We've been on the grow lately - diving into the construction of our venture's first structure , an aquaponics prototype built in collaboration with Hannah and Friends, a terrific agency here in South Bend that serves those with disabilities. In the past few weeks, we've met trucks carrying our equipment that got us out of bed in the wee morning hours, pored over construction manuals, and consulted with various contractors about the electrical, plumbing, and heating requirements of our greenhouse.
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| Conor and Shane check the delivery list for our aquaponic equipment... |
While tackling the first steps of our build, we were grateful for help from Wes, the facilities manager at Hannah and Friends, who graciously gave of his time, his tools, and his expertise to help get our project going. Lots of prep work, studying, and calculating before we even put shovel to the ground!
Engineers have a look at the specs....and get our posts set perfectly
To keep our team working at the top of our game, we developed a divide-and-conquer strategy - some of us worked inside on the very precise work of lining up our greenhouse frames, others worked outside on the lining up the poles of our greenhouse and leveling them using a handy formula from high school geometry - the Pythagorean theorem. Gosh, did our poles look level by the time we were done!
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| Tom hauling our greenhouse's metal framing |
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| Conor, Tom, Lauren, and Shane build the frame |
Later in the week, we turned our attention to the greenhouse's foundation. To keep out weeds and create a smooth base for the greenhouse, we first laid a black membrane to the floor of our greenhouse. After that, we laid gravel. Wes did his magic with his front end loader, hauling the gravel to us. And then all three tons were distributed on the floor and smoothed out, creating a level base where our aquaponic equipment will go. As much as we'd like to dig in and finish it all off, we'll resume building in the next week when our schedules permit that. Next, it's on to building our walls and roof. Stay tuned - we are really growing from the ground up!
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| Our intern Lauren puts in our foundation |
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| A quick break in the action for Tom to say hello to a new friend |