(a friend sent this to me in an email – true!)

I got a bit side-tracked on my last little blogs, but the fall always makes me happy. This is part of what I want to entreat on you in this blog – be happy. I know it sounds like a cliché, but it’s very true from my experience.

I blame it on my parents, again a cliché, but this is also true. My parents both grew up in the depression. They did not have easy “silver spoon” type lives, but had to work hard for everything they had. To me, my parents were complete opposites that meshed perfectly. Dads’ side of the family was large but distant. Growing up we knew his brothers and sisters, his parents, but that was all. Now moms’ side of the family is total opposite. I can tell you about great aunts and uncles on her side. Little did I know growing up how special this really was?

The best thing they both shared was a great sense of humor, but mom always seemed a bit more confident about it. Our family motto is “if we are not picking on/at you, we don’t like you” and this also was very true. My dad gave me a great couple of Knick-names to prove it 1) Rimp (for those of you that remember the Jetsons cartoon – when George shrunk, Astro ran around saying “rook at the rimp” – since I was the smallest/shortest one in the family – I got the name) 2) Dumb Shit – now don’t get excited on this, it was not a bad thing or ever said in meanness…but instead was an endearing form of affection. Since I was also raised to “keep trying” it meant a lot of failures. And, on occasion, the comment from dad was “Ya dumb shit, what did you do that for?” – Again not harsh, but usually delivered with a muffled laughter. Even now, when our family gets together and starts going into our stories, the phrase is used abundantly amongst us. Always with a smile, a tongue-in-cheek, and occasionally outright belly laughter.

So, how did I get through 2014? I believe it was with that same attitude that dad carried. When bad things happen I am great at the moment of impact. I can hold up in the worst of situations to take care of business. This is just what I do and did. I handled the funeral basics, the fire investigators, the police, the contractors and construction crews. But they were all handled carrying that same dumb shitism (yep, that is now a word!).

When August came around I was spinning with things that still had to be done – including my 2^nd major surgery and no use of my right arm (and yes, I am right handed – D.S. again dad!). That was when I realized that if one more person told me “It’s gotta get better from here right?” I was going to punch them square in the mouth! I was sure that every time someone used that phrase, something else bad happened, because it usually did.

Then one nice cooler spring day earlier this year, I stopped.

I went out, by myself, in our front yard gazeebo.

Sat down in my glider rocker, iced tea in hand, and stared at the new house and found myself thinking of my mom.

The one constant phrase on her side of the family was/is “THIS TOO SHALL PASS”. It was her answer for every bad thing I could ever remember happening. This too shall pass – pretty much said it all, and I smiled. Then I remembered my phrase: Everything Happens For A Reason – you may not ever find out what that reason is, but there is one for everything. Again I smiled.

My 4 yr. old grandson was gone. Fifty plus years of mementos of our lives were gone. The house and all our possessions were gone. Half my left index finger was gone. My right shoulder was gone along with both knees and part of my left shoulder and left foot. So what was the reason for all of it? Still, today, I have no clue.

What I do know is that life went on and will continue to do so. I do know that laughing through the hard times makes them a lot easier to deal with. I also know that I have a very strong family, and a fantastic bunch of friends, and an outstanding rural community to live in. I know, to the core of my soul, that without all of them (and a large dose of a warped sense of humor) I could not have made it through. Now the only sad part is that I do not have any of those awesome pictures of them all to share here with all of you (and we had some goodies)!

So I leave you with one last phrase from my mother: “SMILE, it makes people wonder what you are up to!”

BEFORE

Well, October 22, 2011 and the day has finally come – putting on the roof! We worked so hard all spring/summer long and in 100+ degree heat to get to this day. Cant tell you the excitement I had!

Now the downside, it had to be an extremely calm day to do this part. Out here in northeastern Colorado those are few to come by. Early morning is usually our best chance to get little to no wind. So we decided that this Saturday morning of October 22nd would be a great time to give the lift a chance.
We had asked many of our friends to come help. There are 15 rafters on this puppy so we would need at least that many people (preferably double that on each side) to handle this project. One person on either side at about every 2 rafters should be able to hold the double plastic wall going up. Then, once up, everyone has to hold it in place while another person (in our case it was Keith – he is not so afraid of heights) goes up a ladder, starts at the center top of one end and pounds(and of course it does not just “snap” in with your fingers – NOOOO, you have to wack on the clips several times to get them to lock in the double poly-ply.) the clips in their track to hold the covers.

