The construction of grave blankets is full steam ahead as we have discovered and cut Colorado blue spruce branches all day on Monday. The branches are of such good quality that it enables the speed up of production. Many scotch pine pillow and blanket forms are all ready made and only the decorations need attached. Next week Christmas trees will arrive from Southern Ohio and we plan to be set up by November 23rd as the trees must be untied, shaken and priced with the sizes of 8 feet and under stood up.
We found that weather window of at least 45ยบ F with minimal wind in which to bring poinsettias from the rear growing house to the greenhouse attached to the store. The cold temperatures have made it necessary to close the doors on the storage huts when normally we like them open in order for the moving air and air exchange to keep pressure from fungus organisms at bay as there is less moisture and humidity that would threaten the plants inside.
The last phase in our series of solar panel construction will be accomplished by the end of the year in order to take advantage of the full 30% tax credit. The 59 panel array will cover the entire east side of the store building in which the resulting kilowatt hours produced will be enough to slightly over produce the amount needed on one of the store meters. Then a whole new calculation will be made as to how many travel miles, tons of coal not burned and equivalent trees planted in order to give an idea of the carbon offset from the use of fossil fuels to provide energy. Our work is now done with the solar panel installation. Now the next feature to work on will be with natural gas used to heat the buildings and greenhouses.
Tom