Greetings Grow Appalachians! Holly, VISTA at Grow App HQ, sharing our most recent high tunnel build over at Lotts Creek Community School.

We left Berea bright and early Tuesday morning (or dark and early…this DST stuff is still kicking my tail!) and made the 2 hour drive to Lotts Creek, located about 10 miles outside of Hazard, right on the Perry/Knott County line. You could not have asked for a more perfect day- the weather was just perfect! We arrived at about 10 in the morning and got straight to work- myself, Mark, Dorothy, and Chris. Chris is our new high tunnel construction assistant; he’s a Berea grad and he’s been with us since last Monday. We are very, very fortunate to have him- he has already been a great asset to Grow so far!

Yours truly drove in ground posts on one side. Let me tell you…I’ve been on quite a few builds now, and THEY MAKE IT LOOK EASY! That 8 pound sledgehammer feels like 800 pounds when you get halfway down! It’s two days later as I write this and I’m STILL sore!

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Girl power!

The morning passed uneventfully enough, with the occasional distraction of fighter jets roaring overhead. And the peepers were out in full force; what a wonderful sound! Later in the afternoon, we had a couple of volunteers for a short time, and then some after school kids came by to help pull plastic. You need as many hands as possible for that step, and it was great having so many extra hands to hold onto the plastic. The baseball coach asked me “What would you do if you didn’t have anyone else here?” I really didn’t have an answer! Ha! I imagine we would figure something out, but luckily, we’ve never had to worry about that.

I’d say that a highlight of the day was that towards the early evening, we got a bit of unplanned entertainment: a baseball game! Nothing says spring like America’s favorite pastime. Cordia was down by 2 when we left, so hopefully they rallied.

We are looking forward to all the goodies that will be coming from this tunnel! Perhaps by the start of next week I’ll be back to full range of motion. Have a great weekend, everyone!