cleaning out the greenhouse | creativeartworksblog

Marabou Stork-photo credit unknown- via Penny Yaffe Krakow

If you have a candidate for the “ugliest/most beautiful bird in the world,” please let me know. So far, I love the Shoebill Stork, the Tawny Frogmouth, and the Marabou Stork. I love them because they are unusual, and they have character.

We are at the end of our gorgeous weather streak and are back to normal August weather for Arkansas today. We will keep the doors open for a bit longer, and then close up and turn on the air conditioning.

Yesterday I started what will be a long project – dismantling the greenhouse that was killed by the storm.

I gathered a wheelbarrow load of things I can salvage. It is in the garage now. I will reorganize my counter area in there and store what makes sense there. The rest will go out to the shop. I also gathered a leaf bag full of trash. I will do this steadily, a bit at a time, until it is empty and then we can dismantle the shell. I was amazed that the plastic tubs I was discarding wouldn’t hold together long enough for me to pick them up by the edges without shattering. I then used things that acted like a spatula to scoop them up and put them into the leaf bag.

The thermometer I keep out there showed 120 degrees yesterday – and this is on a COOL day here for August, showing one of the reasons the greenhouse didn’t work well for us. We couldn’t afford to add heating and cooling, and the cost to run it would have been astronomical. I will try to set up a seed-starting area in the future with a grow light in the garage, along with starting things on the window sill in the dining area, plus pots on the deck.

This shows you one of the many reasons I have hope for the future. The pandemic kept us from planting our usual flowers all around the house. I thought we would be completely bare on the deck. Instead, seeds from the wave petunias we planted last year sprouted and have given us a lovely display. (If you look carefully, you can see our yellow lab, Amber, keeping me company while I took this picture. :0)

I am continuing my efforts to become a seller via Amazon Handmade, though I’m not making much progress yet. I’m trying to find out if I can simply put things up for sale via my regular Amazon account where I sell used books, or if I need to apply for separate accounts for each of the categories my products fit in. So far, everyone I manage to finally connect with gives me links back to Seller Central. Seller Central sends me to Handmade, and so the cycle from Hell continues…

All the good people in the path of storms Marco and Laura are in my thoughts and prayers.

Have a good day today and stay safe.

First thing this morning I was thankful the greenhouse was still up and functional. We’ve had a LOT of wind and rain the past few weeks, so the whole thing could have simple blown over the barbed wire fence and into the next acreage. The top could have torn or blown off, etc. I walked around the outside checking for needed repair and found, to my delight, none was needed!

I cleaned off the tables a bit, throwing out curled and brittle six-pack planters I tried to save, buckled and discolored plastic sheet lids designed to go over young plants, and more.

I hooked up the at least 200 foot extension cord so that the exhaust and second fans would run and propped the door on the opposite side open with a metal chair. The thermostat was down to 90 before I started this. I’m hoping the air circulation will bring that down more.

I planted five head iceberg lettuce plants and watered them thoroughly. They’re in a good spot of sun on the table. I wanted to make sure I got those planted, so essentially did that first.

I found a weed growing up through the black weed barrier on the floor, so I pulled it out. When I did, a gazillion little black ants swarmed out. I hurried out of the greenhouse and got the EIGHT spray and 2 gallon sprayer and mixed up a batch. I thoroughly hosed down that spot where the weed was and another spot I found.

I was starting to get hot and tired, so I sprayed my way across the back yard, treating various ant hills with a thorough hosing down with the EIGHT making my way back to the deck. I hosed down all the plants, including the one holding the one weed my husband pulled out. They swarmed out pretty ferociously, but I kept the spray coming.

The next step on the greenhouse is finding a small broom that can live out there and trying to clean things up as much as possible. Eventually, I want to try to re-purpose bricks from the planters in the front yard that we are going to tear down as soon as the weather gets cooler. I would like to try to make some paths inside the greenhouse – one in front of each line of tables and one going down the middle. Fingers crossed I can do this.

In the meantime, I’m going to sweep the floor as well as I can, and then prune the rose bushes (an important thing my husband thought had priority.)

I’m glad I can come inside, drink a bottle of water, cool down and relax in-between sessions easily.

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