Building a greenhouse

Greg saw a little greenhouse in a backyard in Ingomar. He came home and drew a picture of it.

"I think I can make something like that," he said.

He started with the windows we had taken out of Roseway Hall last spring. He repaired and sanded each frame. He replaced broken panes, and glazed all of them. He primed and painted all the frames.

There are twenty two windows, and a door-like window that he will make taller and turn into a door.

He went down to the shore and got gravel for the floor and flat rocks for the foundation.

He got the 2x4s and some very nice other lumber from someplace on the island. They were in buildings that were abandoned a quarter century ago. This reminds me of the dissolution of the monasteries in sixteenth century England. After the monasteries were left empty and useless, local villagers scavenged their stones and wooden beams for their own building projects.

Greg's greenhouse is in the same tradition: let nothing go to waste! Come to think of it, some of those scavenging English villagers were probably Greg's ancestors. It's in his DNA.