The Shade Blanket

We had our second sunny day!  In the aftermath of almost killing the tomatoes, my partner decides he is going to put the SHADE BLANKET on the top of the greenhouse.  Shade blanket?????  Shade blanket??? On top of a structure whose sole purpose is to collect sunlight, radiate heat, and provide a warm tropical environment for my food that hates the cold?  I cannot wrap my brain around this one.  I think at first that he is joking.   He has a wicked sense of humor that mocks stupid things, so I am thinking he is joking... that he is asking me to come help him, and when I get up to do it, he is going to be laughing hysterically, catching me in yet another joke.  Wrong...yet again.  He is terribly, soberingly serious.  My turn to laugh hysterically.

This is a silver colored square thing, made of some flexible metallic stuff that is a blanket.  It catches on every corner, or every sharp edge.  We wrestle it onto the greenhouse, and that is that.  I must admit that it does keep the temperature at a tolerable level.  Who knew?

The next project is a gate.  We have been using a piece of fence netting across the gate opening until my partner can get the gate built.  He is very meticulous, linear in his thought processes, and works at glacial speed.  He contemplates everything he does for quite some time.  We have had the lumber for 2 months, and he had to contemplate the wood, and how it would go together to make a beautiful gate. One day, he said he was going to go outside and work on the gate.  He was outside for about an hour before I went out because I didn't hear anything.  He was standing in front of the gate opening, staring.  The wood in the garage had not been touched.  He had a tape measure in his hand.  I stood there for a couple minutes and he finally looked over at me and said "I am brainstorming the best way to build the gate".  I had to stifle a scream. 

The really fabulous news is that the gate, when it gets done, will be beautiful, perfect, and exactly the right size.  There will have been no wood wasted trying to get it right, and no last minute trips to the hardware store because he will have everything he needs and then some.  Once he begins working, it will go quickly and work perfectly.  It is the planning and contemplating, the measuring and re-measuring 45 times that I cannot watch.  But I certainly feel very grateful to have him building my gate.

I will be sure and let you all know how it turns out.

Until tomorrow.....and hopefully more sun,

Karen