Welcome to our tree family

We added a new tree in October and we now have 3 more to go with it! I took advantage of a sale at our local nursery and the shrinking window of our area's planting season to quickly cross a few trees off our gardening to-do list. We saved a bit by having 3 delivered at once but then spent that and more to have them planted for us - they were too big we knew we wouldn't be able to easily do it ourselves. And so I'd like to introduce you to our new cast of deciduous characters:

The Sioux Crepe myrtle, which has beautiful bright orange leaves right now and, we hope, will have cotton candy pink flowers all summer. Plus gorgeous peeling bark.

The only problem with this one is that we wanted it installed where our old oak tree was but apparently after over two years and with the stump chipped down to nothing, there were still large roots. So the planter, with our begrudging approval over the phone, have to move it much farther down than we wanted.

 Which means it is directly under the power lines....Ugh.

We hope to find time (yeah right...) to hack the root up and move it back closer to the corner of the sidewalk before it gets too big.

Tree number two: October Glory Red Maple:

 Keeps its leaves a beautiful autumn color late into the year. As, indeed, it does:

Right now it is super close to the hawthorn, which we plan to dig up and move closer in to the left side of the house to mirror the cherry tree on the right.

And finally, a Burgundy Bell Maple:

Planted in the back of the house near a small, dying tree that we plan to chop down and which will hopefully one day grow up to be a good shade tree.

As you probably guessed from this post, these trees sort of represent the start of having to do *more* work in the yard. Our neighbor, a landscaping expert, gave us some inspiration and we ran with it. At least in theory. We're not exactly sure when we will get around to it but at least we have a bit of a plan.

And the dryer follows

A few days after our washer arrived, the dryer made an appearance. They were supposed to arrive at the same time but a day or two after we ordered our set fro Home Depot, we got a call from LG HQ to say that we had accidentally ordered a mis-matched set. Clicking through from thewirecutter (might as well support them by clicking through) was for the LG 7.4 cu feet dryer with steam, ENERGY STAR with an Energy Star rating. The trim around the door is light silver. 

The washing machine had darker trim, making this other LG 7.4 cu feet dryer with steam dryer, which cost $50 more, a better match.

D had a split second on the phone to decide what to do, and went with the closer match so they would look better beside each other. Unfortunately, we didn't realize the new one is not ENERGY STAR rated and therefore not eligible for a rebate, costing even more in real cost than the extra $50 (and also presumably using more energy). After reading the manual (which is the same for both), it is missing a button that turns on a more energy-saving drying. Otherwise they literally are identical, so I have no idea why they bother selling both models at all (and why ours was more expensive just for darker trim).

Anyway, that switch meant the dryer delivery was delayed so that's why it made its grand appearance a few days later. When they installed it, D did a quick sweep up the dryer vent as far as he could reach with a duster (but just to the first bend and without the whole snake contraption). The install took about 2 minutes. Here they are together.

Nothing much to say about it. The drum has a light (which, for some reason, photographs very strangely even though to the eye, the white balance for both lights is about the same). I haven't played with any of the steam settings yet, so basically the only thing to say about it is "yup, it dries."

The washer is dead, long live the washer

After two previous near-death experiences that would probably have cause most people to replace it, our washing machine became gravely ill again a couple of weeks ago. It wasn't technically dead, just agitating very poorly. We decided it was finally time to invest in a new one. D made a strong argument for a front loader despite my vow to never give up on top-loading. As almost always happens when we want to invest in an electronic, we turned to the wirecutter's recommendations (which also explained why top loaders are less than ideal as front-load technology has become so much better). We decided their reasoning was sound and proceeded to order the recommended pair, the eloquently named LG WM3770HWA and its mate. There was a complication over the drier (more on that later), staggering our delivery dates a bit. So for one weekend, we went from this:

 to this:

There are lots of fancy shmancy settings that, even after reading the manual, I have no idea how to use (seriously, I cannot figure out the difference between "extra rinse" and "rinse and spin" and still don't really know when to use the various sanitary/steam/"allergiene (TM)"settings. But it has lots of overrides so I can get exactly what I want, has a "cold" wash that adds extra time but is more energy efficient and equally as cleaning, and has its own water heater so that we can actually, for once, wash our cloth diapers in actual hot water (our old washer could only use the temperature out of the water heater, which for safety reasons we leave at 120 degrees). It spins out much more water than our old washer, which means things are almost dry before they ever touch the dryer. It's energy star too, which is good for saving power and also for the rebates we're eligible to claim.

One annoying negative is that the door opens with the hinges on the left, which is not changeable. It blocks the way to the dryer. The hoses are too short to switch the order (i.e. move the washer to the left). The only solution we've come up with is to buy another laundry basket, move the wet clothes to the basket, then drag it over and load from the basket into the dryer. I'm sure we'll get used to it, but it's pretty irritating.

The big win is the surprise at the bottom. I knew I wanted to put the unit on pedestals because the added height makes it a little easier to load/unload. For only $100 more than the cost of the pedestal, thanks to a sale, I got a "sidekick." It's a tiny washer under the big washer. It uses its own water and settings, so I can run a hot load above while running a cold load below (or just a load below - it doesn't need the top to be on in order to run). I have no idea if it will be worth it in the long run, but the novelty right now is huge. So far I've cautiously upped the ante on what I've tested, even venturing to some hand knits that I would never mix with regular laundry. This might save me from having to hand wash as much as I do now. I also plan to try it on cloth diapers for those times we have one or two and don't want to wait until we have a full load (like this morning when I discovered last night's diaper up in the girls' room after we did the full cloth diaper load last night). D's extra muddy bike clothes will also get the sidekick treatment.

I had planned to write this post up on Saturday, not Monday, so there would be more suspense before the dryer arrived but...

Stay tuned as I put it through its paces.