Working on the Quarry and the greenhouse

Pictured above is the east side of the Quarry Garden taken yesterday morning.  We are doing some remodeling in this area because by the time we developed this part of the garden, we were out of big rocks.  With the rock we bought last fall, we now have enough to refresh this area with larger outcroppings more in scale with the rest of the quarry.  The tamarack (the tree with no needles near right) will be moved this weekend to the new bed on the west side of the house.

 This is the view from our backyard fire pit.

This is just one of the projects we are dealing with right now and we're feeling optimistic about the fact we're getting some work done already this spring.

I realize this isn't the most inspiring picture of daffodils ever seen, but these were the first ones to open this season on April 1st (which is very early for us)  by our back porch.  If I get my way, and the new mudroom addition,  the back porch will be changed before next daffodil season!

We put the greenhouse up last weekend with Joel's help.  This greenhouse is a homemade contraption that we first built 2003.

Over the years, we have had many different ways of starting the annuals for the garden.  Back in the late 80's we tried simply starting flats on top of the refrigerator, which actually wasn't too bad, if you only had to start a few flats.  When my need for around 2000 annuals started to become apparent (40 flats) that's when we decided to try building a cold frame filled with sand with soil heating cables looped throughout.  We installed that contraption on the front porch for a few years, and it was also a reliable germination tool, but our front porch was small and it was difficult to keep everything warm on the very cold nights.  So often we would have the entire dining room full of flats during the cold spells.

Then Carl built a metal plant stand with six shelves capable of holding 40 flats complete with hanging grow-light fixtures.  This also worked well but took up a lot of space in the dining room, especially since years ago I would start seed geraniums and begonias in late December.  From December to June is a long time to have a greenhouse occupying house space and all the mess with water, potting mix and fertilizer. 

The next attempt was to put the plant stand in the basement which worked out fairly well, since the lights generated quite a bit of heat, but once again, not ideal due to no natural light and the basement not being very warm.  Then we started back on our stained glass work which necessitated the plant stand's leaving the area now devoted to glass racks.

We bought a very tiny greenhouse from a home improvement store back in the 90's, but with such limited space, it wasn't ideal either.  That's when Carl had the idea to build our present greenhouse which is about 21' x 14'.  He rolled the pipe for the hoops at work and it is a very sturdy structure.  We used to set it up right behind the garage from 2003 until 2009.  Starting in 2009, we decided to set the greenhouse up in the driveway because there was so much snow last spring, it was mid-April before we could get back there.    In 2008 we didn't set it up at all, but tried yet another little plastic box store greenhouse after the plants were grown under lights in the basement, but the resulting cool weather outdoors spelled disaster for my seedlings. We went back to the big greenhouse in 2009.

The greenhouse does absolutely nothing aesthetically for the yard, this I realize, but it is so handy to have it here for the three months it is standing.  Some people have asked us why we don't make it a permanent structure, but we find it just sticks out like a sore thumb even when it is behind the garage.  Plus, we moved the wash lines and the chicken coop (and now the barn!) back there too, so space is limited.  So, here it sits in the driveway.

In the above picture, you can see the sawhorses covered in plastic.  We use the plastic as a second, insulating cover to retain the heat produced by the heated stainless pans.

Here the plastic is removed, showing the stainless pans a bit more clearly.  Carl took sheets of stainless steel stock and welded them together with a space underneath them, basically a double boiler concept, through which water circulates from the plumbing attached to all of the pans.  In the corner of the greenhouse is a stainless steel barrel (also Carl's work) which is fitted with one hot water heater element and a small fountain pump.  The water heater element heats the water to around 70 degrees and the fountain pump circulates the water through the pans and returns it to the barrel.  It is an ingenious system, really, it just looks like a Rube Goldberg invention. 

I planted the first 1600 seeds on Monday and as of Wednesday, there was a quite a bit of germination already.  The bottom heat provided by the stainless pans has enabled us to grow some very nice annuals over the years without the need to heat the entire greenhouse structure resulting in a significant savings on the ol' power bill.

In case I don't get back to posting about the greenhouse soon, here's a picture of the plants started in May of 2007.

Kayaking Anyone?

When we married in 1978, Carl's late Uncle Jack and Aunt Mary Ann asked us to go canoeing sometime.  We took them up on the offer and took our first canoe trip down the Waupaca River, a gently twisting stream with very minor riffles.    We had never canoed before and not knowing how to steer, we bounced off of every rock and under every spider-infested overhanging tree branch in the river.   We fought like cat and dog all the way downstream, and even now, over thirty years later, we affectionately refer to this river as "The Honeymoon River".  To this day, the best test of any relationship is to put two loving rookie canoeists in this small river and wait to see if they are still speaking by the end of the float trip!  Despite the difficulties we encountered on our maiden voyage, the next week we were ready to go again, this time with our own, newly purchased 17' Coleman.


