Catching Space

There is so much catching up to do, where do we start? Today I took care of my body, had my teeth cleaned; took care of my family, went food shopping; and took care of my houseplants by watering them. For my soul there was watching part one of the Bob Dylan documentary “No Director Home”. Dylan’s songs like ‘Blowing in the Wind’ have always captured my spirit and spoken to me of the present. However, with all this catching up there is still too much more to do.

Time is running out for working outside, and soon I need to gather all the leaves I can for compost, making new soil. Soon I need to gather the garden in, take time and let the soil rest for the winter. But for now there is still food growing for harvesting. Tonight’s dinner vegetables were collard greens and pole beans picked today and steamed in a pot together with some pepperoni, butter and herbs. My wife is leery of my new creations but she had to admit this one was good. There are a few more plants to be harvested in the garden, like the kale, but for the most part the outside garden is passing away.

Also I need to put together the small greenhouse I purchased recently. I want to put on layers of AIR insulation around the inside and outside of the frame, seeing if I can keep it warm, with the help of compost, for pots of plants long into the winter and starting early in the spring. It is easy to put layers of plastic over the frame, but the effectiveness would be lost without pockets of air between the layers. How to put space in between layers of plastic is the same problem encountered trying to use AIR to insulate aluminum storms. I need some kind of spacer between the layers of plastic so the air can do its thing. I asked my lateral thinking friend who did the science on the AIR project and he sent me some plastic bubble-wrap material. It is the kind of stuff you see in box to protect items during shipping. This kind is called ‘polyair space’ ( www.polyair.com), but I was able to find other kinds at the local UPS store. I think it will work well: the spacer itself is an air pocket of insulation.

If this idea works on the small greenhouse it can be used to insulate aluminum storms from the outside. Using cold weather clear duct tape, I can tape on the air pockets and then tape on the next layer of plastic glazing. With this spacer I can catch the air space and use it to trap heat in and keep cold out.

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