Raising the Roof

But first I forgot to tell you about the fish tank. After you get inside the high ceilinged rustic entrance at Bass Pro Shops and turn rightish you immediately see a reeely big waterfall. This drew me like a hooked stitch. Once I got closer I could see the faux rocks making the hill and between the rock walls was a huge aquarium filled with lake and stream fish. They were large fish too.  Jim pointed the various species out to me – salmon, perch, bass, catfish, muskie, pike, trout --all swimming around inside the hill. I could have stayed for quite a while mesmerized by their movements.


Back to the problem at hand.


So Jim and I took the box out of my car and then the heavy heavy black bag out of the box. A pocket held the instructions and the stakes. We then read all the instructions together. The page in English (other pages were in Spanish and French) had illustrations, were numbered and looked simple enough to follow.
1- We proceeded to remove the structural part from the bag and then the canopy itself that was attached to it. We placed the structure on the ground, and pulled on the ends as suggested.  

2- Then we moved to opposite sides of two sides and pulled again as instructed. This time it did not open as well as they said it would. But we got it open enough and then

3- put the canopy over as instructed with the middle over the high point and the ends secured.  

4- Next we got on opposite sides again and pulled but with little success. We tried holding it differently.  Nope. Finally we tried doing a scissor movement, which seemed to succeed. 

5- So now it was time to pull the corners into their locked position. This part was one of the stumbling blocks at the store.  HA! Major Ha! I nearly pulled my back out raising a corner into the lock. Finally Jim came over and held onto the leg while I lifted the top structure with great effort into its lock. I kept thinking—“Wait! How can my sister and I do this alone? This is taking way too much effort. We will never do this!”-- Jim kept insisting he could hold it to make it work and I kept saying that he wouldn’t be there so it had to work easier some other way. But-- we did it Jim’s way, finally getting the corners locked.  

6- Then, as instructed we secured the sides with the Velcro straps.

7- We went to opposite corners to telescope the legs up. Another HA! The canopy started falling one way and then another. The buttons were very stiff and therefore hard to press besides trying to hold up the whole thing while raising the legs. However, with much persistence the canopy was now all up.  whew!

I kept thinking, “This will not do. How can my sister ever help with this? She has a weak back. Oy vey.” So I suggested we not only take it all down but also put it all up again once more. Jim was not happy but did agree. Taking it down was not so hard. We started again quite soon.
Jim then suggested some modifications.

#4 - We used the scissor movement right away, which worked well.
#5 - Jim suggested we do each corner together but this time we did not secure the canopy to all 4 corners, only to one. This allowed the structure to move easier so locking up the corners went well.
#6 –We did not secure the side Velcro straps.
#7 - We went to adjacent corners and lifted the whole thing up quite easily. Then we moved to the other 2 adjacent corners and repeated the lifting. Now we secured the corners and sides of the canopy. And finally, easily lifted the legs up to a taller height for vending.


I definitely feel much better about this whole canopy thing now knowing my sister and I can do this together and probably still remain friends once it is up. VBG   Thanks for all your suggestions.

So do you think the person who wrote the instructions ever used them? Might they be a translation from Japanese or Chinese?

Onward to more list crossing outs.

rinse last batch of fiber and get it drying

start the packaging for shipping

make sample cards for a customer

make new vending signage for fiber and yarn

start packing the shop

do laundry

order fiber and yarn

finish the Twinkle sweater

make list for personal stuff