Work on the hoop house #1-and MORE!

Farm & Hoop house Progress!
I look at the photos taken each week and I’m just amazed at how much progress is being made—even in spite of cold weather, human ailments and frailties…
 
Last week the well guy showed up and Dan talked to him about where the well could go…so he had to clear a few more trees and I had to move and stack the logs…
 

 
With the ground being so uneven from having the stumps dug up, we decided to rent a tractor again to move the stumps, clear debris, and level the ground. I was sent on an errand and by the time I got back much clearing and leveling had already been done…
 

 
Did you know there are kits these days for picnic tables? Precut boards, mostly pre-drilled pieces, instructions, wood and hardware. We bought one and it was my job to put it together.
 

 
Step One, lay out the legs and cross bar…
 

 
Being a Technical Writer by day, I very much appreciate instruction that is written clearly and well enough for the lay person to understand. I’ve read some pretty poor examples of instructional manuals over the years, but this pamphlet was written pretty well. With some help from Dan, voila… it was done before I knew it!
 

 
While it’s nice to have a picnic table, this one was purchased to serve the initial job of being a work table on which to secure the bender. The bender would be used to bend the top rail fence posts, which are used for the hoop houses. We are going to make a ‘practice’ hoop house for the RV, since county requirements are such that the RV needs a shelter.
 

 
With the top rail fence pipe slid into the loop on the bender, then you just pull on the end of it to bend it on the arch. Slide it forward a bit more and pull on it some more.
 
Here’s Dan in action…

 
Now you can buy hoop house kits that come with the top rail posts already bent, but they are significantly more expensive than doing it yourself. Trying to do all of this on the cheap, we went for the bend it yourself option.
 

 
When you get to the end part of the post, you insert an extender and pull on the last bit. If you put your whole body weight into it, you can really get a feel for how this works.
 

 
After you bend three of them, you can put them together to make the hoop over the RV. The ends get inserted into the post poles that we had pounded in the ground earlier, first with a post pounder and then earlier today with the bucket of the tractor. Hmm… let’s see with this bent hoop really clear the top of the RV?
 

 
Not bad! It looks like this project is going to work after all!
 

 
How exciting! After months of talking about the hoop houses and how we’d make them… to finally get to the day of bending them and feeding one into the other, and putting them all together in their posts and seeing that they cleared the top of the RV, it was pretty exciting to see it come together. We bent and put together three so far… take a look!
 

 
And to think that it was even three months ago yet when I was first purchasing the land…
We’ll see what tomorrow has in store yet. I may need to add to this blog post with more excitement (aka work) and accomplishment. See you soon!
 
Bon appetit!