Well gang, long time no updates. I couldn't hardly begin to explain what a roller coaster ride I've been on the last couple of months, but I'll try to report what I can remember. There have been so many challenges going on, both with the greenhouse and my life in general. I feel as though there has been more time spent going backwards and redoing things that could have been avoided only if the future could be predicted. It seems like the closer I get to stocking this place, the harder it fights me and the more things go wrong. I am not sure exactly how much of it is correct to share on a forum like this, but it all sort of ties in together. Please forgive me if the updates seem a little scatter-brained, off topic and out of chronological order, but going back after five or six weeks makes the details difficult to remember. I haven't been trying intentionally to ignore the requests for updates, but you'll (hopefully) understand by the time I finish.
Back around the beginning of April, my son got a PSP (Portable Play Station) for his birthday. It can also be used to store and play downloaded MP3 music files. While I was trying to install the software for that, a message kept popping up saying that we had to upgrade to the Windows service pack 2. So, I go to the microsoft web site and try to download the SP2 but it wouldn't ever come up as an option to download and I couldn't seem to get it manually either. My brother-in-law suspected I had a hack copy of Windows so he got me a legit copy and walked me through removing the sysprep (which is the part of the Windows files that contain the key codes) and typing in the legit code. This was supposed to avoid having to install a whole new copy of Windows, which would have wiped out everything on the hard drive, and starting over from scratch. It worked pretty well, except for making my "my documents" folder inaccessible, wiping my desktop clean, and removing ALL the installed programs from my start-up menu (including Dreamweaver, image resizers... well, just every program). I run XP Pro and have four accounts set up on the computer with mine being the administrative account. None of the other three accounts were touched. Of course, my web site was stored in "my documents" folder along with all of my pictures, chat clients, business certificates, etc., etc., etc. Allot of stuff I couldn't afford to lose. I could still access all of the installed programs through the explorer and just left that window minimized on the task bar. My brother-in-law and I spent several hours multiple times on the phone trying to regain possession of the "my document" files. The securities tab would never come up in the properties box. It really didn't make much sense since my account has the administrative control and should be able to grab possession of anything on the entire computer. He figured at some point, I must have encrypted or compressed all of the files in that folder and some security program must have locked it up as a precaution. I could go into explorer and see the folder with the little plus sign beside it, so I was pretty sure that all the files were still there. I did use my FTP program to download my entire web site back to my computer and saved it in a safe place. It still couldn't be updated since all my photos were locked in "my documents" and that is also where any new photos are transferred to when I offload them from my camera. It did make me feel a little better just to have the web site back on the computer though. I tried to set up a second administrative account to see if I could access the folder from there but no luck. Then, all of my regular online stomping grounds would not recognize me when I logged in through the other account. I have been able to browse but logging in to sites and posting any replies has been a challenge. I was chatting with Henry one day when he suggested to Google a search for the problem. I did that and found a discussion forum for microsoft techs. There was a guy who posted almost the exact same problem except it was a music folder that became inaccessible. One of the responses showed a link on how to take back possession of files and folders. I had been trying that all along but still couldn't get the securities tab to come up. Then there was another link showing how to disable the simple file sharing that Windows uses as a default, then the security tab came up and I was able to transfer possession back to me. Seems like Henry is always there to save the day just when someone needs him. At least my computer is back to normal. I used the down time to go out and pick up some high speed USB ports and a CD-RW so all of the important stuff can be burnt to CD to avoid future worries.
During all of the computer problems, one of the bone grafts in my jaw became abscessed so it was back to the surgeon for some more work. My mouth was just getting back to where I could eat tacos and such too.
Now, several weeks and more procedures later, they think I may have a dead nerve up in my jaw causing infections, which now has to be tested. This specialist wants me to go see another specialist for the tests and will probably mean more procedures. BLAH
Of course, there is some good news too. My daughter's AAU cheer team qualified for the Illinois State championships by winning three first places and one second place in their regional events. At the State competition, they won first place in their division (3rd to 6th grade girls).
