The Year of the Greenhouse

A year ago February,  we decided we needed a real greenhouse, something that could be used as an attractive  event site in case of inclement weather, as well as a great space to to grow plants.  I went to Craigslist, typed in "greenhouse" and this one came up. It was exactly what I envisioned: the right size, a good price, in our former town, and the sellers' names were also Roger and  Susan - it must be destiny. We happened to be the first ones to inquire, just moments after they had posted the  listing, and  we worked out a deal and a plan.

 Since our site is steeply sloped, we did lots of earth moving in preparation.  Huge, heavy concrete berms on the southwest corner were back-filled to the  brim with rock to make the floor flat and to provide good drainage in our heavy clay soil.

In April, when it was warm enough that the polycarbonate panels would be flexible and not break when  straightened, we began to dismantle the beautiful greenhouse. We were naively envisioning we might be able to take it down on Saturday, erect it on Sunday...Ha!!

Re-erecting the  greenhouse was  MUCH more finicky that setting up a new greenhouse.

Even with many capable (and patient!) friends helping, it took many weekends. Frequently during the week, fierce winds would undo all our hard work, popping out the hard-fought panels and blowing them all over the pasture.

During the summer, we had to pretty much suspend greenhouse work to complete our Commercial Kitchen project, which was also taking much longer than planned.  We managed to finally get the greenhouse fully erected and enclosed before winter set in, although it was too late to grow anything inside.

This spring, Rog installed the wood stove so he could work on cold days and began  construction of a clay and cordwood floor, partitioned by brick pavers.

This project of course justified the need for our newest big farm toy, a cement mixer.

The  floor is made from a mixture of clay dug from our farm, sand, portland cement, straw and water, with bricks and cross sections of logs. My  conservative estimate is that Rog spent 200 hours putting in the clay floor.

 In a final big push to get the floor done before the ReBlossom Boutique we hired some  hardworking young fellows to help apply preservative to wood, mix  the clay and level the wood.

Rog slowed up long enough for me to set in a small mosaic sun in the center of the floor.

Raising a bit of dust in the middle of the night cleaning the clay off the wood before a final coat of linseed oil.

In the meanwhile, I  created a mosaic glass window for the peak of the greenhouse. Vintage glass dishes are glued to a 5.5-foot diameter double-pane round window scored from the ReStore. Hanging it was a production -- it weighs about 300 pounds.

Found a cool  hall table at a thrift store and painted it with clay paint for the greenhouse.

Some hanging baskets and other plants start to make it feel like a greenhouse.

The gorgeous completed floor.

Setting up tables the night before the TedX speaker dinner.

The greenhouse has now successfully hosted  the ReBlossom Boutique, when was filled with vintage and re-purposed  items for sale in an Earth Day festival two weeks ago, and a lovely dinner for the TedX speakers last week. But I think my favorite event was last Saturday, when Rog and I moved the double hammock into the sunny greenhouse and enjoyed a delicious, well-earned nap.

I was going to  write "the end," but then I realized this is just the beginning of the greenhouse adventures1

Ruth-less

We lost Rog's mom, Ruth, last week, a month before her 90th birthday. What a truly wonderful woman.

When Rog invited me to go cross-country skiing at the state park one night  during our senior year of high school in Bemidji, MN, I told him I had never skied before and didn't  have skis. He said I could use his Mom's skis.  So, that night he introduced me to his parents and we had a sort of awkward conversation sitting in the living room, where I think his parents gave me some basic cross-country skiing safety tips (like avoiding the  trees at the bottom of the big downhill run.)  Who would have thunk I would end up with these sweet people  as my  parents-in-law? In fact, I am certain that one reason (among many) that I married Rog was because I loved his mom and dad and brothers so much.

I admired Ruth so much as a confident, intelligent, kind, curious, patient and wise woman.  We often went for family walks in the north woods and she could identify most of the wildflowers and trees.  She seemed to love authentic, simple pleasures: bonfires, gardening, canoeing, fishing, making jam, Sheba the springer spaniel and Mickey the furry gold cat,  cross-stitch, baking those unforgettably decadent  sesame cookies... She reveled in the spirited discussions her family would have about mathematical philosophies (heuristics? I still don't really understand that) and  the value of those new-fangled computers in education.

I will miss Ruth so much - her husky laugh when something tickled her, her intellectual curiosity about everything, her way of telling a story almost like a parable, her kind encouragement, love and support  of her sons, daughters-in-law and grandchildren - but happily, these traits are being carried on by the sons she and Jerry raised so well.  Love you, Ruth.

A Bit Fishy

We ("we" meaning "Rog") harvested the tilapia from the aquaponics fish gazebo pond today. Being tropical fish, they cannot survive water temps below 48 degrees, and it is getting cold now, so their days were numbered. Rog hasn't been fishing since we moved to the farm, 7 years ago. Until today!

First, he had to empty out some dried corn somebody had stashed in the feet of his hip waders.
Rog used a seine  net to corral the fish in a section of the pond.

Once caught in the seine, the tilapia were scooped up in a fish net (the one I use to catch errant chickens) and flipped them into a big bucket.

The catch today was 29 tilapia and a couple of koi that were caught-and-released.  There are still a few sneaky tilapia in there to be caught tomorrow.

They are so pretty, and not so big. I am sad about harvesting them.

Rog cleaned all the fish. A little  bit of blood and guts  to celebrate Halloween. 
I know they will taste delicious, but I wish we could keep them in the pond as pets.

Closing in on the Commercial Kitchen!

