Make Your Choice: Me or the Hoop

“Nothing is plumb, level or square:
the studs are bowed,
the joists are shaky by nature.”
–Alan Dugan

One of the big projects on this farm is the construction of a hoop house (a greenhouse with an elastic plastic covering instead of permanent glass panels). Claire and John received a grant that allowed them to afford one, but they have to build it themselves and will not be reimbursed for the cost until the plastic is stretched across it. All the supplies had been lying in a heap on their lawn for months, but time is becoming an issue because the hoop house needs to be finished before the big apple harvest begins in a few weeks. Apples dominate everything around here. They’re the farm’s biggest source of income and it takes a lot of time and work to stay on top of their harvest, which lasts until the chilly Montana winter sets in. I’ve been warned that nothing else matters once apples start falling from the trees.

This hoop house will measure 30’ wide by 72’ long, and will have a gothic arch ceiling some 15’ high, held up by 19 arches. Construction began a few days after I arrived. We couldn’t do much until a family friend known as Johnny Oatmeal—no lie—showed up in a bobcat with an auger attachment and drilled holes for the posts (big déjà vu to prepping a grape field in Utah earlier this summer). Once that happened, all my time was committed to helping Brian put the thing up. The original plan was to have it finished within a week, five days being ideal. Now, three weeks later, it’s very close to being almost halfway done.

We started by cementing post mounts in the holes J. Oatmeal drilled. That turned out to be a frustrating task that occupied all of our original 5-day outlook, mostly because Brian wasn’t happy with how plumb the posts stood and kept resetting them. Lots of swearing was involved—at the tools, not at me. No problem, I understand the importance of a good foundation. Learned all about it long ago through this story about three pigs. I’ll connect you with my mom if you want to hear it yourself.

Next, we built all the arches and raised them up onto the post mounts, which went by pretty fast. At this point, we could really start to see the progress of what we were doing and joked about how quickly the rest of the project would go. That joking lasted about a day and promptly ended when we started attaching purlins to connect all the arches together.

The instructions seemed simple to me: put up all the purlins then go back and tighten clamps on each of them so that all the arches are four feet apart. We spent a whole day doing exactly that. The next morning, Brian took one look from the side and decided the arches didn’t look plumb enough. To fix it, we spent all of that day loosening, readjusting and retightening every purlin clamp—roughly 110 of them. This time, Brian insisted on throwing away the tape measure and just eyeballing it. The day after that, Brian took one look at the structure, decided it still wasn’t plumb enough and we spent all of that day doing the exact same thing… as well as the next day, and the day after that, and the day after that.

I’d say we spent five or six entire days undoing and redoing everything we did the day before. Mind you, these were 10-12 hour workdays we were pulling.

At some point, it occurred to me that Brian’s standards for plumbness might be a bit higher than necessary. Sometimes he'd pull out his level, spend several minutes adjusting every arch post within millimeters of its exact plumb position, then tell me to tighten all the purlins connected to that arch while he held it in place. Thing is, these are thin, lightweight, 15-foot tall arches that are all bent, swaying in the wind and attached to other wobbly arches that are all bent and swaying in the wind. As soon as we’d adjust or even touch one post, the whole structure would move.

What can I compare this to… imagine setting up a camping tent in a windstorm, only to have someone pull out a level and declare that you had to undo and redo the whole thing because the tent posts weren’t perfectly plumb. Even after almost a week of the same pattern, Brian still seemed surprised to find that not one of the arches stayed perfectly plumb. Not only surprised, but expressive—throwing down tools, cursing at them like a sailor, then stomping off to cool down.

Around day three or four, I decided it was time to express my thoughts. I didn’t have much construction experience, so I wasn’t eager to be critical of Brian's judgment. He was, after all, the owner of this thing. Still, I was having a tough time staying motivated to work another 12 hour day when I knew we’d be undoing everything the next day. And it seemed to me that a golden retriever would have realized the futility of our efforts in less time. I finally chose my moment, waited for him to finish a swearing rampage and cool down, then explained to him very politely that I didn’t think this structure was meant to be as precise as he wanted. I also pointed out that it only had to hold up a sheet of plastic and was already more than strong enough to do its job. He only shook his head, sighed and said “It’s gotta be plumb. It’s gotta be plumb.” Then he walked into the field to pick up the level where he threw it (a dented level likely didn’t help the situation).

After day five, I decided to figure out what “plumb” meant and looked it up in a dictionary.

We went through this same routine a couple more times, and I had a couple more useless talks with him. Eventually, I started feeling less guilty about ending my work day after only eight or nine hours to hang out with friends from my last farm. I also decided that if this was all I had to look forward to at this place, then I'd find another farm. When Claire pointed out that apples were starting to fall, I wanted to kiss her for the perfect excuse to escape the construction project. Picking apples with Claire is very meditative and calming, and it reminds me what it feels like to do work that’s actually productive and worthwhile.

I don’t remember exactly when it happened, but Brian finally cracked. After telling the entire hoop house to gratify itself over and over (probably audible from Idaho), he shocked me by asking for help mounting baseboards and struts to hold everything in its place so we could move on to the next step. We finished that job quickly, but now apples are the highest priority.

The good news is that an inspector from the grant organization came to check on the progress and gave Claire and Brian permission to wait until after the winter to put up the plastic cover. That means the hoop house progress won't delay them from getting their grant, and we can concentrate our efforts on the harvest.

Every now and then, Brian goes out to the construction site with his level, loosens the baseboards and struts and tweaks the end arches ever so slightly. Sometimes he walks away quietly, sometimes we can hear him from across the orchard. I already have sympathy for the poor soul who happens to be WWOOFing here when he decides to finish the project next spring.

Plumb [pluhm]:
n.
1. A weight on the end of a line, used to determine water depth.
2. A weight on the end of a line, used especially by masons and carpenters to establish a true vertical.
adv.
1. In a vertical or perpendicular line.
2. Informal Directly; squarely: fell plumb in the middle of the puddle.
3. also plum Informal Utterly; completely: plumb worn out.
adj.
1. Exactly vertical.
2. also plum Informal Utter; absolute; sheer: a plumb fool.
v. plumbed, plumb•ing, plumbs
v.tr.
1. To determine the depth of with a plumb; sound.
2. To test the verticality or alignment of with a plumb.
3. To straighten or make perpendicular: plumb up the wall.
4. To examine closely or deeply; probe: "Shallow ideas are plumbed and discarded" (Gilbert Highet).
5. To seal with lead.