Happy Monday! As usual things were a bit nutty at the ranch this weekend.

I took a great deal of time to take inventory Friday night. I ended up with a total of 961 seedlings. As I was doing inventory it occurred to me that perhaps I should do it differently – like mark the trays that have already been counted or something of that nature….but I didn’t – and now I’m kind of regretting it.

We spent most of Saturday running around looking for soccer stuff for my niece, it’s been a while since I’ve done that kind of shopping! It didn’t go as smoothly as I had hoped, but in the end Dick’s Sporting Goods had some very nice shoes for her, a bit pricey, but I think she will be proud to wear them. We were also on the hunt for training wheels and a tube for a tire for a cute little bike a client of Joe’s gave us for my grand-daughter. It was a tiring day!

By the time we made it home we were too tired to do much of anything other than take a walk, so we set our sites on Sunday to work on the greenhouse and plant more seeds.

It was finally time to move the greenhouse, Joe’s been thinking about it for a while – how to accomplish it safely, efficiently, and quickly. He borrowed wheels from his brother to attach to the end, thinking hooking it up with the tractor and pulling it would be the ticket.

We unloaded all 44 trays, sat them out carefully on tables for them to enjoy some fresh air. We ran out of long tables, so we pulled out the card tables, still ended up needing to put some on top of the freezer.

After a visit from my daughter and a dash to her place to look at some treasures they were getting rid of, it was time to hook up the chains and give the greenhouse a yank!

I was poking around in the planting room, like a nervous hen looking over her babies, waiting to hear the tractor move, waiting to take pictures of the big move for the blog….waiting, waiting….when I head the tractor shut down I knew something must have happened.

I poked my head out of the barn – seen Joe walking towards me with a grim look on his face. When I asked if everything was okay, he said no. He needed help, some of the plants got bumped.

What’s important to note here is that Joe and I are newly married – it’s been less than a year, we’ve known each other for a little over two years. Our history with dealing with crisis isn’t very detailed yet. Our experience with each other’s temper is still very new. So, I was a little unsure how serious this situation was. I could tell he was more upset than I’ve seen him in a while, but he wasn’t hysterical. I’ve actually never seen him hysterical….and those that have known him for many years have said they’ve never seen him hysterical.

Walking over to the incident in question, I couldn’t tell how bad it was because the tractor and greenhouse were in the way of the tables. I didn’t know what to expect when I came around the corner.

When I finally did get around the corner I seen it was one of the smaller tables that had been bumped, I didn’t stop and count the flats upside down, I didn’t stop and take pictures, I got down on my hands and knees and started picking up the trays, Joe was right beside me, gently picking up the trays to see what could be saved. It took a while for me to sort out my thoughts, I didn’t want to make him feel any worse than he already did, I needed to find a positive way to look at all of this and reassure him that it’s not the end of the world. No body got hurt, the garage wasn’t damaged, none of the cars were hit…just plants….it’s our first year something has to happen our first year!!

What happened is, the wheels he chose to use were a bit squirmy; they did not behave in a rational manner when pulled by the tractor. Instead of tracking with the tractor, they traveled in the opposite direction, causing it to swing into the table of seedlings knocking several trays on the ground. After several attempts at trying to get the wheels to do as he wanted, he decided to call his brother over with his front loader – hoping that the leverage from the top would help control the wheels and make them track better.

It took a bit of doing, and a bit of sorting, but the greenhouse has been moved and is in it’s final resting place. We still need to fill in the bottom with gravel, pin it down to the cement blocks, still need to wire it and finish the top area and install fans, but it is sitting where it’s going to be sitting for a while now. This not only gave us back our space in front of the garage, it also gave us space back in the actual garage!

So as of right now, I’m unsure of how many seedlings we lost. I tried to look over the damage, but I was also trying to get plants in soil that I had just bought at a nursery to put in planters for the patio, and had more seeds to get into soil. I do know that we took 46 flats out of the greenhouse, and only put back in 43. I know an entire flat of cosmos fell over – with 24 cosmos – maybe half of those survived, a flat of Globe Amaranth was tipped over with 72 cells, maybe 20 made it, then there was Stock tipped over in the mix and Bells of Ireland. What’s great is that we didn’t lose any Carnations – those darn things have been a bear since day one, but they were not on the table that was bumped.

I hope you all had a great weekend! I think I’ll be looking over what I’ve lost & probably be making another seed order to replace what I have, but for now, I’ll let the sun warm up the greenhouse and work on what has survived.

Thanks for stopping by, hope to see you again soon!