What a Man Does for Love

Husband started with some landscaping logs -- you know, the ones that are rounded on two sides and flat on the other two -- and made them into a square in the yard, in line with the windows over the kitchen sink but out by the leaf bin.

Then he disappeared into the shop for another day, eventually to bring out something that looked like a table without a top, which he put in the middle of the structure. When he does weird things. I usually don't ask him what he's doing -- try to let him think it either doesn't matter, or that I know exactly what he's thinking. He doesn't mention it to me because he thinks I don't care, or I know exactly what he's doing. (We've been married too long!)

He put a wall frame up on the far side, square to the first wall. I finally decided I'd let him know I'd noticed when he asked me to help him nail the second wall. "What is it?" I asked.

"A greenhouse," he said. "The table is too big to go through the door that's going on." So now there are four walls framed, a gable over it, bracing, and Visqueen -- that heavy clear plastic -- up over it. Son helped with that. Today Husband got screen for the door, and hinges. Using scraps and things on hand, he's up to $40 in cash outlay.

"It's your Christmas present."

I CAN'T wait! It's going to have a door, gable vents -- dirt! Everything I need to start gardening early this year. February 15 won't come soon enough.

I've wanted a greenhouse ever since I was 9. There was a greenhouse in the next block and I had to walk by it every day on the way to school. The kids in the neighborhood were tolerated to walk through it so long as they never harmed anything. I LOVED walking by in the middle of winter and seeing scads of carnations, sometimes even being able to smell them.

So there it is. . .a little more work and I can start making it livable, for plants at least.

A handknitted scarf isn't going to do it this Christmas.