Friday, September 18, 2009

A Bigger project than I realized! The Greenhouse a learning experience...

Sheryl and I love flowers for pictures and feel there is a connection with beauty when we have flowers in our photos.  I'm not much of a "green thumb" but do alot of planting flowers when Sheryl says "dig a hole right there" and I'm pretty good with a water hose after planting the flowers.  The prennials we don't worry so much about, we try to mulch them over the winter; but the annuals we had tried keeping them in the more lighted part of our basement to see if they would winter there and what is amazing, some of them do!  Talk always drifted to "What if we had a greenhouse?"  So when I had a chance I surprised surprise Sheryl with the gift of a green house ....that's when it became something more than I imagined.  It was a kit in a great big box with a 100 page booklet of instructions.....when I read in the beginning part of the instructions where it said "with 3 assistants" which I didn't have, I placed the whole box near where we had put down its foundation filled with crushed stone and put off the project for over a year.  With the "constant urging" of Sheryl, I thought I would give it a go especially when I had one volunteer to help me by the name of "Lucky"!

To make a long story short it was a little shorter than the nightmare it became as the numbers on many of the numerous pieces had disappeared due to  weathering.  It took much longer as we had to figure it out as if it were a jigsaw puzzle, but we prevailed.  After erecting it Sheryl went on line and found a site which gave step by step instructions....and as they say hindsight is easier to see than foresight!!! 

I now have gotten electricity in it so we can pump water out of the lake, work at night, and use electrical appliances when needed.  All in all it is "pretty cool" and worth the effort it took to do and keep doing the things we need to do to winter our plants.  Next I'm building the tables so Sheryl can pot plants and hang her flowering baskets.....I'm finding it to be a neat place to hang out and dream up new projects while continuing to keep hammering this to completion!
Maybe some pictures to follow, one picture is worth a 1000 words!

Sunday, September 13, 2009

Welcome to our world at Limestone Lake...

Breakfast at Bob Evans Saturday morning was delicious...John found a new love with the cinnamon french toast topped with carmel sauce.  Our next stop was the flea market.  We were looking for items to use in the greenhouse that we are building.  Then it was off to Lowe's for the electrical needs and back to the lake to work.  We will post pictures and provide updates later.  Let's just say that a building a Greenhouse from a kit has been a challenge!  At dusk we took a paddle boat ride around the Lake...it won't be long before the trees provide us with the autumn glory.  On Sunday I did time on the computer while John continued his expertise on the greenhouse then we starting cleaning out our storage garage that had flooded from the last big rain.  Our stomachs reminded us that we had skipped lunch so around 6pm and very tired and hungry we gave it up for the day.   We have some families to photograph this week that we haven't seen in awhile.  We are looking forward to renewing those friendships.