Always A Silver Lining

Here's my greenhouse, all finished. Just joshin' ya. But this is part of what was promised...

...that silver lining that we always see when we step back and take a second look.

Last week we didn't have far to step back to in order to get a clear view of a bold, wide silver lining and this one, laced with gold.

Always a good and glorious day when the Vicks link up with the Coulters. The two young men on the left at the long lunch table with the Vicktory Farmhands are just part of the egg-warriors I spoke of in the last post.

Justin, far left, is the highway warrior of the four, doing battle on the road against nutty drivers throwing their cars in front of the egg truck just to see if they can break a few. They never do.

His brother, Trevor, mid left, keeps all the paperwork and eggs nicely balanced, you could call him the li'eggison between coop and customer. It was only a suggestion.

Pop Coulter, not to be confused with pop culture and not pictured here, also works with paper and eggs and pretty much everything and anything that allows you to walk in your favorite market, mindlessly scoop up a carton of eggs, throw down a few pennies, and know that you will have a good and nutritious product for breakfast the next morning or in a sandwich for lunch if that is more your thing.

Mother Becky keeps this hard workin' crew glued together with a homey relaxed well fed atmosphere where 'er she is.

The Coulters Four have become a vital part of the Vick's existence. They visit us often and are always so willing to pitch in a hand or two or eight and help us with our work. Victory Farm and Gardens would not be as far along as it is if it were not for them.

After another delightful meal and introduction to one of their favorite places up in beautiful Skagit country and great rebound from Chuckie nightmare (see previous post) the young men headed back to work (last week was a hard one for those in the real egg business) and

Mark and Becky led the way through the Valley of the Tulips native style. So yes, we turned left on Wall and drove out the tulip route

The daffs are still blooming with some of the tulips in the background just beginning to show color.

The tulips in Washington State and specifically in the Skagit Valley were out the earliest they have ever been and now that chilly weather has finally set in growers are expecting the longest season on record as well.

This was the view through the gate into the beautiful gardens at RoozenGaarde, we decided that time constraints on all of us meant that we would only peak through at the gardens that could have easily cause Lanny to spend several hours here, noting this and that tulip and other garden delights. Hey! it's what I do!

Every direction a body looks in the Valley there is a treat for the eye and the soul to feast upon.

Why is this so delicious looking, but if your four year old daughter put a red shirt on over her pink corduroys you would take her back to fashion school for yet another lesson on combining colors wouldn't you?

While were on the subject, I just want to say that though there are many a magazine and whole book shelves devoted to how to combine colors and textures in gardens for that perfect effect.. I say hooey, just garden.

If you keep looking at all those gorgeous photos of other peoples gardens and reading the articles, that sometimes contradict the last article you read, you may never feel strong enough to master the art of gardening.

I got news for you. Gardens are personal, but I have never been to a garden or hung out where plants were growing that didn't feed some part of my soul. A garden of any sort is far better than none at all. Gardens are not made by masters, masters are made by gardens.

If you've never been up to the Skagit Valley then you really must travel there sometime, it is a beautiful place. Dirt and I and the girls have been up there a few times and each time I see it in a new way, notice more things.

I can't imagine not wanting to be a farmer living in the midst of this splendid valley.

Our tour guides took us on Best Rd. which really was a best road especially during tulip time, it runs along in the valley and then up it goes along side this lovely little rise that gives a nice view of a large chunk of the valley and incredible blocks of color.

Then we came down again and connected with Brown Slough Rd. which would turn into Fir Island Rd and take us to Conway and I-5.

But as we turned onto the Slough Rd. we slowed way down because an enormous flock of snow geese decided to put on a show.

And they kept it up for quite a while

Even as we waved good bye to our good friends, turned into our pit stop for a chance at finding a grapefruit, Snowgoose Produce, the geese continued their aerial show for just a bit more. It was easy to see why the produce stand has that name, these geese were right across the road. And besides, it rhymes.

Alas, Snowgoose Produce had a lot of lovely offerings but not one grapefruit in sight. But Dirt spotted a customer with one of these so he just had to have one of his own. No one wants to be in the car with a warm fresh waffle cone filled with cool ice cream and watch it be eaten and not have a little too, and since there was no grapefruit, what the heck.