Most of the eight team members are 10 or 11 years old but they already do multiple successive back flips and toss each other up in the air and do twists while in the air. They really are a dynamic bunch and practice very hard. We found out the following day that they also won "all around best performance" by having the highest score for the entire competition (235 out of a possible 250). They had even beaten all of the high school girls' teams and beat the second place team by 17 points.
Well, those are just a few of the things that have been happening here, let's get back to the greenhouse and get into some real problems. Let's just say that nearly everything that could possibly go wrong with this project...has.
Let's see, when we left off, the live rock vat had been scrubbed clean along with the rock. There were heat issues with the live rock vat as well. During the winter it seemed like heat radiating from the furnace (along with heat radiating from the blower) was the root cause. After the weather turned warmer, the furnace was no longer running and the blower was moved away from the vat, heat was still an issue. Then the assumption was that heat from the blower was being passed along through the air stones into the water of the skimmers. Tschopp came up to pick up some drums for water storage, we looked at it and he suggested using some type of clamp-on cooling fins with a fan pointed at them to help dump heat from the new galvanized pipe. I searched all over the internet and most of what I could find was geared towards electronic device cooling or car radiators. One of the local farm stores had some strip aluminum that was 3/4" wide X 7' long for about $4. They were cut into lengths and JB-Weld used to secure them to the pipe. JB-Weld is supposed to take 24 hours to cure, but the heat made it harden in less than 10 minutes using a pair of pliers to hold them in place until they were solid.
That dropped the temp of the vat about 2 degrees which was still too warm on the hotter days. One day, a wasp and a HUGE bumble bee (no kidding, this bee was like 2" long and about 1" diameter) got into the greenhouse and sent me out running and screaming like a little girl. (Not really, but stinging insects do make me fairly anxious). Someday, I may have a visitor or two in there and I really wouldn't want them to see me shaking in my shoes, nor would I want someone else to be stung. I vowed then and there to put the screens over the shutters. A simple 2" x 4" frame and staple the screen to that.
For some strange reason, I never noticed it before, but a swamp was developing between the greenhouse and the field as well as some standing water on the opposite side. Remembering back, the original plan was to use straight DI water, so the only water flowing to the ground would have been during water changes. I never accounted for the amount of waste water from later adding the RO units and that coupled with dumping the LR vat every week was, I guess, more than the ground could handle. I brought in another 10 ton load of dirt (FREEBIE) to bring the grade up in that area and it seemed to help, (and yes, I shoveled it all in place by hand with a shovel and wheelbarrow), and it did soak up the water in those areas.
The second final grade almost completed.
And the opposite side. Not near as big of an area, but probably best to take care of it voluntarily before I am forced to.
As "good ol' Murphy" is true to his legacy, the water then started to run down the north end past the propane tank and into the neighbors' yard. This is the "nice" neighbor who let me have a couple of heavy trucks drive through her property to get to and from the greenhouse. She came over one day and "Just wanted to make sure that some of your tanks weren't leaking". (Well, I thought to myself, they were, but they are fixed now, heehee). She was very polite about it but I knew she was concerned, especially with all of the West Nile hype going around. Allot of insects and birds were using the water to get drinks and wash themselves (probably why I ended up with bees and wasps inside), so it was probably a good idea to clean up the mess anyway. I knew it wouldn't be too long before the "bad" neighbor to the south noticed the water and brought it up before the town board.
As long as propane tanks are being mentioned, I think I had mentioned before that this town was basically developed because of the family that owns the local propane supply company, (and gas station, and car dealership, and ...). My family and a few others from town had been purchasing gas from a company almost two hours away in Indiana, just to make sure our local company didn't have a monopoly. The local company bought out the division of the Indiana company we were all buying from, so we all got one of those letters that starts out, "Dear valued customer....." AARRGGHH
