Happy days!

Greenhouse frame is up!
On Saturday Mike and Emily http://www.threespringsfarm.com/ came over with their friend Safiyanu who is visiting from Niger. Back home Safiyanu is an agricultural extension agent and met Emily and Mike on their last visit to Africa. So, I was no doubt in the mists of experts and felt snug as a bug under their guidance. However, turns out squaring the thing was a real bugger! We were using the standard right angle 3-4-5 measurement, but after about two hours of unsuccessful results I decided to disappear and make us some lunch and also to clear my head of the fear that we would never get this thing up. But, Sure enough minutes after I left (ran away to hide in the kitchen, which is where I go when the world is just too much for me) I heard a hoopin’ and a hollarin’ I put the fifth back in the cabinet where I keep it neatly tucked away for emergencies and cursed myself for even doubting our success. What did it was a bigger right angle 6-8-10 I think. The greenhouse is 14’X60’: I’ll be completely honest I don’t really know what the heck I am talking about but, that’s what it is and it worked. You want I should question the mystical workings of these things? I don’t think so. Anyway…. after the corners were squared the world seemed a more welcoming place. We all felt the magic. I know we did.We celebrated with a feast of spice lamb chops, fresh goat cheese, braised greens from the cold frame, cous cous with dried plumbs and corn bread. Safiyanu liked it a lot! That warm evening the chiminea burned bright the moon was almost full and my body felt the satisfied tiredness of a day well spent.
Sunday reality hit. Linda and I woke up to the knowledge that getting this thing completed was going to be difficult and I was just gonna have to be patent. We were both pleasantly exhausted and really hadn’t planned on getting a whole lot done until Carissa (three peas in a pod ,#2 I think) called and asked what we were up to. Her and Cartson were gonna come on over and check out the progress of the day before. I explained there was still a lot to do but come anyway. She called back a couple of hours later to tell me she had a whole posse lined up to help. The greenhouse dream team showed up at about 2pm or so and by 4:40 in the afternoon we were 95% Finished! Pow Baby! That’s friends!

That evening the seven of us feasted on a frittata that Carissa had made from her girls’ eggs, gahram masala spiced lentils, brown rice, fresh goat cheese; plain and garlic-dill, breads and a big salad from the cold frame. Peach and berry crisp (from last summers’ harvest) and pecan pie. Chai, red wine, a little pickin’ and a strumin’ and a whole lot of grinnin’. Life just keeps getting better!
What’s left is this: finish bolting the baseboards to the frame; attaching the things that hold the plastic in place (I call them “those thingies that hold the plastic on”). And, of course the plastic but we need a still or still-as-we-can-get kinda day. I have no doubt it will be at just the right time and just the right people will show up, and god we will eat sooooo good.
I did start pepper plants on Sunday. My yoga room is now “the germination room” an even more spiritual space than before! I am blessed and deeply grateful to my friends: Linda, Mike, Emily, Safiyanu, Carissa, Cartson, Scott, Susan and Carrina, oh, and always my neighbor Robert for drivin’ a post and loaning me his drill and for the comfort it brings to me on lonely winter nights to see his porch light on.