We ended up with 8 people – thank God there was no wind when we started!! We didn’t pull out the rolled plastic until this day of installation – afraid it would have blown to the next county the day before! It’s not uncommon for us to get 10-15mph winds, but this last summer we have had several at 20+mph and even a couple at 35+mph. When it blows that hard we usually have to spend the next couple days putting our barn/shed roofs back together. One day it was so strong that it somehow managed to blow out one of our shed windows – from the inside?! Now that was freaky! So, our first job was to open and roll out one sheet, then open, line up and roll out the other on top of it.
We thought about this a lot in the week prior to this day. Take up one at a time both at once? How do we raise it/them up and over the rafters? What if they get stuck up there? Should we have the scaffolding on the inside ready to go if that does happen? We went through a bunch of scenarios and even asked a few local plant grower greenhouse friends what they do. We were lucky there cuz one recently (in one of our great wind storms) had to do just this thing – “ropes and just pull” was their answer, oh and “make sure you have enough people” was their helpful hint. Too bad this hint didn’t help us, we were very short handed.

Well, we decided to do both at one time, and we purchased a bunch of plumbing 1-1/2” PVC pipe. We duct-taped both sheets to the pipe, with just hand forcing the pipe pieces together – no glue. We also ran a 100’ rope through the pipe as we put it on. The rope was long enough to sick out both ends, so we were able to tie another long rope to each end. We then cut a small hole in the middle to tie another rope around the center. With only 3 people on the opposite side to handle the front, middle and far end – we pulled!! As the 3 people pulled, the others on the start side watched to make sure it didn’t fold or catch in a wrong place – we got really lucky cuz it just lifted right up and over!! YEA!!!
Once up, it took us about a half an hour to figure out if it was squared (pull this way a bit more, nope, pull it back that way – just a bit – ha ha). Once we were sure it was a squared off as we could get, Keith quickly got up on the south end center and started hammering down the brackets into the tracks (rubber hammer of course – don’t want to damage a track or you are really screwed). After that was all secured – he started on the north end top center. That was when the wind decided to show up! Pretty sure that Mr. Wind decided that it was time to have some fun with us, and didn’t just grab both layers to keep it even and straight – nope, he had to sneak in between the layers and really screw with us! (oh, and of course the wind is a “he” – all the guys I know love to rip stuff apart, but are never around to put it back together – extra giggles on this one!!!).

When we had several places tacked down on the south, north, and east I asked our friend Carrie to get some pictures. Check out under our butts and what the kids are standing on…its rolled up plastic and by the wheelbarrow you can see the pipe sticking out on from it on the ground. The plastics were larger than our structure by quite a bit – thank God again!! The hung over the north and south ends by at least 2 feet (you can see the corner south end where I am sitting.), and along each side by at least 4-5 feet – this was a very VERY good thing since it was now about 9:30 and the wind was kicking up good. Tacking it all down took much longer than we thought. So glad Carrie was there cuz she would run to the house and get drinks for all of us and snacks for the kids (yep – had 5 grandkids there to help – 2 were mine and a bit small for the job, the 3 of Keith’s were fantastic and a HUGE help!!) – you can see how bored the poor things were just standing on the sheets. Took us till noon (I remember cuz we ordered pizza’s for everyone!) to finally get it all tacked down. We had a couple of wrinkles, but we could work on those at a later date. For now, it looked pretty darn good to us and going inside was amazing!

I have been in a lot of greenhouses over the years, but it’s a very different animal when you are building it yourself. We have to step down 2 steps to get into it and to look down the length with the covering on is a real sense of accomplishment!! I will never forget 2011 and doing this project, and I have the scars to prove it!

It was a cooler day and the first one to notice that it was warmer inside the structure was our dog – she’s in the center of the picture against the left side wall.

It all looks so clean and pretty for the moment.  I even found time to slip in the first plots (look to the upper right in this picture).  They don’t look like much from this angle – but it was very exciting to see them there.  Made my heart warm to know that all the bloody knuckles, sun burnt shoulders and joint pains were not in vain – this was really happening!

 This view is to the north (where the swamp cooler will be) and the final part of the triple insulated wall is filled in with metal framing for the wall all set in place – time to build the ends!

The ends are just huge sheets of plastic.  Didn’t sound like a tough thing to do – oh silly me!  We propped them up against the metal skeleton and then just used a marker to line up where to cut – piece of cake.  Now the cutting was a whole different animal!  This picture angle, it just looks like thick sheets of single layer plastic – nope. If you have ever looked at hard plastic on a greenhouse at your local garden center, you would see that there are pockets in that plastic. Not sure why they make it this way?  Could be for drainage?  The pockets would allow the moisture that could build up to flow through them to the base and drain out – but they are on the outside and the tops are all covered with a metal cap (and eventually the roof plastic covering and another metal cap), so there is no way for any water to get into the pockets.  I still have no clue why they use this type of plastic, all I know is that it’s nasty to cut!

