Hi.   If you're here, you probably know me.  And if you know me, at one point you've met my Mom, Lynnea.

And if you know my mom, you know she's practically part Hobbit. :)

What I want to do is build her a 12-14' x 8' greenhouse / sunroom attachment to her house.  

Those of you who've been to mom's house, I want to build off the diningroom, where that big window is between the kitchen and her livingroom. a nice set of french doors to paradise. 

She could put her big plants in it and free up space in her livingroom.  She could plant a small garden in there in the winter to feed herself and others with it.  She could wake up in the morning, make tea, and sit in her warm, comfortable green house surrounded by plants and her birds, maybe a small pond, and probably a cat on her lap.  

Imagine her having tea with a friend or two, or teaching her grandbabies how to grow things in it!

The very idea makes me grin.

I want mom to be happy and content, and I think a little greenhouse would be a great step towards that (especially if she didn't have to trudge through ice and snow to get to it in the winter! hahaha) It gets so cold and desolate here in the winter, imagine the good a greenhouse would do against that whole seasonal depression thing!  Green and growing things over ice and snow, any day!

(and it would cut the shovelling down a LOT in the winter. She's got a 70 foot driveway!!!  Yech!)

It would be a step towards sustainability for sure, might inspire others in her neighbourhood to do the same!  

Now, my reasoning for it is this:  Mom deserves it.

She's a kind and generous woman, humble to a fault, raised 2 kids on her own, worked all her life, put up with all sorts of crap with a sad little smile, takes great care of her grandbabies, hell, she takes care of her kids still and we're in our late 30's and 40's!!  She takes care of seniors, recycles, composts, feeds people, grows things, creates things. She was and is a mother to so many of our friends, offered an ear,  shelter and food to them when they needed it, and never asks for anything in return but the respect she deserves and so often is denied. 

I know a few of you have been reading this and nodding.

And nearly nothing makes mom so happy as when she's elbow deep in dirt. 

So, for me, this is my way of giving something back to her. I realize how much I've taken in my life and I want to give back a bit, but I can't do it alone, I'm not rich (though that would be cool, but i'd build her a greenhouse the size of hobbiton and get her a jacuzzi hahaha), but with a little help, we could get started on it.

I've been looking at designs for northern climates, irrigation and insulation, etc etc, and it is not only possible, but these days, with the way the climate is and food prices and all that, almost a neccesity. 

She's always wanted a pond for fish, so I want to give her that. She's got that huge 4 foot pine in her livingroom, lets give it a new home and her livingroom more space for humans (haha).  Lets get her a couple of soft wooden benches and a table for her and her company to sit and nibble and chat, or for her to just shut her eyes and meditate and listen to her birds, or knit and be surrounded by green. 

I wanted it to be a surprise but you know mom, she knows everything, so I can't 'kick' her out of the house and have her come home to a surprise greenhouse (that would have been awesome though, right?)  But this way is good too, she knows, and if she knows she can have input into design, like, dark wood or light, where to put her schefflera, how big her koi pond should be, how high or low to put the openable windows for easy access, if she wants solar power panels on the top... Give her some control in the design but at the same time, make sure she doesn't stress about it.  She wants it, it's done for her, not left for her to do.

Let her grow things in the dead of winter, and have a sunny warm green place without mosquitos (essential! hahaha) to relax in the summer. Something low maintenance and self-sustaining. (unlike me ha ha ha)

I ask any of you who have met my mom, or heard of her, and been affected by how awesome she can be, to pitch in a few bucks. Five, ten, a hundred, whatever, and lets get this thing built.  Cause my mom deserves it. 

My goal was initially to get this built in time for her next birthday, October 2017, but if the funds come in earlier, why wait?  Why wait for a special occasion to give her something? (she always said that about the holidays, why wait for one time of year to give to people you love)   But yeah, if we raise enough funds, let's get it built earlier!  (Probably Spring, as building ANYTHING in Saskatchewan in winter is not only folly, but miserably cold hahaha)  

Lets do this!  

(if we don't raise enough funds for a full on side-attachment to her house (with supplimental funds by me) by Mid-September 2017, we can build a small one in her yard, or even just get a LOT of topsoil for her and some solar panels. Anything to help her try to be more environmentally groovy. No matter what, funds WILL go towards making mom's house more sustainable and green, which makes her happy)

Once the build starts, I'll do pics and progress reports, and later, pics of mom chilling in her greenhouse, hopefully with a gigantic grin and at least one of her grandbabies or a cat :)  Just so we can see what we did. 

I don't have any 'incentives' to give, besides the feeling of doing something awesome for someone else... but what I CAN do is metal stamping.  

I'm thinking, for people who donate $50 or more, I'll stamp your name and/or a small message into a metal tag and have it attached to something in the greenhouse, so Mom can how many people love her whenever she goes in there.  So when you donate, let me know what you want on the tag :)