13.01.2024 Thirteen is just another [prime] number.

 ~o~

 Saturday 13th 36F/+2C. Up at 7.20. Possible showers and a westerly wind.

08.15 60F/15C in the room and feels cold. I should have lit the stove an hour ago. It seems I have some work ahead of me. There is a large trailer full of logs to bring into the greenhouse. The logs. Not the trailer. I have them covered with the fitted PVC tarpaulin. 

 The trailer is parked close to the greenhouse doors. I normally use a wheelbarrow to reduce the number of journeys. I will have to time moving a fixed number of logs from the trailer to see what works best. The wheelbarrow has to be loaded and unloaded. Which takes time which might be better spent walking back and forth with armfuls of logs. Though this would mean leaving the greenhouse doors open for a long time. The double sliding doors provide clearance for the barrow but are a bore to open and close every single time. Which all adds to the total time per barrow load.

 I try to reduce the incidence of wildlife gaining access to the greenhouse. Where they could hide amongst the logs and then enter the house during log movements indoors. Rodents have never gained access to the house because we never left the outside doors open. As is common practice amongst many others.

 Hinged doors would rarely be as wide, in normal domestic scale greenhouses. They are prone to catching the wind if they open outwards. The greenhouse manufacturers miss the market for a potential, inexpensive porch/airlock in modest, lean-to greenhouse sizes.

 Sliding doors just don't work IME. Not if it means they block the main access to the house door while carrying "stuff." Otherwise I would have fitted a lean-to greenhouse over the north facing, entrance door years ago. That would have allowed a glazed house door. Allowing light in but without the exposing the hall and beyond, to quite the same degree. It would seem strange for my back to be visible, while working at the kitchen sink, seen from outdoors. 

 09.30. 37F/+3C. I didn't get far before it started raining hard. Driven by the westerly wind. Which made it feel even colder. The ice on the ground was covered with water. Making it very slippery in places. So I turned around and came home again. 66F/19C in the room. 

 The weather put me off log movements for hours. The heaped load in the trailer helps to shed water. When the trailer is empty the tarpaulin cover sags into a huge puddle. I have a support pole to brace the cover into a hump but that just causes two puddles to form. One on either side of the pole. 

 I never went shopping either. So it will have to be toast for dinner. And was.

 

~o~