Greenhouse Frame, Carrying Water

The homestead project is continuing, even though I'm putting myself through a slight diversion right now. Yes, the yurt needs to be insulated. Yes, I need the second yurt erected, covered, and insulated. But, the plants are speaking to me and my body so I'm building them a greenhouse.

You see, my ideal diet consists of fresh greens, vegetables, meat, nuts, and eggs. And what's the best way to store greens until you're ready to eat them? That's right! Growing in the ground.

The sooner I get food in the ground, the sooner I can be eating it.

Here's how one person can put up a tall frame. I assembled one side while the parts were low enough to reach.

Then I hoisted it up and snapped a photo so I could remember how many joints and pipes I needed to add the third span to it.

Finally, here is the whole frame, roughly in place.

The next garden-related task is to build a water tower to get enough gravity-based pressure to run a stable irrigation system. Why, you ask? Well, there's no source of water in operation on the land. When I travel I need to ask friends to stay at the house and hand water all of the plants every day, twice if it's hot.

Here's where water comes from - the Wolf Creek Community Well.

To get it to the house, I burn gas.

Here's my shower.

And when I want a hot shower I leave this black 3-quart jug in the sun for a couple of hours. (I took this photo because I liked the way the yurt lattice reflected off of the surface. Isn't it pretty?)

So, yeah, I really want an elevated water storage solution. Then I can truck in 100 gallons at a time, pump it up there with my stored solar electricity, and leave a little timer running to water the garden for me. It's a pretty major project, though, and needs to be paid for out-of-pocket because it was not included in the homestead setup budget. We'll see how quickly I can make it a priority...