Hope you enjoyed the flowers and the tour a fraction as much as we did Dear Reader. I'll be back soon with our trip down the freeway to home, but I might have to tell you about some other stuff first, or unload a bunch of mental wanderings as well, we'll see.

Look for a silver lining, it is always there, God's timing is best after all.

Now For the Glazing.

Oh, I love glazing, I put a lovely cream cheese glaze on my cinnamon rolls on Sunday...

No, not frosting or icing.  Glazing.  It is the clear stuff, if you will, that is on a green house or in this case, hot house.  So yes, like the shiny coat of a sugary substance for donuts, the green house, hot house, gets a shiny coating of poly carbonate aka glazing. 

The first panel went on easily.  The outer edge gets an end cap which is then drilled to the two-by-four.  The end cap gives the poly-carbonate extra strength.  The inner edge takes a joiner strip, the next panel must be fed into the joiner strip.  Not an easy task.

I want to say that the second sheet took three hours to put on, but that would be an exaggeration according to the time stamp on the camera.  However, our hands and nerves and patience sure felt it was more like three than the one hour that it actually took. 

The rafters went up one at a time because not only did the joiner strips make putting the panels up very difficult, they also threw off where the two-by-four needed to be placed for center.  The stuff is easy to cut, but uck, one more step, no thanks. 

And Now For the Hazing  ala Charley's Greenhouse Supply

It began to look as if we were just going to twiddle our thumbs on Sunday with only two more panels to go to finish the glazing on the mostly south-facing side of Hot Hippy Hut.

For you see it goes like this:

We realized too late on Saturday that not only did Charley's neglect to tell us the trick to getting the sheets into the joiner strips, but that they did indeed short us two of those very joiner strips (two strips are used on each joint as the strips are only six feet long and the panels are twelve). 

Back when we made our purchase and picked it up in person we added one more panel to our order. We indeed carefully asked the fellow in the pick-up bay if the two joiner strips which we had added to the order after we arrived in person were indeed included and he emphatically said that they were.  And in a rather sneering gesture of goodwill, offered to re-wrap them if we wanted to un-wrap them to count them.  "Nah.  We'll trust you, since clearly we can see that the extra panel is here,"  the gullible nice idiots from Roy say to the cool fellow who works in the warehouse at Charley's Greenhouse Supply.

Around one thirty on Saturday, after hearing my relatively non-cussing husband hold a personal cussing* storm, I went to the house in hopes to call Charley's and get the low down from a real person on how to get the succeeding sheets into the preceding joiner strips.

The recorded voice that I reached on the one-eight-hundred number said that they were closed after one p.m. on Saturday and closed on Sunday. 

It wasn't until much later when we realized that we were actually short the joiner strips that we needed to put up the last panel, that I realized that the store had been open until five on Saturday.  And sure enough, both the Call Center and the store were closed on Sunday.  Much too late at that point to salvage the day from the cuss storm or to go get the joiner strips.

But at V F&G when the construction project threatens to slow down and phone calls are being made there is always something to do, like weed a flower bed.

Or note the mackerel sky that indicates that the next day will be a wet one.

And sure 'nuff Sunday was a wet one, slightly windy too, just right for twiddling thumbs or pretending you are in a kayak on a raging river (the raging river effect comes from the person in back of you willing to shake the saw horse you are perched on).

"Oh no girls, I wasn't implying that there might be better things to be doing."

Out of the planned sequence of work perhaps, but still a viable and significant thing to do, the day was spent installing the door and less expensive hardware store clear glazing on the southwest end.

Butcha know, this man's wife could spend a day shopping and purchasing him some new sweat shirts to work in instead of allowing him to wear this type of clothing that makes him look homeless. 

Nah, way more fun to help with the door and such. And plan the strategy for racing up north Monday morning, grabbing the joiner strips, saying a quick hello to our  eggcellent yet nearly eggasperated egg-farmers and distributors during the height of their eggstravaganzic season, quickly catch a glimpse of the tulips as we race out of the flowerific valley and back home to finish up the glazing job.

That was the plan any way.

But another plan superseded Dirt and Lanny's plan.

