Coming out of hibernation

Well, it's been a long winter, but the ground is workable again.  I spent about 10 hours in January getting rid of the last of the ornamental garden by the side of the house, mainly with a hand ax and some hedge clippers.  I know there are many more efficient ways of doing this, but with toddlers running about the yard, I can't really run power tools.  Anyway, it's done.  Still need to borrow a rototiller this weekend and just kind of mix everything up.   Then we need to fence it with chicken wire.  I'm planning on cutting down several of the Red Alder trees that have sprouted up in our yard to make fence posts.  I figure if they are going to grow in my yard, I might as well use them for something.

It's a heat wave

In case anyone hasn't read the news lately, the sun has apparently settled directly over the Pacific Northwest and normally mild, 85-90 degree summers are now a boiling 100-105 degrees with some reports predicting 107 in Portland.

We don't have AC...or I should say we didn't have AC until about 10am this morning when we finally gave in, went to Standard TV and Appliance and offered our first born for a window AC unit.

Fortunately for Max, they refused, preferring instead to empty our bank account.

Whatever, it's not 100 degrees in the house.


In other news, I harvested our pathetic little red onion crop two days ago. Next time I will plant them were the dog can't trample on them.

Summer is here!

I finally got around to planting most of the plants that were hanging out in our kitchen window, including the pumpkin. I'm really hoping the dog doesn't trample it, because Max is really proud his pumpkin grew so well in the plastic cup from kindergarten.

I'm giving our onions a 50/50 chance of making it to the end of the season.


We also released 1500 ladybugs into the garden, to eat whatever has been eating my precious potato plants. The next morning they were still there, so that's a good sign.

Here are some ladybugs on my tomato plant.