A Story In 3 Images

 Prior to the arrival of my friend, who was coming to stay with me and do a workshop for my students, I did manage to get the greenhouse close to done. The latched vent window was in, the door was mostly together, but not attached yet, and there was mainly some finishing work to do. Thus the largely complete-looking photo in the waning light of evening.

Then came the storm.

Admittedly things might have fared better had I bought and installed the right kind of anchor stakes, these were, however, not provided with the kit and the ones I had bought proved too thick to go through the holes in the base (the holes were tiny, in my defense). I had hoped that since it had a partial wind-break from the deck on the southwestern side that it would not get hit that badly. This was no normal storm though, it was the tail end of a tornado-spawning front and, while we did not get any actual warnings or watches, the wind was very fierce and sustained and thunderous, and I was awoken overnight by a loud noise which must have been the greenhouse going over.

On one hand it protected the garden supplies and ladder and some pieces of the greenhouse that I had put in there, and the weight of the ladder actually kept the structure from blowing away across the property. On the other hand the ladder tipped over when the building fell so it fell onto the interior of the center back panel, denting and deforming it significantly enough that I had to cut a slit in part of it in order to get it back into the framework and it's still not entirely flat and normal. There is now a tiny gap and I'll have to brainstorm a way to deal with that. It also tore off the vent window which went sailing away and had to be rescued in the morning (and no longer fits exactly securely).

Another unfortunate side effect of the tipping and the wind is that some of the fastenings likely ended up sunk into the mud (along with the wind we had a deluge of steady rain, flood warnings are still in effect), and one of the plastic pieces that was meant to form part of the door handle disappeared. Where the fastenings are concerned there were fortunately extras and I made use of every last bolt. The plastic piece ended up really screwing over the handle assembly though, so it doesn't turn and the door stays in place by way of being wedged rather than locking into place. I'm going to employ some adhered magnets to help with this.

You might also notice that there is now a board under the northern side of the greenhouse. I tried for the flattest piece of land I could reasonably use, but it still isn't actually flat. The board raises the side to level things out, and I'll pack down that side and fill in the gaps. On the northern side I'm planning on putting my in-ground plantings and large potted items. The opposite side will be shelves for seedling trays, since it gets the most light. The longer back wall will have the potting bench. There are now big, black anchors all around the perimeter of the building, and tomorrow I'll measure for the bench and shelves. I had hoped to be able to start planting seeds this weekend, but it's looking like that'll have to wait an extra week.