Charley's Call Center, CCC, opens at 7 a.m. weekdays,  the store itself opens at 9a.m. weekdays.  Perfect.  We'll call at seven, find out that they have what we need for sure and then head up and be there nearly as the store opens.

Hazing Perfected by Charley's Greenhouse Supply

We call. At 7a.m.

"Oh that was too bad that we shorted you those joiner strips, if we sold them to you but you didn't take them they should still be here, but yes, before you drive up here let me check and make sure we have them, I call you back in a half hour."

Phone rings at ten to eight.

"We've had a little electrical problem, I went into the warehouse to see if your strips were there, and I couldn't see them, I don't really know what they look like or where they would be, so I don't know if we don't have them or if I just missed them.  The warehouse guy gets in at eight-thirty, I'll have him call you then."

Ten after nine.

"Dirt? Can I call them?  They haven't called us."

"Yah, call em"

"Oh, I'm sorry, I told Charley twice that you needed to know, but I guess he got sidetracked.  Some other customers came into the store... . Lemme just set the phone down and go ask him now."

"Yes, we have the two six foot joiner strips that you need and the two opti-vents your husband said he wanted to buy today."

So we load up the dog and her puppies, make sure that all the day chores are done and head out at nine-thirty.

The bright side?  Dear overworked friends, who reside in near proximity to Charley's Greenhouse, were better equipped to meeting us for lunch (we will now arrive at Chuck's close to noon, instead of nine-thirtyish) and one member of the family would not have arrived back in town from his early morning egg deliveries until noon and would have been very sad to have missed an opportunity to say howdy to us zingy Vicks, one and all. 

So really it all worked out for the best, but the Chuck saga continues.

The Chuck Saga Continues

Dirt and I figure, not being retail store owners just the customers of such establishments for the last um forty or so years, that we will whip into Charley's Greenhouse, grab and purchase those things we told them we were coming for and be on our way.  Certainly with more than two hours forewarning that would give them plenty of time to have said items up on the front counter with an explanatory note attached.

We arrive, one customer ahead of us, three clerks helping them, no eye contact with us, heck it could be a tough situation, we'll hang back and wait, they certainly see us.

Finally, we are acknowledged, yet when we explain who we are, no one keys into or displays any sort of recognition of our story. Odd.

"Oh, not sure we have six foot joiner strips in back we'll see, and you want what else? Not sure we have two opti-vents. We'll go look."

While others look, Dirt asks an apparently intelligent looking older fellow what the trick was to using the joiner strips.  Said fellow smiles, says, yes, they are hard to work with. 

Dirt becomes engaged with another customer who is there getting materials and they discuss ways to get around using the hard to use joiner strips that Dirt was not talked out of purchasing on our first visit up.

Dirt says several times how he would not ever try using the joiner strips again and would do something else or use the aluminum cap cover which were actually more expensive but obviously worth it.

Older gentleman just nods and smiles, clearly disinterested in helping with any hints on how to use this stuff we had already purchased and committed to use. Yet, he did seem rather annoyed with Dirt's criticism of one of their products.

Counter Girl returns:

"Yes, I see your order on the computer but it says those have been shipped." Said after ten minutes of Keystone cop like antics to figure out what we were there for and to locate the joiner strips, which clearly early morning girl had not bothered to set aside or even make note of and has indeed left for the day.

"Uh no, we picked those up, increased the order when we got here and were shorted part of what we added. Here, I'll go out to my truck and get the receipt."

After five minutes of back and forth on what happened two weeks prior, "Oh, I guess we do owe you two joiner strips. But it appears that you don't need to pay for these two opti-vents"

No, I haven't paid for them yet.

"Yes, you have, it shows them paid for right here.  But it does show that they were shipped, so you're picking them up instead?"

My brain is fried at this point so I wonder if a female voice will make things clear and as I try to explain, my dear Dirt who has had his fill of female voices at this point asks me not so nicely, but at least without cussing, to be quiet and go away. 

Okie Doke.

Ahhh finally.  "Oh... you ordered two opti-vents and now you want to buy two more, okay."

Purchase made, purchase firmly in hand and out the door just as our friends drive up to take us to lunch.

Yay! We survived the hazing.

