Slippery Slope gets a Greenhouse

It arrived in late May, a 400 pound crate full of greenhouse pieces ready for assembly.  The farmer had assigned to me the role of lead builder.  This, in my view, was a problem because I am neither skilled nor handy.  Around the farm I am better suited to the menial tasks: digging beds, ripping out blackberries, etc.   “You can do it, babe!” the farmer said.  Things started well enough.  A 9’x9’ square was carved out of the sod between the garden and the house.  Cheryl and Wayne came over to help us place the piers and cut the lumber for the border of the square foundation.  According to the air bubble in the spirit level (the tool with the coolest name ever), the foundation boards were almost exactly horizontal, within – I hoped – the 1/8 inch tolerance that the plans said we had to work with for the perimeter.  We filled the foundation with gravel and I started consulting the instructions for erecting the frame.  A few days later, something from my math teaching days popped into my head: the fact that the foundation perimeter boards had equal lengths did not ensure that the foundation was a square, only that it was a rhombus.  Not only had I ignored the builder’s dictum “measure twice, cut once”, I hadn’t even measured once.  Sure enough, it was not square, so I backtracked, digging up two of the piers and shifting them a few inches.  Then it was back to consulting the directions. They were many levels of complexity higher than the instructions for the typical Ikea product.  

I consulted the instructions, off and on, for about four months.  Sometimes I would take the plans out to the storage shed and rearrange greenhouse parts.  About six weeks in, I executed part of the first phase (phase 1 out of 37).  Not for the first time in my life, I quoted Hamlet to berate myself for inaction:

   A thought which, quarter'd, hath but one part wisdom

   And ever three parts coward, I do not know

   Why yet I live to say 'This thing's to do;'

   Sith I have cause and will and strength and means

   To do't.

   … I am pigeon-livered and lack gall

I asked Cheryl to stop asking me about the progress.  Good pal that she is, she pretended week after week not to notice that there was nothing new to notice about the bare foundation.

In November, there was a miracle.  The farmer heard about an islander who offered help to another islander with a partially constructed greenhouse that had been blown over in a storm.  We hired the helpful islander, Jonathan, and he raised the green house in two and a half days.  “A glorified erector set” he called it (but kindly – I didn’t feel demeaned).  The farmer tells me that my only problem was that I lacked confidence.  I think I may have had the proper amount of confidence.

It’s left to us to seal up the structure, using caulk and something called backer rod, so that it keeps the heat it collects.  Then we appoint it with a raised bed, shelves for trays of starts, and a work table.  If they require assembly or construction, I hope the instructions are at the Ikea level.  If not, I have more lines from Hamlet ready.

Tim seems to know what he’s doing….doesn’t he?