greenhouse « Robin Writes

I am so, so relieved that this is over! Imma have to smack my doc one of these days for telling me to “get more exercise.” Good grief. Each of those 4×4 posts weigh nearly 40 pounds, and the six-inchers are close to 90. Plus all those boards—ack. Not to mention the lifting and bending and, um, screwing.

My wonderful husband finished up the boards we had to trim a bit. Quite frankly, I was beat, and he said it would drive me nuts anyway. See, I try to help as much as I can, and I don’t mind the work at all, but I really, really hate standing around while he does something that I can’t help with. So, this way worked best.

We do still have to hang the gates; one we picked up at auction and it needs to be painted first.

Then on to finish the greenhouse—we actually started last week, but the wind picked up a bit much for putting on the plastic, so we stopped for the time being. And since then, we’ve had both wind AND some rain.

So I’ve been working on some business stuff and cleaning tack—only the saddles so far—and playing at Suzi Homemaker. Not to mention adjusting to the time change; not me so much as those darn cats, who are always “starving” anyway . . .

And there’s my ongoing Battle of the Leaves.

See, we used to live in the Big City, where everyone rakes and burns and bags them, and I’m not a fan of any of that. It’s best for the ground/grass/earth/your back/your peace of mind to just mulch them up and leave them.

We went from one acre with 20+ trees to 35 acres with—never mind, I will NOT be counting! But I do try to keep them off the decks and as soon as a few more fall, I’ll be mowing all around the house. I picked up (at auction, of course!) a battery-operated blower. It’s awesome, no cord to drag around and fairly light, but those batteries do run down pretty quickly. It’s a rather handy gadget.

The wood furnace got inaugurated last night. We’d tried it once before, but the wood was a bit too wet to catch. It sure got going this time! When I stepped out of the shower, I noticed the faint haze of smoke—everywhere! My husband closed the damper most of the way and I opened a few windows and that pretty much took care of that.

But the heat that thing puts out is incredible . . . almost couldn’t fall asleep last night, it was 75 in here—a far cry from the usual 65 or so!

PS—Keep your fingers crossed, I found a horse trailer! Hopefully we’ll get to see it today!

Yay! Woohoo! The posts are in the ground! All 125 of them. Or so . . .

We finished those up on Tuesday and concreted the six-inchers. Next step: screwing in about 350 boards. No idea, at this time, how long this is going to take, but I’ll guesstimate about three days. We’ll see if I’m right . . .

After that, we’ll lop off the extra at the tops of the posts, and put in the gates. Actually, we have to build one gate. Had a little trouble with Mabel.

Mabel being one of our tape measures.

Jane is the other one. Well, her full name is “Jane, You Slut.” We can’t ever find her . . . not going to tell you Mabel’s full name. We seldom need to use it.

Now, lest anyone think that setting posts in an easy thing—this means you, Dr. Ralko—I can assure you that it is not:

Let’s assume you already measured your pasture or yard or whatever and lined it out with string or twine, so you know where you’re going with this fence. First, you drill down with an auger—any variety; we have a two-man, but for this we’re using the one on the tractor. Thank God.

“They” say you should go down two feet. And “they” are correct. Unless you live in the Ozarks, in which case it requires using that tractor auger 2-3 times, slamming the hole with an iron rock-breaker stick—there may be a technical name for this, but I don’t know what it is—many, many, many times, using a hand post-hole digger and a shovel, and probably adding water at some point.

This can take as little as five minutes—in which case there is much joy and celebration—or as long as 30 minutes with calls of, “Looks good enough to me!”

Sometimes, there is a pause when one considers if one can obtain dynamite or C4 on Amazon Prime . . .

One cannot. One cries a little.

Next, assuming the hole is dug, you have to pick up a 40-pound, 8-foot post and lower it into the hole. You make sure it’s level and shove back most of the dirt you just removed from said hole. You tamp it down and add more dirt and make sure it’s all tight.

Then you measure to the next post. We use an 8-foot 2×4, because our distance between posts is, well, eight feet. Rinse and repeat, 125 times. Or so.

This is a full week: while the aforementioned concrete cures, we’ll be tilling the manure into the garden—got some from the neighbor last week—and (gulp) putting up the greenhouse. An all-day project if there ever was one.

And I might be too optimistic about that . . .

So you may or may not get pics of that greenhouse next week.