Building over the winter is no fun. Building over the winter during a pandemic is even more not fun.

Weather caused a 2-week delay building the foundation. But the guys were able to get back to work the week the greenhouse was supposed to ship. I’d been emailing and calling my salesman at the greenhouse company trying to get confirmation, without success. Finally, I was able to speak with someone in their shipping department who tracked down my order in manufacturing. Seems they’d had supply chain issues for two materials – the SolarSoft polycarbonate panels for the roof and a piece of aluminum. The polycarb had just come in so those pieces were being cut but they didn’t have a date for the aluminum. He said to call back the next week for status.

Over that week the foundation walls were completed and while waiting for the concrete to cure enough to backfill, the plan was to begin working on the drainage in and around the foundation. I also called the greenhouse company’s shipping person and got the good news that my package was finished and they were in the process of finding a carrier. Yea!

We couldn’t get a gravel delivery for the foundation drains so that is delayed about a week, plus wait time for the inspection. Sigh.

Then I received a call from the greenhouse company that was supposed to give me the carrier information but was, instead, a call to tell me they couldn’t find anyone to take the load. Why? Because no one wanted to get on a ferry. The only carrier who didn’t give an outright ‘no’ had quoted over a $1,000 just for the ferry. Not the ferry fare. Not wait time. Just a surcharge for having to ride a boat for 5 minutes each way.

Not sure what image of the ferry they had in their mind (I’m thinking something akin to Huck Finn’s raft). So I put on my Project Manager hat and hurriedly put together an email of screen shots of the ferry schedule, links to the ferry cameras, pictures of the waiting line and loading dock, and assurances the ferry regularly handles long and heavy trucks like dump trucks, garbage trucks, tractor trailers, moving vans, etc.

Then I waited.

Not too patiently.

Finally the call-back that a carrier was secured based on the info I’d sent that let the broker verify the ferry conditions for themselves. Crisis averted.

The package loaded in California on Thursday, January 13th and is due to my property in Washington on Tuesday, January 18th.

Now I wait again. But this time a little more patiently.

Since the foundation hasn’t been backfilled, there are still mountains of dirt and deep holes taking up valuable space where we’d planned to stage the greenhouse materials. My builder dropped off his backhoe on Friday and will be here tomorrow to work out those logistics.

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