by Karen Bledsoe

Created on: February 23, 2011   Last Updated: February 25, 2011

You wouldn't think that it would be easy to wrap a cold frame, but somehow my husband managed it one Christmas. Well, it was a kit to be accurate. Out of the box that I unwrapped and opened slid a lovely redwood frame to be assembled around lights made of transparent corrugated plastic. Hoorah! My gardening heart went pitter-pat as I thought of all the overwintered vegetables and early spring transplants that I could shelter under the lid of the beautiful frame.

Along with the cold frame came the real piece de resistance: a temperature-controlled automatic frame opener! No worrying about opening or closing the lid of the frame, no sir! The automatic device would respond to every change in temperature, opening the lid on sunny days, closing it on cool ones.

Assembling the frame was no problem, at least not after applying a power drill to pre-drill the holes for the screws. Nor was applying a coat of tung oil to keep the redwood in good condition.

Then came the vent opener.

Nestled in their foam tray, the parts looked like some kind of high-tech assault weapon as they lay there, gleaming malevolently. Gingerly, I picked up the instructions. The scanty instructions, that is, printed in tiny type on tissue paper in multiple languages and only vaguely comprehensible in any of them. The blurry illustrations looked a little like the strange devices in the box, or maybe like their second cousins twice removed. Without an illustrated parts list, I could only guess at which numbered bit was being called for in each step of the instructions.

Come now, I thought. Here I am with a lifetime of gardening and multiple college degrees behind me. I teach my biology students concepts far more complex than assembling a cold frame. Surely I can handle this.

The vent opener had other ideas. Once assembled, it took on a life of its own, giving my fingers a vicious snap every time I tried to force it into place under the cold frame lid. With its temperature-sensitive cylinder in place, nothing would make infernal device stay shut long enough to get the screws in place to hold it and the cold frame lid together.

After multiple tries and multiple trips to the bathroom for bandages, I gave up. I didn't exactly throw the devil's own device across the room. Not quite. It bounced off the sofa on the way there, ricocheted off the cat tower, and careened into the kitchen quite on its own. Really. That's my story and I'm sticking to it.

Once it was forced back into its box, I put the device aside,

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