Next Post:  Gifts from God: Our Northerly Friends, a Great Lunch and Tour of the Lovely Valley of Tulips aka the Silver Lining to Doing Business With Charley's Greenhouse.

* Dear Reader, in reality, Dirt did not cuss (that much) while putting up the glazing, I just like saying cuss now after watching The Fantastic Mr. Fox.  A great movie.  And it makes the whole story a bit more spicey.

Bulletin Number Eight

Or, Catching up on Lanny's Hot House Project

Bulletin number eight of the Pierce County whatever says that framed structures for the purpose of protecting and propagating plants covered with up to twenty mil plastic is exempt from having a permit.

So let's finish up that project eh?

We last caught you up on the project with the post Remembering, Doing, and Looking Forward, All in a Saturday's Work.

Since then...

The gravel came and Dirt spread it just so.

Then Wonder Workers came, helped me pot up tomatoes, moved some of my little trees and helped Dirt put in the foundation.

So that we could get to here during Dirt's Spring Semester Break. All vacations begin with a shopping trip.

This is the knee wall. It is solid because, well because it doesn't need to have sun come through here. It would lose more heat than gain.

Other things you can build in Pierce County without a permit?

An oil derrick.

I think we'll build that next.

Heave ho. Flippin' the wall on it's face to put it up.

Lining up to those big fat screwy things

Up

Up...

Okay, okay, I think.... we're there...

Okay, brace it please.

That is one tall wall.

In place ready and

There you have it. Now for the rafters to hold the polycarbonate sheets.

And a whole nuther story.

We've gotten much farther along but this has been a lot of pictures for you to go through so I'll show you more progress soon, I promise not to take so long 'til the next post, barring plant tragedies and school holidays and such, it will be soon, really it will.

Things are still just humming along smoothly in my world. I'll probably have to call VF&G Opening Day, Sneak Preview Day instead but heck, things are looking better than I could have hoped for, really, target dates and dreams aside. And we have still had time to have a few good laughs as a family; watch March-now-April madness; sneak in another shopping trip, this one two hours away; grab a fun movie or two at Blockbuster; and eat way too much chocolate.

God willing, we will continue to hum right along to hatching out chicks, ducklings and poults; tying up loose ends on the hot house; moving plants in; transplanting many different items out to the Market Garden; and harvesting some spring greens... all the while enjoying the company of good and precious people in our lives and sharing our abundances.

Into Everyone's Life A Little Dirt Must Fall

It has been a bit of a crazy time here at Victory Farm & Gardens, no different I suspect from anyone else and their lives. I am always looking for ways to calm the nerve endings and take it at a regular pace.
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After my work out days of going up and down and down and up the steps to Laundry House aka Propagation House, to give the plants inside a bit of fresh air and liberal waterings, I figured that the rest of the week and on beyond was looking rather mild, enough cloud cover that frost wouldn't be a problem and neither would sun burn.
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I began to hang the thirty-two planted fuchsia baskets out on Laundry House's porch on a metal pipe the is held in place by three two-by-four brackets. I even devised some wire hangers to hang a second lower tier. Everything looked great. It was a bit windy late that afternoon but it didn't seem to effect the hanging baskets that much. Well except for the last one that didn't fit on the pipe and had to hang out a little farther on the chain where my topsy turvy tomato plants hung last summer.
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In the morning I was delighted to see the lovely dew on the grass and the sun and clouds playing tag. But when I looked toward Laundry House I didn't see the line of baskets I expected to see. I could see one lone one but where were the rest. I hadn't put my contacts in and I know better than to panic when I have them out and can't see what I expect to see, I've been met with more than one old-lady-crying-wolf situations because of it.
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I mentioned that I couldn't see them to vacationing Phil Dirt, so he popped up to the window and mumbled something horrible. But it didn't really matter because I had already spied what the deal was.


The center two-by-four bracket had given way and this was the mess it created.

And there is my favorite Pink Marshmallow, the one I thought was hanging out in the elements, looking down on its forlorn and broken brethren, saying, "It pays to be last sometimes."

Some baskets survived by being last to the scene but most others were broken and the plants in them tossed to the four corners of the porch and beyond.

Clean up and rescue took all day. We now have several flats of fuchsia starts and all the baskets and lone plants have been pinched back, or squashed back as some cases may be, to insure lovely bushy baskets.