 Cutting a straight line was great-just follow one of the pockets and you can do it with any box-cutter knife.  Cutting the curved lines was ugly!  First we tried to use a jigsaw.  Well the first attempts on that was a disaster until we figured out what we had to prop 2×4 boards on either side of the cutting line and then hold the plastic down really tight.  I did get a great laugh on one of the first tries when all I was doing was waving the plastic up and down with the saw blade.  Darn stuff is so light and flexible that the blade just carried it – didn’t cut it at all.  Second attempt made it splinter, not a clean cut and really not good to have anywhere near the plastic roof material.  But by the third attempt and with the help of some 2×4 wood pieces and a bit of extra weight – got it done!

 Once the plastic was up, the large fans could go in.  Oh, and these were in pieces and had to be put together before they could be hung.  Nice huh?! 

They have to sit at an angle so any moisture or debris that builds up in them can flow off.  The next picture shows their size in comparison to the door – THEY ARE HUGE!  The fans are fairly heavy because they are so large, but the flimsy sheet metal that incased them is what got to me!  First we had to screw the metal casing to the big fan frame – ya sure, try to align all the pre-drilled holes when the whole thing keeps moving.  Made me think of a hula-hoop…the more you moved, the more it moved!  Lost track of the number of cuts I got on those suckers!  The funny thing about a sheet metal cut – it’s so clean, it never wants to heal, but hurts like crazy! 

We didn’t have much room between the greenhouse wall where the fans needed to go and the shop – only about 10 feet.  We did manage to put the fans together, then lift them using the bobcat and coming in at an angle.  Once Keith had the bobcat close to the hole for the fan, it was my job to push it into the hole and get it screwed to the frame.  No pre-drilled holes in the frame by the way!  My arms got a major workout those days Punching into the framing was always an adventure.  Drill starter hole first, then put all the pressure you can on the metal screw to push it through and hold the pieces – spaghetti arms by end of day-YEA!

 Good thing there were only 2 fans!

The door is normal size – about 7 feet.  The fans are about 4 feet tall and 4 feet wide – I could barely reach across in any direction to hold the darn things in place – but we got them up!  One minor problem…when we pulled out one of the motors to see how it mounted, we found we had installed the fans upside down!?!  Got great laughs from that one!  Struggled with the darn things for several days only to find (after the fact) that we did great – just upside down!  Too funny!  When we set up the fins (one big piece, light to hold/carry but awkward to maneuver), which direct airflow, they ran right into the motor – won’t open!

That was easily remedied, and no we didn’t take them out and turn them around.  The more we thought about it, the more we liked the way they were.  The plans called for the motor to be hung from the top.  The motors are not light!  If/when we will ever have to replace a motor, why would you want to have it at the top?  I’m not a “spring chicken” any more and trying to hold up a 50lb motor over my head and screw it up there did not sound like something I wanted to look forward to in the future.  So, our mistake became a blessing – we put the motor on the bottom and just built up an extension on the inside to accommodate the fins.  Viola!  Functional fans!

The north end looked easy enough – oh silly me again!  We had the cutting/shaping down to a fine art, but this end had to accommodate an opening and one really huge flap/door!  The swamp cooler is roughly 20 feet long and 4 feet high – HUGE!  Nothing like the ones you see on houses or mobile homes.  Those are only about 2×2 feet with everything already installed.  Our swamp cooler is in pieces and will have to be installed piece-by-piece, including the flap/cover on the backside to block out the air/wind.  This would all be set up later, but now we had to hang the flap, which was just a huge metal frame. It was just like a monstrous picture frame but much more flimsy.  Once that was in place we had to cut and attach the plastic.  The best part was the pieces of plastic for this were straight square cuts – wooo hooo!  No angles – yea!  (FYI – several months later, after the roof was up but the swamp cooler was not yet, it became very hot in the greenhouse.  I thought I would be smart and prop some 2×4 boards to hold the flap open and get some airflow in there.  Well, stupid me lifted the flap too high and the whole darn thing dropped right out of its track and on the ground!  First scared me to death – 20’x4’ metal/plastic floppy thingy falling on me-eeek!!!  Then I just stood there and laughed!  Was easy enough to pop it out – great thing to know – but just try to put it back on alone – NOT A CHANCE!  Just had to laugh at myself!  Got my sister Darcy to help me put it back up when she got home that night.  That was great fun cuz we could not stop laughing – it was just so floppy and trying to align the top of the flap track into the wall track was a challenge – but we did it!!)

When all was said and done, I stepped back and took the next picture – a real building was starting to form – soooo proud!

One last little note on this phase of construction…the heaters were easier to hang than the huge fans!  The end wall was still open and the bobcat held up the fans while we screwed them into place.  With the huge fans, it was more human strength than bobcat.  Never thought I’d have arms like a body builder – but this sure put me to the test-ouch!

