After our grand adventure with garlic this year, Ron decided a change was needed.  There were just so many steps involved in our version of the process.  Out at THF, we pulled the garlic, sorted by size, loaded it onto trailer and then drove it back to our house.  There we sorted again, tied into bundles and hung each onto our drying rack.  Once it was dry, we took them all down, sorted again and stored in boxes.

Ron wanted to be able to do all of this out on THF.  Which meant a building of some sort.  In addition to his planned tiny house.   We had spent some time looking at the variety of sheds that were available.  You really can get a bit crazy with the design.  And the prices are all over the places.

Being Ron, he wanted a local builder who someone he could sit down with and talk to.  He is all about sharing his vision.  During one of his many drives out to the farm, he spotted a sign on telephone pole advertising shed building.  One day he followed the directions and met with a Amish family who already have experience in putting together buildings.  Bonus was they were just a few miles down the road from Route 26.   The family was a good match for Ron, they were polite enough to listen to him as he babbled on.  He already had a list of what we needed for the building.  This include a way to have solar fans on each end of the building to keep the inside cooler and air circulating.   He left the list and went back a few days later to talk possibility and price.  This was my kind of THF project.  It was all on Ron.   All I had to do was pay the bills when they came due.   (Shudder)

The size they settled on is  12 x 30.  This would give us enough room to dry all of our garlic, and then our lavender and other herbs that are in our future. Ron has some thoughts about the type of drying racks he wants us to use.  Guess who gets to help build them?   Maybe I should have taken shop while I was in school.  One worry we won’t have is that our new building will get swept away in a storm.

It was going to be done and delivered well before the cold weather hits.  And Ron had arranged to have the painting done by the family too.  We just needed to pick out and leave on site the paint we wanted used.  After our efforts in painting the outhouse, we really did not want to tackle something this big.

The funniest thing that happened during this process was a phone call from our builder.  He had a friend call so he could talk to Ron to find out when he would be given the louvers that needed to be set on each end of the shed.   Once he had them, it was just a few days later when he called again to set delivery date.

That was Wednesday Oct 4 and Ron and I were both in site waiting for the truck.  It didn’t come when planned and Ron drove to the house to find out what was going on.  He called me and said it was off and that I should head home.

I had been home for about 45 minutes when he called again to say it was back on and they were headed to THF.   The truck driver had gotten behind, but after a call from Ron, he was ready to go.  Jo and I changed into work clothes and zipped back out there.  The shed was already on site when we got there, but the men were trying to decide the best route for the truck to take in order to get to the planned site.  Turns out all the mowing I had down the week before was  a very good thing.  Made it much easier for all of us to walk  back and forth.

A big truck and trailer needed to deliver our big shed.  It was quicker and easier for him to drive right across the field.  This way he would not have to back the shed into position.  I was a big fan of that move.

A nifty trailer he had.   Amazing technology.  Jo and I had never seen this done before and it was very cool.   It gently lowered one end to the ground and he slowly drove out from under the shed.

Boom.  Right down where they needed it to be.  Ron used the compass of his iphone (he really does love playing with that thing) to make sure it was at the right angle for best sunshine, for the solar fans and the truck driver’s job was done.

Now they had to tweet the levelness.  Getting the door right was  the hardest part.  Turned out the middle section of the shed was too high and that was causing a gap in the door frame which was not letting it close properly.

The next step is getting it painted.  As I said before, that is a task we are outsourcing.   We just need to have a few dry days.  After weeks of no rain we finally have rain in the forecast, just in time to interfere with my vacation and our schedule.  One more of the joys of being a farmer. Even when you are a tiny one.