And on Day 7, This Space has a two foot concrete wall.

The city inspector has nothing on these two.  They have sniffed every inch, inside and out, and agree that This Space passes inspection.

As I said in my last post, the concrete is the end of phase one.  Unfortunately, the latest information we have says that it will be approximately four weeks before we move into phase two.  The delay is due to the weather issues earlier in the fall in both South Texas and Florida.  Rather than leave everyone hanging, I’m going to go ahead and share the full story now.  I will continue to document the progress once it resumes.

My dad was a career Naval officer and my mom did not work.  Because of the danger associated with being active military, my dad had a life insurance policy from the beginning of his active  duty.  Thankfully, he survived his time in the Navy and enjoyed twenty-nine years of retirement before cancer took him on October 17, 2014.  During his retirement, he had lots of time to do many things for which he had deep passion – serve the historical society in his hometown and garden.

Even when he was still in the Navy, dad always had a vegetable garden.  Sometimes it was only a few square feet if he had been deployed during planting season and other times it was much bigger.  When he left for Viet Nam in July of 1969, I was seven, he told me that my job was to take care of his apple trees so that there would be apples on the trees when he got home.  Thirteen months later, on the night before he came home, there were no apples on his trees.  I was devastated.  I pleaded with my mom to take me to get some apples to tie on his trees.  That’s what we did.  Looking back almost fifty years later, I think his “orders” were less of a job for me and more a commentary on the notion that he would indeed make it home.

Throughout my life, I learned bits and pieces from my dad about how to grow this and that.  I always enjoyed wandering through his garden to see what was in season.  When dad was sick, many of us did all that we could to keep his garden going so that he could have his homegrown veggies for as long as possible.

Dad also had lots of houseplants.  Of all the many things in the house, some of them quite valuable, the things I wanted to bring back to Texas with me were dad’s flannel shirts, sweaters made for him by my aunt, and his indoor plants.  A longtime friend of dad’s graciously agreed to pack up all the plants that he could realistically and send them to me.  I am happy to say that most of them survived the trip and are still thriving today.

One day several months after dad died, I received a check from that fifty plus year-old life insurance policy.  It felt wrong.  I didn’t need it.  I didn’t want it.  I understood why he had it when we were a young family, but to receive money now because he had died felt awful to me.  I took the check to my financial advisor and asked her to do something with it.  I didn’t want to deal with it at all.

After many months, I decided that I wanted to do something tangible and meaningful with that life insurance money.  I donated some of it to organizations that were important to him and then I decided that I would build a greenhouse with the rest, something that would be a living memorial to him.  That is what is in This Space.

It has been a long process.  First deciding that a greenhouse is what I wanted to do.  Then the research process.  And finally getting to the building process, which required a zoning hearing in our city.  Three years later, we are on our way.  It all still feels strange to me, but I am confident that dad would approve.  I trust that he will watch over me and keep me from over-watering, under watering, and letting his plants become root bound.  Hopefully all of the plants will thrive in their new home.

Our hope is that the entire project will be done before Christmas.

Here is where we are until phase two, the actually glass, begins.

Thank you for joining us on this journey!

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