Oh Boy, We Got A New Project And Look What We Found

We can thank the Coronavirus for it. With the perspective of no tourists visiting Campobello this summer, some ideas which had been concocted years ago but never been followed up on, are now surfacing.
One of those ideas was building a bigger more substantial greenhouse. And now is the time to do it.

First order was to find an ideal location on the property. It shouldn't be in the way, nor should it be too far away from the house. And the spot should not be too difficult to build on.

So looking around, I eyed the space between the garage/woodshed and the little lawn mower-shed I had built last summer. But there was an appletree and a little spruce tree in the way. The apple tree had been a bit of a nuissance all the time as the apples weren't good but plentiful and all of them would land on the ground to rot there, creating a mess to clean up. And the little spruce tree was too close to the lawn mower shed anyway.

So I quickly decided that this would be the future building site for a new greenhouse. Within 1hr. both trees were gone. Looking around I realized a number of old tree stumps being in the way as well. And of course, I had the two of the newly cut down trees on top of it. With the big axe and a shovel I hacked and dug around the three old stumps, and finally they were lose enough so I could break them out of the ground. They were half rotten and not too difficult to deal with. I tried the same technic with the fresh apple tree root, but it wouldn't budge. So I needed a bit more power - like the V8 engine of our old pickup.

With a chain around the root and the truck put in forward gear I got the root on the third attempt. Yahoui... The same was then done with the smaller root of the spruce tree.



Now I had a fairly open space for the green house project. But the real work came first today.

Bea and I started digging a trench for the foundation 16' x 10'. First part wasn't too hard, but then we got into some rock-hard clay mixed with stones. While we were making a slow headway something really odd turned up. Down in the dirt we found a pistol! Now that makes me wonder whether this is a gun someone has been murdered with and whether there could be a body in the ground as well. Could this be an old cold case?

And now our American friends can try to find out what kind of gun we have found. We know it already, just testing your knowledge. Leave a comment and we will present our findings to you a coupla days later.

We worked hard for about 3hours until we called it a day.

By-the-way the weather was April-style, which means strong cold wind and snow for 15 minutes (running to grab a jacket) then hot sun (throwing off my jacket). Repeat!
The plan is to level off the ditch with a layer of gravel then putting up a foundation of cinder blocks filled with concrete. From there it will be a wooden construction. We have a number of old storm windows, for the sides. And they can be opened. The roof will be done with UV-stabilized clear plastic.

Neighbours are already wondering when the first plants will be ready for sale. Not gonna happen this year for sure, but maybe next year. But we are planning to use this greenhouse for vegetables. Tomatos, cucumbers, squash, that kind of stuff we will have. And the greenhouse will also allow for some earlier production of lettuce, cabbage and some other kinds.

Next step will be hauling gravel. That's gonna be some neck-breaking work as well, but eventually it'll be paying off to get it done right.