A Big Job!

A big job accomplished! It was time to replace the plastic covering our back greenhouse. The plastic degrades over time, due to the sun‘s rays. It's not a difficult job, but it requires two things.

A calm day and lots of hands, since controlling a 50 foot long piece of plastic can be challenging.    John recruited several co-workers, a cousin or two and of course, John and I along with our helper, Jon. There are actually two pieces of plastic, with an air gap
between, to provide some insulation.  For the first piece, my job was to stand inside the greenhouse with a very long~handled broom and guide the plastic over the metal hoops. For the second piece, I just helped pull it over the other piece. Then, the guys inserted the wiggle wire (zigzag wire pieces) into channels at each end of the greenhouse to hold the plastic firmly in place. Repeat for the  second piece and most of the work is done. That part took about two hours-and just in time, because it began to get breezy then. Trying to control a flapping piece of lightweight plastic in even a gentle breeze is tough. John and our helper finished up the rest of the work in a couple more hours. It looks great and has held up well. A couple days later we had the all-day blowing rain and everything held up.

Lucy had a great time meeting all her new friends. Of course, we had to put her in during the actual operation. Imagine a wild dog running amok over 6 mil plastic.

One day, while walking Lucy, I noticed her with her nose moving along the ground. She wasn't sniffing, but rather walking with her nose directly on the ground. It looked strange and I couldn't imagine what she was doing. When I got close enough, I saw she was following a praying mantis which was walking along. She was just following along, with her nose against it, trying to figure out exactly what it was. It eventually moved off under some cover.
Since then, I've seen mantises frequently. This must be an active time of year for them. And they are all big. On foliage, they’re all green. One that was sitting in a pot, was brown on top green and underneath.