High Tunnel Progress - Rafters and Purlins

We've been flying on the high tunnel.  Since this winter has been so mild, once the kids got their Christmas break we jumped on putting up the high tunnel frame.  We had the ground posts setup going into the fall, so we didn't have to deal with sinking posts and instead concentrated on building the rafters and placing them into the ground posts.  We were able to putting up two out of the four purlins.  I had a fire call which took me away from the project for several hours and when I came back the kids had nearly completed the pair of purlins.  They had figured out a process that worked for them that was actually faster than what we were doing when I was working with them.  Guess dad doesn't always know the best way to do everything.  Speaking of making changes, I spoke with one of the other growers in the county who said that there is a fifth purlin that goes along the top of the frame to combat snow load, so I'll contact the manufacturer and try to order that.  I also spoke to my neighbor to the south who's made some modifications to his high tunnel based on hard lessons learned, which I'll try to copy also.  The only problem that I can see right now is that we have a set of posts that have heaved and moved about 3 or 4 inches away from the other posts.  They are tied together by a single board and are out quit a bit beyond spec.  I'll try to strap them together to a set of other posts to see if I can pull them back in, but if worse comes to worse, I assume I'll have to dig the posts out and pull them over and this time connect the base boards together with the other posts.  We're not planning on putting the plastic on until spring, so we have time...

Winter and Change

Winter
We knew that cold and snow were coming and it came on like hitting a switch.  We finished up all of the projects that we needed to get done before the cold hit except one.  The high tunnel is still taking last priority to everything else, which is okay since the other projects needed to get completed or else we would have issues with winter temperatures and snow causing damage.  As long as the snow doesn't get too deep, we can work on the high tunnel in everything except high wind.
Change
We're in the process of reviewing the 2011 year and one of the items that I haven't discussed with many people is the change in the Little Sioux Growers Co-op (LSGC).  Mulberry Grove Family Farm has been a co-op member for a couple of seasons and the Co-op has been running for about two years with the first year pretty much as start-up process.  LSGC has been great for us in that it allows us to provide The person who led this group and did the leg work including marketing, sales, consolidation and distribution has gone to work for another farm that will be direct selling produce to local and regional customers similar to the LSGC.  With this person leaving, we are left with quite a gap within our organization as well as gaps in our external relationships.  While this is going to be a struggle, this also gives LSGC members the opportunity to assess our past and plan for the future.