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Don’t you just love a parade? The big kind with floats and bands and huge lumbering balloon characters? Of course, I’m thinking the big one, here – Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade.
Have you ever marveled at the folks who handle those huge balloons? Maybe you’ve never really thought about them much, but were engrossed instead in watching to see if Mickey Mouse would make it around the next corner without hitting the lamppost, or if Underdog’s paw would somehow manage to avoid patting the heads of the cheering Boy Scout troupe below. But on the other hand, maybe you’ve thought it might be neat to be one of those balloon handlers. (and just how does one come by that job, anyway?)
Well, have no fear – a solution is here. Next time you’re feeling like being a balloon handler, contact your local farmer sometime. Better yet – contact this local farmer. I’d be pleased to give you one of those balloon-handling ropes. Our balloon is not as colorful or fancy as Garfield, but we can provide you that much sought-after experience, complete with an audience.
Our balloon handling experience began in the spring of 2007 when we were building our new greenhouse. It was a new experience for us and involved lots of learning and mistake-making (and the subsequent mistake-fixing). Just getting the structure ready to cover with plastic was a challenge enough, and will require its own story. Here, of course, we are focusing on parade balloons, which is what the plastic covering of the greenhouse was to become before we got the job done.
Imagine a large piece of plastic. No – larger than that. Mmmm – maybe a bit larger still. Ok, a 50 ft. by 50 ft. piece. This is rolled out on the ground alongside the 15-foot high metal whale-rib structure of the greenhouse. The question is, how the heck do we get this plastic over that whale?
The first step is to get a series of ropes up and over the structure, which is best performed by someone with good archery skills, like Robin Hood. Lacking him, however, we had to make do with a rock and a lot of pitching practice.
Next, enter our high-tech solution (and this comes straight from the greenhouse engineering geniuses) – several balls of crumpled-up newspaper. This gets so technical here that I’m reticent to describe it in detail, lest I pass along some sort of patented trade secret. Suffice to say, we get the plastic, newspapers and ropes connected, and then the fun begins.
After waiting for a calm day and roping in a few unsuspecting balloon handlers (or in our case that year, grabbing a couple of employees), we set to work.
Now, it is my opinion that a ‘calm day’ is a definition open to interpretation. After waiting through the frigid and windy months of January and February, we were feeling anxious to get this job done. The greenhouse needed to be functional in March, so by the end of February it was becoming imperative that the darned plastic get on it. Heating a greenhouse to grow plants would be mighty difficult without sides or a top.
So Ike determined that ‘Wednesday’ was to be the day, gosh darn-it, before the next winter storm was supposed to hit. The weather guys were all talking calm weather conditions. Evidently those weather guys have never handled a Macy’s Thanksgiving Day balloon.
As the four of us heaved and hauled that huge piece of plastic up and over the metal greenhouse skeleton, a wind kicked up. And by wind I mean a breeze that would be unlikely to stir a bit of fluff off the top of your head. But to that huge piece of plastic, it was a gale-forced hurricane howl of a wind.
Two of us spent the next two hours holding on to various parts of the plastic (now masquerading as a sail for a tall ship), while the other two tried to not only attach it to the frame of the greenhouse, but make sure that it was ‘square’ in the process. In this case ‘square’ refers to the state of the plastic covering the whole greenhouse without having some goofy crooked spot left over without any covering.
All of this was bad enough as the force of that plastic trying to sail away to the next county was making my shoulders feel as if they would pop out of their sockets. But on top of feeling crucified, we also had an audience to witness our folly. Our new farm is located right on a pretty-darned busy road, which at rush hour is nearly bumper-to-bumper with traffic. What fun those drivers-by must have had watching us deal with this wanna-be balloon. Some of them must have been wondering why we had this pale grey version, however, when there much more entertaining shapes and colors to be had – like Snoopy.
We finally managed to get the darned thing secure, thankfully. And it was even fairly ‘square’, as long as you ignore that one little wrinkle in it. However – and here’s something maybe you didn’t know about greenhouses – they need TWO layers of plastic! Arrgghh!!
Fortunately, the next morning was a calm one by our newly educated definition.
You may think that this means we don’t need the help of more wanna-be balloon handlers. Don’t fret however, I’ll take your application for the job. We need to replace all that plastic in every few years, and I have a feeling that our original balloon handlers would rather be watching the festivities next time around (preferably from the comfort of their own homes).
Send your applications to Lisa@northstarorchard.com; we’ll be replaying the above fun and games this coming fall!