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I emptied and tossed thirteen broken plastic fuchsia baskets into the garbage. Four baskets worth of plants, sixteen in all, were completely unidentifiable and went into separate four inch pots to grow and bloom so that I can make proper IDs on them.

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A little over half of what was left were repotted into their own unbroken pot or a new one because their foliage is distinct enough and they were all close enough in a common pile of soil to assume that they were from the same basket. These were tagged however, to keep special watch on, to switch up when it is obvious someone fell into someone else's dirt pile.

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The last of the baskets that had pretty much fallen upright and unbroken, without tossing anyone completely out of the confines of the basket, were realigned, tidied up, trimmed up and set to rights again.

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Even though I am fairly positive that the last batch I took care of are all the right ones together in a basket, no one is getting sold 'til all have bloomed and proven their familial standings.

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Silver lining? 'Cause there always is one or two... Dirt and I have decided not to set pipe in the rafters for hanging baskets in the Hot House for sure now. I was beginning to lean to a portable system after my multiple trips up and down Laundry House steps, but now we are for certain not hanging pots on the structure itself.

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Second lining: man am I thankful that I didn't seed the lobelia directly into the basket! I'm thinking that would have been the weep point of the whole ordeal. I am positive that certain procrastinations or changes of plans are definitely from the Holy Spirit.

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All twenty-eight baskets and sixteen four inch pots went back into Laundry House and are hanging peacefully up next to the ceiling with the lights on them and the fans below trying their best to mimic a lovely soft spring breeze. I have decided that waiting for the real Hot House to be up and running is a better thing.

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It won't be too much longer now anyway, in fact, if Charley's hadn't sent us home short two joiner strips, I most likely would have been moving in Tuesday morning. As it is Dirt and I and the girls too, will be making a quick dash up north to grab the two joiner strips and the two vent openers from back order.

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Hopefully we will get to see some fields of tulips and other things and someones that will brighten our crazy days.

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Dear Reader, I hope you are having a wonderful, busy, crazy, yet restful, spring, just like we are. It all makes for a great life doesn't it? Wouldn't you hate to be one of those folks with a boring and steady life?

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Well I'm heading out to sing some praises to my Creator, Saviour and Counselor, and to plant some asparagus that was delivered day before yesterday and healed into some nice dirt. I will come back later this evening with HotHouse construction pictures from yesterday, didn't want to overload one post with all that went on this week. 'Til then, have a delightful day and if you're the celebrating commemorating type, Have a Good Palm Sunday.

Sittin' by the Edge of the Pond

I miss my Saturday company. They worked very hard along side Dirt and I and the girls, but they also brought some wonderful wine and a vital reason to relax and just converse, friendship. (By the way read the title to the tune of Sittin' by the Dock of the Bay)

We got back to work promptly after we parted with them and everyone else at the bowling alley for Spring Bowlerama on Sunday. Well first we stopped by The Orange Store, but that was a lot like work. And then we sorta sat and watched a movie when we got home.

But now were workin' hard. For instance, today Bet and I got her incubator up and running and stuffed it full of eggs. Chicken, duck and two turkey eggs about three dozen in all. After which she tilled the market garden area and I finished up making beds up at North Garden.

I moved about six wheelbarrow loads of dirt, soil, from North Garden down to Flag Pole hill, planted six lilac bushes and about fifteen dahlia clumps.

And before the day really started I walked thirty two hanging baskets out of my Laundry House (hanging in there aka as the Propagation House for about another week) not to mention twenty eight brugs that are getting quite large and gangly and several flats of this and that.

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That'd be about thirty trips in and out and down two steps. And if I took them out this morning you know what I did last thing tonight 'til about eight thirty. Took them back in.

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I think I have had my stepper exercise for the day. Which is good since I just looked up the side effects of my new drug and found out that the number one side effect is.... that's right, weight gain. Oh yippee, just what I need.

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Oh well, a person can't have everything go their way now can they. Sometimes you have to have somethin' to push back against eh?

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Dear Reader, please have a delightful day or two, however long it takes me to get back here to my zapping lap top. And hey, remember, God is taking care of us, you and I.