Hoops are Going Up!

Seeing your dream come to life is a beautiful thing. Some days I feel like I should pinch myself…that maybe I’m still dreaming! This past weekend Jason and I started working on getting the hoops bent for our greenhouse structure behind the pole barn.

When we put the ground posts in the ground back in November, they did not look like much. Just some random posts sticking out of the ground!

We got the ground posts in just in time to beat the first snowfall of the year. The above picture was taken on November 12. Just a day later we were living in a winter wonderland.

In the following weeks we had a birthday, Thanksgiving, lots of snowy weather, and Christmas, so we did not complete any further work on the greenhouse. Now that it is the end of January, it is time to get cracking!

Jason and I pulled the picnic table into the pole barn so we could setup our hoop bender, made a trip to the hardware store for supplies, then set to work trying to decipher the instruction manual that came with the bender.

When we started bending our poles, we realized that we needed the whole family sitting on the picnic table to keep it from sliding across the floor. So I did not get any pictures of the bending process – we were all too busy counter balancing the table! When all the poles were bent, and necessary holes drilled, we setup a makeshift jig in the barn so we could attach the various pieces together to make our hoops.

With one hoop assembled, we carried it outside to our snow covered field to install. The hoops needed to be bolted into the top of the ground posts we installed last November.

Since it was so cold, we only got the first three hoops installed. By that time our hands were cold and it was time for dinner. But it is starting to look like something more than just some posts sticking up out of the ground.

With some hoops installed and seeds starting to arrive, I’m starting to see our dream come to life!