Finishing the structure of the greenhouse

Tuesday, February 22 was a day of success and rejoicing for all of us at Granja Peniel.

Today, we mounted the trusses on top of the posts for the greenhouse.

Here's how the process went:

In the morning, the staff (including Leo Guzman, John Egson Fonseca, Gonzalo Osario, and Grant Bye) sorted out the process for installing the trusses - installed half of them, plus the long poles at the ends of the bay.  We don't have pictures of that work in progress, but here's a shot of the greenhouse structure at mid-day:

The first four trusses installed, with long poles also in place

In the afternoon, after the boys came home from school, they helped install the rest of the structure as you can see in the following shots:

l to r, Einer Posada, Gonzalo Osario, Duvan Guayara, Leonardo Guzman, Andres Castro, and Camilo Castro installing a truss into position between the carevacas.  Gonzalo and Duvan are steading the truss with long poles while Leonardo inserts a 3/8" bolt into the pre-drilled holes in the truss and the carevaca.

On the second truss of the afternoon, Duvan takes over the role of inserting and tightening the connecting bolts.

Einer holding the free end of the truss, Duvan tightening the bolt while John Egson assists.

At the end of the day, the entire structure of the greenhouse has been installed, along with several more guy wires to stabilize the posts and trusses. 

The assembly of the wooden structure had been completed in just two days.  We had been blessed with nice weather to work in, by electric power from our neighbors to make the drilling feasible, and by plenty of helping hands on the part of the staff and boys at Granja Peniel.

And, as so often happens when things are going well, we got overconfident and began thinking that the project was about over.  As Nancy Centeno, the IMiC director said the following day, "all that is left is installing the plastic".  So much easier said than done....as we were soon to find out....