri ) in Arkansas. The forecast kept playing with our hearts and we canceled and rescheduled the trip a few times before just deciding to take a chance and GO for it! We were planning to kayak about 17 miles, stopping half way and camping in our hammocks over night. We did this trip a few years ago and it was one of the best water adventures I’ve had in my LIFE! Arkansas has some of the clearest rivers and if you go early enough in the summer, you can catch the water level at the perfect place for yakin’!

We were planning to camp before starting our kayak trip, but due to a forecasted storm, we decided to look for places to stay so we could start out a kayak trip dry and not soaked from a wet night of camping. The town nearest the river didn’t have any hotels, but there was one Air B & B available for that night, and it happened to be a YURT on the top of a hill, about 25 minutes away from any town! Honestly, best case scenario!

Overlooking the hills of NW Arkansas…so beautiful!

It wasn’t camping, but it was probably the next best thing to camping. The yurt was off-grid, supported by water tanks and solar panels and an INCINERATING TOILET, which I had never seen or used before. It literally burns your waste when you “flush” it. So cool!

I would go back to this yurt in a heartbeat! It was magical!

We spent the evening snacking, reading/browsing some of the books from the yurt, chatting, birdwatching, putting together a floor puzzle, and repacking our belongings in preparation for the two day kayak journey ahead! Kayaks do not have a lot of storage room, and we were prepared and strategic!

View from the yurt porch! I used binoculars to look for frogs on the bank!

However, our dreams were dashed. We woke up to a huge thunderstorm around 3 am, shaking and soaking the unprotected yurt. It dumped rain and stormed so hard all night, it was rough. The yurt was high on a hill with no trees and I honestly was sure we were going to get hit by lightening, but we were spared. Whew.

We woke up in the morning to find out that the whole county was in a flash flood warning after getting 3 inches of rain that night, and the river was quickly swelling. It was not safe to kayak on, and the river authorities expected it to keep swelling for the rest of the weekend. Cryyyyyfaceeeee.

After some frustration, we ended up finding a place to camp at a lake in Oklahoma, although there weren’t enough trees close enough to put up our hammocks close to each other, so all three of us were spread throughout our little campsite, which sucked, but we all got good night sleeps. Honestly, besides some bugs falling on me from the tree above, hammock sleeping gives me suuuuch good sleep!

Bri, asleep in her ‘mock

The next morning, we drove around trying to find a place to swim or kayak, but even this lake in Oklahoma had flooded campgrounds and swim beaches. We finally found a little park with water access, and the park ranger told us that the nature trail was flooded, but we could kayak the trail if we wanted. Which was actually pretty cool! We kakayed over a bridge and by benches covered in water. We put our paddles down to make sure we were still “on the trail”, ie, could feel the sidewalk below us. We found some cool naturey things, played with a snake, swam a little, and then packed up and headed home.

As my wise sister said, “it was a good trip for what it was, but a bummer for what it could have been”. We were all disappointed, but everyone kept up good spirits and agreed we will try again next year!

And so, in efforts to balance out that bummer of a story, here are 3 cuter things going on in my life these days!!

1.) SOOO MUCH MINT!!! I love mint and all this rain has made my little container of mint explode!!

Ross and I harvested mint and chives and put them in the dehydrator so we can have tea and dried chives this winter. I’ve also been making mint and lime icecubes, mocktail mojitos, and my nice little concotion using Coco Rico—yummm!

2. My husband, Ross, is a singer/songwriter, and has written some gorgeous songs this past year. I have them all memorized, since his music space is in the Genesis Pod with my sewing space, and almost every night, he practices while I sew! We are headed to Colorado this week to have his album professionally recorded. I am so, so proud of him!! And—I know NOTHING about music/album recording. I am so grateful I can go with him on this adventure and learn about the process.

3.) While in Colorado, we will see some friends, and so I have made hospitality potholders to leave at people’s houses! A potholder + a jar of homemade strawberry jam is our hostess gift of 2025!

And—that’s all for today!

I have all sorts of big thoughts floating around in my head, so it felt good to get these sweet and simple stories written down. It feels grounding in a way! So, as always, thanks for reading my silly little posts!

Much love,

Kate