bella rosa, Thanks again. This garden IS in the NW side. It is very much settled. All I have been doing for the past several years is cleaning up a few times a year and thinning out overgrown plants and getting rid of old, tired looking ones. Many sun loving plants along the fence have died or are struggling because my next door neighbor on the south has extended the house upward and backward as well as built a 6-ft. solid fence on the property line effectively cutting off sunlight to that side of my garden. I have planted more shade loving plants in their place. In 2014-2015, I splurged on Double Bloodroot. I can't wait to see how many will come up this spring. I have not done much winter sowing anymore, because I have no more room for new plants and I am traveling more and more in winter months. pugetsoundgardener, Today Eranthis and Snowdrops are blooming in my garden. In fact, Snowdrops started to show up in late January. Soon, miniature Iris and Schilla will show as well as early Narcissus. I am positive that in your climate you can achieve year-round blooming readily. From now on, something new will come up every few days and let the blooming season begin.

nhsuzanne, I am in Central WI. I am attaching a link to some info on blowflies. I think the flies look just like a normal large fly but they lay their eggs in a birds nest and then the larva feed on the baby birds during the nighttime and go down into the nest during the day. They say around 10 larva per baby bird in the nest is ok and won't normally kill the birds but if you get more than that it can. Last year when I did my nest change there had been 3 blues babies and I found over 60 blowfly larva, it was disgusting but since it was a top opening box I never saw any of them until it was too late and we lost two of the babies. The one remaining one was fine after the nestchange and fledged on its own and I got to watch it turn into its adult colors. She was quite the character. This year of three blues nests that I cleaned out one had a few (maybe 5-10) blowfly larva in it, one had absoultely none and one was full of them all the babies fledged fine from all three boxes. These three boxes were all in about a 1/2 - 3/4 mile radius too. You just never know so now I am always leary about top opening boxes. I looked and looked every day in the top opening box by our house that had blues, I hated bothering them every day but I would have hated it worse if they died because I didn't look. I have some boxes in my yard close to the house (35+ feet away) and some much further away. I take a clipboard with a notebook and have a page for each box that I write notes in when I monitor the houses. It is good to keep notes, that way you can't forget something. As Bluebars said the Blues will build a new nest over an old one but it is much safer for them to have a clean box each time. I clean mine out the day after or the day of fledging. There is load of info on the sialis site which is in the link for the blowflies. I have read lots and lots on there. Great info!! Donna Here is a link that might be useful: Blowfly info

UGH! No there is not 3 dishwashers! Sorry! At one point when trying to be practical and when worried about our unconventional dining room idea, I asked the KD to try to squeeze in a 2nd dishwasher on the crowded sink wall to see if it was an option - and I didn�t realize the elevations still shows that version. Sorry! One dishwasher to left of sink and trash on the right. (wanted to replace the picture link but not sure if I can do that after posting w/o messing up the original message) Thanks to everyone for their comments � greatly appreciated! Couple of responses/comments/questions: To be clear, I would use the DW in the kitchen if we have company. The dining room one would be for everyday use for us and like-family neighbors (and holiday overflow when needed) but if we are entertaining I would certainly pull the dirty dishes back into the kitchen. I don�t need to use the DR DW just because it is there ;) We would have a quiet garbage disposal and a under the sink trash can as to not give up a cabinet for trash. While I whole-heartedly agree with bmorepanic about moving the margarita ingredients closer to the booze! We were also concerned about the fridge being so far away from the dining area (although we will use the island seating a lot!) The thought process was not to have something so massive in that corner, the first thing you see as you enter the house. The currently planned glass from cabinets are to soften the transition (I hope). And to put it there would require making the entrance to the dining room smaller - we want to promote the flow into the dining room and to utilize that sliding door to the much-used screened in porch, since we are closing off the 2nd existing door from the kitchen. Also when people are "living" in sunroom/brick room before a meal, they may also be invited to cut through work zone to the fridge from that direction. There seems no perfect answer. That corner location was considered for wall ovens, but we felt it distracted from the focal point of the range � which we wanted to look nice from the octagon/sun room and brick room family room. The post is structural and cannot be moved. The aisle widths are 45" between range and island and I believe 48"-50" between sink and island. The 40" sink base is pulled forward. The island is already 48" wide to reach the post.with the 12" overhang for seating. I love the idea of more space in corner, which I guess I could easily have with a smaller range � but then no oven and half � or extend the wall and make the entrance to dining room smaller as discussed above. They are just opening that wall into the dining room today and field measure is Thursday, so I will see if we can move everything down a bit. I really would like to have a prep sink � for all the reasons everyone mentioned � can anyone suggested another location? As DesertSteph metions it is close to the seating area (that may already be a little tight) and I feel it is in a prime serving location. As for windows on either side the range, a nice idea but we are already limited in upper cabinets give the open flow of the room (we actually closed in a 6 foot sliding door to porch to allow for the range) so hopefully the light from the adjacent octagon/sun room will be enough. Any thoughts on a walk in pantry? What is the smallest width to make it worth while? If not add more 16" deep pantry cabinets? Thanks everyone.

WOW, I SURE DID MISS THIS BEFORE I WENT ON VACATION. Well I for one agree with Laura and the majority. This is totally stupid that you cannot pass an OT post. They are really the post that make us human and family. I have been to other sites strictly quilting some have not had a new post since 2 yrs ago. they got so technical people left. Go check out have many dead quilting forum there are. You should go to BLOCK CENTRAL they have hundreds of posts daily (DAILY) its a good mix of family , health, prayers, techiques and pictures. they have it all and have a good time doing it. There are swaps and games too. Its just too big for me. But I get involved there too great bunch of ladies. I like the cozy of OUR forum like Aunt NET said WORTS AND ALL. I like the pictures the best so we can ask how to do things if we do not know. This forum answered all my questions when I was new, and I try to answer back for the newbies but alot of times all I can do is welcome the new folks since the question was answered. I do Not always read everything on the forum I skip over alot. I do not do all the swaps but I have done the birthday and siggy blocks and loved every minute. The truly amazing thing here is: it more personal we care here in the corner of cyberspace. And for the person in the beginning of this thread who basically was here for info only and was not here for high school stuff, you could look it up in a book since you seem not to want human contact. We are like a quilting bee just getting to know each other...what is so wrong with that? No one hardly goes to the gallery to post pics cuz noone ever goes there to look at them. That's why they are in Disscusions. I vote to keep everything in one place like it is. That's how I am gonna do it. Nanci