According to the weather apps, we’re currently at -5C/23F, with the “feels like” at -9C/16F.

I don’t know where the weather station for that reading is, but it’s been mostly sunny today and feels much warmer than that, to me!

Warm enough that I decided we should go ahead and cover the portable greenhouse with the tarp so graciously gifted to us.

In retrospect, we should have removed the torn up plastic over first, but the tie downs are attached to it, so I didn’t think of it.

I had already adjusted the tie downs so that they no longer stretched away from the corners, creating tripping hazards. Instead, I wrapped them around the sides and and was able to secure them around the corners at the opposite end. They are long enough that the ones from the back corners wrapped around the doorway and were secured on the inside. Which meant there were no tie downs to work around while adding the tarp.

Gotta love the sexy rhino.

So this is a really high end tarp, which is so appreciated. It also is black on one side, so we decided to have the black facing out, so that it could warm up more in the sun.

As you can see in the second photo of the slide show above, the tarp is a fair bit bigger than the portable greenhouse frame!

I had the help of a daughter to get it unfolded, then up and over the frame. After that, I worked on it on my own, since I was figuring things out as I went along.

I deliberately put the tarp off center so that I could secure the side facing the kibble house to the ground, right at the base of the frame. I spend the next while trying to figure out how best to origami it in a way I thought would be least likely to get caught up in the wind. Once I secured most of it, I ended up tucking the excess on the side facing away from the kibble house, under the frame itself.

From the back and sides, it made a nice little package.

If you click through to the next couple of pictures, however, you can see the front was a very different challenge. I had considered and tried a number of options, and even considered turning that end into a sort of tent. Which probably would have turned into a wind tunnel, so it was probably good I decided it wouldn’t work . We need to be able to walk through there, shovel snow, etc, and it would have blocked things way too much. I ended up folding quite a bit of it under, tucking the edge back over the frame to secure it. Which left me with no grommets I could use to secure that anything around the doorway from the wind.

I had set up an old bench we found… in the spruce grove, if I remember correctly – that I’d had against the back to keep the wind from flapping the torn cover around. I also had our wire mesh door and folding table along the more exposed east facing side, for the same purpose. Those got put back, once the sides and back were done.

The doorway needs to be kept available, of course, and there was no way to shelter the doorway and still be able to get in and out as needed. I had to find another solution.

The solution was, twine.

I tied one end of the twine to the frame on the inside on one side, wrapped it around the back, then secured the other end to the matching part of the frame on the other side, making sure all was snug and tight. If you click through the next couple of pictures, you can see how it was secured by twine, bench, wire mesh door and table. The bench has to be lying on its side, as it is too broken up to stay upright if there is any wind, or even if a cat just jumps on it. 😄

The door is wide open, and wind and snow will get into it. There is no getting around that, at this point.

As I was working in it, cats and kittens were very curious and checking everything out, so I am confident they will be comfortable using it for shelter. It is definitely warmer in there, too. Having it black side out is going to make a big difference, I think. Enough to make up for losing the greenhouse effect. It’s now quite dark in there, but the cats don’t mind that at all.

Now, if only we could find a way to make sure no cats try to jump up onto it! The tarp may be 10mm thick, but cat claws could still cause damage.

So that’s a bit more winterizing we found ourselves needing to do. I think it will work out all right for the most part. It’s only the front that concerns me. We don’t have any high winds in the forecast right now, though, so it will be a while before it gets a litmus test!

The Re-Farmer