Cold Bright Spring Days with the Littles who can manage themselves - FINALLY!

Remember how i told you that recently something shifted with my little ones? I finally feel like I can take them places or do my own activities with them puttering beside me and I don't have to monitor them every single second.

I honestly don't know how I managed to put in a garden last year as well as teach a few beginning gardening classes with my crazy, dirt-eating 1 year old daughter in tow. I do know that I often reserved working in the garden for early (early!) mornings, nap times, and after bedtimes because I just couldn't trust the Littles to not pull up all the plants - to not eat dirt - to not step in that one random stray piece of poop that didn't get picked up.

But now - oh glorious now - I can actually work in the garden. The past two days here in western Oregon have been bright, sunny and cool. You should smell the air - it honestly smells like spring if spring had a smell. I put the awesome upcycled T-shirt leggings I made for Lane on her (click the link - the easiest leggings EVER, I don't know if I'll ever buy a pair of leggings again!) and gave a shovel and pail to each of the Littles with instructions (that they actually followed!) to only dig in the large bed of dirt. 

 Oh my goodness - did they have a blast!

While they worked, I managed to dig out a trench by my Raspberry Bushes (Yeah!) and make plans for a hedgerow wire trellis to contain them. (high hopes of getting that built in by next week!)

We already have ladybugs doing their work on the raspberries! Here's hoping for no aphids this year.

I finished off each container blueberry plant with a healthy topping of used coffee grounds, peat moss, compost, and some blood meal.

I planted the salad garden with mesclun mix and argula.

Put in more beets and Romaine lettuce in the hoop house (since I'm hoping to avoid flying insects laying eggs on them)

The spinach, cilantro, and parsley bed

Last but not least, my dicentria (bleeding hearts) have all sprouted and ready to go for a beautiful spring/summer show~

So my spring garden is officially planted. On a side note, a girlfriend of mine commented that she would love to have a garden but her yard is mostly shaded. While it is difficult to grow edibles in a shady yard, some of my most favorite perennials in the world are shade plants. I'll look forward to sharing them with you in a bit. Until then, hope your spring is looking and smelling as beautiful as mine~

Want to know where I get a ton of inspiration and ideas? Check out An Oregon Cottage's Tuesday Garden Party!

Lessons in appliance buying

Here we go - mad ravings of a middle class white housewife in America - so get ready.

NOW......if you know me in real life, then you know that our family has been through many many oh so many appliances in the past two years. I almost think it comical that we have had to replace our dishwasher twice, refrigerator, range, microwave, washing machine, garbage disposal and three blenders. What can I say, we actually live in our house and use our stuff!
Because so many of our appliances have broken down, I've become quite familiar with several appliance repairmen who have all told me to REPLACE the appliances rather than repair them. My neighbor even jokingly texted me, "If I didn't know any better, I would think you had a thing for appliance repairmen!"

So please learn from me - let me pass my infinite knowledge onto you. Actually over $4000 worth of knowledge as I have had to pay for several repair calls and then the new appliances after the repair calls.

here's what I learned:

Don't buy anything Frigidaire! It is the worst of the appliance world. I was convinced to buy TWO new Frigidaire appliances and this is one of them- an electric convection oven with stove top. It has several design flaws. By the way, I love the convection feature! But I dislike several other features.



I was convinced by an appliance sales to buy the new Frigidaire Gallery series dishwasher. Apparently Electrolux owns Frigidaire so if you buy Frigidaire you are really buying Electrolux. NO NO NO! Our new dishwasher broke three times within the first year (which luckily was covered by warranty) and then it died for good two years later.

Buy Whirlpool! I have a new Duet washer and it works great!

Buy Whirlpool! I this new Whirlpool Gold dishwasher and four different sources said that Whirlpool appliances are the way to go.

We bought this Samsung fridge a year ago. It has broken four times and was finally replaced by Sears because they couldn't figure out how to fix it (this was after two months of weekly repairs!) Don't buy Samsung

LG microwave: Jury still out. It is still working and no design flaws, but the repairman told me that LG isn't great.

CONCLUSION:

Whirlpool and Bosch are the two best appliance brands. And if you want something to be road-tested for durability, my family is available to break it for you!