Dispatch 7: Raising the Roof

Featured in this morning's island Newsday, read outside the Doubles Man's shack: a story about striking nurses who, in an attempt to force higher wages, released a bunch of frogs in the local hospital. ("Hoppin' Mad Nurses," was the headline.)

Last night's short trip to the site revealed a couple of problems, one with the roof plan and one with the drip system. As a result of the first, Mark, Roopchand, Candi and Nick worked until bedtime sawing and fashioning 45 metal clamps out of aluminum and bolts. As a result of the second, Carter spent this morning digging a four-foot-round hole five-feet deep in the hard clay.

The check valve the team had planned to install to prevent unwanted dripping from the raised cisterns hadn't worked, he explained. Without it, the current set-up resembled a siphon, which would drain the tanks in a few days. The solution was to eliminate gravity by placing the lead tank down at sprinkler level, and depending completely on the pumps. That meant putting two thirds of the tank below ground.

So Carter put his back into it. Meanwhile, the rest of the crew attacked the roof, a hot job on a cloudless day. A layer of plastic under a layer of shade cloth would cut the sun's penetration by over half. Combined with the misting and drip, this open shaded area would theoretically be cool enough for tender plants and still sunny enough for them to grow. Using a similar set-up (albeit indoors) in University Park, Carter, the greenhouse master, has achieved 90 percent rooting success. By comparison, the practice at the station at La Reunion, which closes the plants in tight bins to retain moisture and relies on much heavier shade to keep things cool, loses 40 percent of its cuttings.

By noon, the front half of the greenhouse was covered. The second half would go quicker, Roopchand said, since the first was training. That turned out to be wishful thinking. Still, by 4:00 the roof was finished. Sun-dried and exhausted, the whole crew headed for the beach.