When the boys were born, they were introduced to canoeing before they were out of diapers.  Both Joel and Dave enjoyed canoeing, but since Joel got his first kayak for his 16th birthday eight years ago, he's never looked back.  Now he owns four kayaks for varying rivers and whitewater conditions and managed to kayak every month of the year in some body of water somewhere for the last two years.

He decided to take advantage of the unseasonably warm weather this week by launching his kayak off the back wall of the quarry which is a yearly ritual with him, just for fun.  The quarry pond is not in the most pristine condition as it is in the midst of the spring turnover but it is high right now, so off he went.

 Here he is suited up in his wetsuit.

                                                           The approach to the quarry

Adjusting the waterproof camera mounted on the front of the kayak

 

and then getting ready to take the plunge!

 

I was holding my breath from my safe vantage point behind the camera

Here he goes---

Nothing like nice, cold water!

Earlier this spring, Joel was kayaking on the Oconto River along with the ice as it went downstream.  He's certainly got more courage than his two old parents!

Poinsettia Update #2

The Poinsettia lamp is finally finished.  We are having a difficult time lighting it properly for photography which is always a challenge.  In order to get a picture to share now, instead of six months later, when we get around to photographing the lamp 'for good', I decided to place the shade on the kitchen table with a light bulb underneath. 

We photographed the lamp with both a daylight/warm bulb and cool /natural bulbs just to see which color of light brings out the best in the glass.  The problem is, both colors bring out different hues in the shade, so I guess maybe the best solution would be to mix the bulbs? 

 We intend to hang the shade over the dining room table (after Carl gets the hanging apparatus figured out, which is going to take some time).  Since we have such a small house, we will change out the shades in the dining room according to season.  Right now, we have the 28" Flowering Bouquet hanging over the table for the summer and the Poinsettia will take its place in the fall and winter.  I want to make a Daffodil and a Hollyhock at some time in the future, but I digress.

The first two pictures here are with the cool light source:

The next photos are with the daylight bulbs.

It is interesting to see how the glass reacts to different temperatures of light.    In retrospect, the background glass is maybe a tad too dark, though I wanted a dark, moody shade for the winter months. 

I want to once again thank Bonnie for her great generosity in lending us her original design.  Without her fantastic artwork, we wouldn't have the Poinsettia to grace our home for years to come!
 

Poinsettia Update

 Ok, back to the poinsettia saga.  Over the last two weeks, I spent quite a of bit of time studying the repeats of the poinsettia in the living room window for color comparisons and critique.  Our two dogs, Teddy (the white one) and Pudding (the gray one) watch from their perch on the couch as their crazy mistress crawls around on the floor with a camera trying to get a good camera angle without too much sun glare. 

 

This is the first repeat, nearly done.

 Joel is lining up the mylar pattern in this picture.

 

We would remove the mylar from time to time to check for color.

Then we moved on to the second repeat, shown here, partially done.  Carl was given a large, clear glass patio tabletop from someone at work which worked great for viewing both repeats together.  

After another few days, we had the two repeats nearly complete.  I needed to compare the two sections of the shade in different lighting to see what worked and what didn't. Then I set to work foiling the entire lamp which took me the better part of a week.

I took a great many closeups of the shade at this point because I find lamps to be as beautiful (sometimes even more so, because you can see them all at once) in the flat as they are in their finished form.

 

In this picture, I tried to get a profile of the glass with the sun shining through.   This picture doesn't show the true beauty of the amazing blue Uroboros background glass which has several stunning colors blended throughout the sheet.

  

  

 

  As I stated in an earlier post, the poinsettia pattern was graciously loaned to us from our friend, Bonnie, who had a wooden form custom-made for the pattern.  Bonnie sent us the pattern which was a tremendous help to us!  Carl opted to make his own form out of sheet metal after doing a bunch of mathematical equations.  Here is the resulting form below:

 

 

This form is pretty crude, but we hope it will work.  Our biggest fear is that solder will drip through to the sheet metal, thereby welding the glass shade to the metal.  That would be a nightmare, as I think the metal would cut down on the light transmission 'quite' a bit!

We made an additional copy of the pattern and covered it in clear Contac paper.  Then we applied the pattern to the metal form by coating the metal with glue sticks.

The next step is to apply the glass to the form.  Here I am using a small crockpot (guess I'll have to get another one to cook with) to melt the Tacky Wax.   This time, we decided to individually 'paint' the wax on the back of each piece of glass.  Normally we would have waxed the entire form with a thin layer of wax, but since we're dealing with Contac Paper, we didn't want to take a chance on getting it too hot.  Another method we use is putting small balls of Tacky Wax on the back of each piece of glass which works very well, too.

 

 Here are some pictures of half of the lamp on the form.  Unfortunately, the glass tabletop cracked nearly in half this weekend.  Carl was placing pieces on the form when we both heard a resounding snapping noise.  We thought the crockpot had broken, but upon examination, we found the patio table right under the crockpot had fractured.  Lucky, in a way, that it wasn't tempered glass as we would  have had glass particles everywhere.  Now we have two half-easels.

We're still working on fine-tuning the placement as of this past weekend.

More to come on this!