Cement hardened just fine but there was still some prep work to do before the roof could go up.  All the insulation (remember I told you it was like leggos?) had these little nubs-like things on the top.  So I had to cut/pop them all off all the way around.  If they popped off that was great – unfortunately most had to be cut or trimmed off.  My razor knife worked best for the job but played hell on my fingers, especially my knuckles!  Took about 3 days to get it all scrapped off and as smooth as possible.

 Once the cement top was cleaned (yep – actually used a small whisk broom and soapy water rag to get it all pretty!) it was time to seal it from the weather.  Took about another 5 days to get it all painted with a water sealant – the complete exterior and top.   We will be burming the sidewalls (burying them under dirt) but they still needed to have the sealant applied.  This will help them stay protected against the moisture accumulated in the ground that will be pushed up against them.  A small part of the wall will be exposed all the way around the greenhouse.  We don’t want to have the dirt all the way to the top and even with the top of the wall, since winds and bugs are so wicked out here.  We don’t want to give them any help sneaking into the structure. We left about a foot exposed on 3 walls (east, north and west) and the south side the dirt is even with the clean room floor.  This left about 2 feet of space before the fans.

The picture is what the numbs/bumps look like before I removed them.  Notice how little room there is from the top of the cement to the bottom of the numb – it was about 1/2 an inch.

After you can see how smooth and clean I got it.  Notice that the north wall center is still open.  This gave us easy access to put up all the frames, also to carry, by tractor, the heavy ground cloth we obtained into the area.  This is also a good shot of the way the triple insulated wall works.  The cement is in the center holding all the ribs with the extra insulation on the inside and out.  We have already buried the footer in this picture, so you can’t see that there is still another foot below ground supporting all this.

 

Once the walls were all cleaned and set, 2”x10” boards needed to be installed.  First the boards all had to be painted with the sealant.  I stacked all of the boards along the west wall, leaning on side up on the top of the wall I could work faster.  I would paint the side to the north, then the top then the south side then on to the next.  I worked this way on all the boards, then flipped them over to get the other side and ends.  Seemed to work pretty well except for the extreme heat we were still having.  The whole task of painting/sealing all 30+ boards took a couple of days, but was worth it!  A few bumps and bruises along the way from tripping over the darn things, but I knew they would hold up to the weather now!  (In the picture you can see some of the boards and how they were spread out for me to work on them – in front of the bobcat)

After the boards were all prepped the needed to be mounted.  This was a killer on the shoulders and arms.  I can drill into wood with no problem, but they also needed to be attached to the metal and cement – that was the tricky part.  One 2”x4” board was laid flat, then a 2^nd  2”x4” board was placed up right on top of that one pushed up against the ribs.  That was bolted to the ribs and then to screwed to the 2”x4” below it.  Once those were in place, the 2”x10” boards were set on top of that and attached.  Drilling into the wood sections was easy, attaching them to the metal ribs was the shoulder/arm breaking process.  Since there were no pre-drilled holes for any of this process, sheer pressure had to be applied to force the screws into the metal – lots of fun!  It was just me doing all of this.  The boards are 16 feet long and I am only 5 feet 5 inches tall – pretty sure this was a very funny sight to see.  We did find and interesting tid-bit though.  It had rained a bit and at nights moisture would build up on the ribs.  When I was drilling into the metal pieces water started shooting out at me?!  We finally figured out that we needed to seal the tops of the post to stop the water from running down the ribs and accumulating in the posts – that’s where all the water was coming from – inside the footer posts!  Funny how little things like caulking the spots where the metals meet was never mentioned in the blue prints?  Imagine if someone had not done the type of walls we did (which most do not) and they didn’t know this could occur – they could have water damage in the pipes and lose structure integrity ahead of schedule!  That would be sad considering the price you pay for these things.  It’s all in the details!

These wood sides on top of the cement wall needed to be put in so we will have a place to attach the double poly-ply roof too.  There are special clamps that will be attached to the wood to hold the plastic cover in place.  Once I got all of the wood done, I had to go back and attach the guide rails for the clamps to the wood.  All of these had to be in as straight a line as possible and at about 2” from the top of the wood.  I also had to make sure there were no splinters or sharp edges that could possibly rub against the plastic cover.

 

 In between doing all the boards, we had found some great stuff to use as our weed barrior in the greenhouse.  It was all free for the taking, weighed a ton, had to be cut into sections to move it and then stretched out over the ground.  Cutting alone used up a number of knife blades as the stuff was very thick.  It’s made out of the exact same materials that ordinary weed barrier (like the stuff you use in your own yard) except that it’s made thicker.  It allows water to flow through, but no weeds to pop up – great stuff and it was free for the taking!  Gotta love the price!