When our WWOOFing intern Kelly arrived two months ago, the north end of the barn was a big, dark open space with a garage door and a dirt floor. One of the first projects she got to work on was helping to screed and trowel concrete being poured  for the floor. When Kelly leaves for her next adventure in a few days, the kitchen will be nearly complete and this area will have transformed into a beautiful commercial baking room, a storage room and a bathroom!

Here is a brief summary of our kitchen progress the past two months.

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Rog got all the rooms roughed in, and the plumbers and electricians did their initial wiring and installed pipes and drains.

Rog reinforced the floor of the loft/attic space above the kitchen and cut a hole in the front of he barn so that the heavy exhaust system could be installed. A lull ever-so-skillfully and gently slid it through the  opening into place in the attic.

As long as  we had to take the Squash Blossom sign down to cut the opening, I repainted the surprisingly  faded sign and Rog hung it back up when he repaired the opening.(Yes, of course we did this late at night.)

Kelly and I tiled the large main  kitchen with 6-inch quarry tiles.

WWOOFer Mandy began tiling the bathroom walls (with awesome  retro butternut-squash-yellow 4-inch tiles we found at the Habitat ReStore.)

WWOOFers Kelly, Mae and Elizabeth also worked on the bathroom wall tile. Kelly and Mae tiled the floor of the storage room, working on it one night until 2 a.m.!

I tiled the floor of the baking room and also the fun part--the front of the wood-fired oven.  The red tiles were leftover tiles from a friend's project, the yellow fancy edges were from the ReStore and the arched mosaic was created from a large hand-painted ceramic  Italian plate  I broke up and reassembled.

Rog hung countless sheets of drywall in the kitchen, baking room, storage room and bathroom.

He then glued white FRP board to the drywall that would be behind sinks, and equipment.

Our "retired" professional dry-wall taper friend John offered to tape the drywall.

It turned out to be a bigger project than he realized he was getting himself into! We are so grateful for his expert work.

Then we were able to paint the walls and ceilings of all the rooms. When the paint was dry the next day, we applied a clear epoxy layer to the walls in the kitchen, baking room and bathroom. Kelly accurately described painting the sticky epoxy as like painting with sweetened condensed milk.

Rog contemplating the next step. (This guy is so amazing! He has been working his demanding architect job, and then putting in late nights and early mornings and long weekends doing hard physical work- 16 hour days, for weeks on end. He deserves a nap!)

Using the pallet jack, we moved the big equipment into the main kitchen. The huge double cooler at the end of the room is considerably taller than the door opening, and required a demonstration of Rog's brute intellect to get it through.

The beautiful, immense Vulcan range is now in place beneath its exorbitantly costly hood and fire suppression system. I cannot wait to cook on this beast!

Today the plumbers installed the 7 sinks, water heater, and toilet and hooked up the water!  They will connect the gas lines next week and the electricians will connect the power. We still have a bunch of things like counters and trim and shelving to install, and lots of cleaning and organizing. But we are SO CLOSE!!

Kitchen Progress!

When I last posted on this blog  about building the commercial kitchen, it was November and we were building the mound for the new septic system. We had decided to have the mound constructed on the far side of the west windbreak so that we wouldn’t have to see it so obviously and so it wouldn’t interfere with the pasture, garden or future car parking.  Many trees came down, as well as the old pig shed, and the hill turned out to be much bigger than I expected, but I am getting used to the terrain change and once it is covered with grass and meadow flowers, I imagine it could even become an attractive feature.

After the mound itself was finished, there was much more digging toward the barn.

Then even more digging toward the barn. And then trenching inside the entire length of the north end of the barn (which required moving all the stuff stored in there, including a huge woodpile, and of which I do not have any photos.) Our soil is mostly heavy clay. This part of the project was completed just as serious winter hit, so fortunately the mud quickly froze hard. But it is going to be very mucky come spring.

In December, we had a week-long thaw so the  well-drillers were able to begin work right before Christmas. They ended up drilling the new well in front of the barn.

I did not know that when a well is drilled, a LOT of mud is pumped out.

The weather turned very cold, so they pulled out their equipment for a few weeks, leaving a huge sea of clay mud that covered the yard in front of the barn and oozed out into the pasture. I cannot describe how dismaying this was. I was so relieved to get a big snowfall that covered it up so we didn't have to think about it so much.

When it warmed during a January thaw, the well-drillers returned and continued work. Water from the first aquifer had tested high for nitrates so they had to drill down into the Jordan aquifer,  580 feet. When I came home the evening they reached the Jordan, torrents of water were gushing through the garden on the north side of the driveway and through the pasture on the south side, rushing downhill to fill the ditches. It left gullies that will have to be repaired this spring, but on the bright side, it also washed most of the dismaying sea of mud away.  Between the septic  installation and the well installation, I estimate we will have about half an acre of mud to restore to grassy yard next spring.

While all of this work was going on outside, Rog was working inside the barn. He dug through the hard, rocky ground to pour footings for the new walls that will enclose the baking area, bathroom and storage room.

Cement mixers arrived to pour concrete for the footings.

Our friend Mike McMullen helped Rog build the walls and ceiling inside the north end of the barn.

Rog installed the door that will access the restroom from the outside

and insulation and vapor barrier.

Last weekend, Rog cut the opening in the wall from what will be the main kitchen to the baking room. There was a concrete curb foundation that needed to be cut out, and our two young bread-baker prospects (that will be another post)  offered to help cut the concrete out today.  When I came out to take a photo of the progress this afternoon, it was a bit dusty in there!

The opening is now ready to install the beautiful French doors! Well, after the dust is cleaned up.

Dust-covered Rog smiling after a very productive day’s work today. There is at least one more weekend's worth of messy concrete-sawing, to cut channels in the floor for the plumbing.  Then the plumber and electrician will be able to do their work, and THEN the fun part begins.