Around 7:30 a few mornings ago my idyllic “me” time was interrupted by a familiar sound of summer—the roar of rideable lawn mowers in the neighbor’s yard. Could it be that on March 11th it is that time again? We’ve had such warm days as of late and with daylight savings time providing us with an additional hour of daylight, I almost feel like I should start prepping and planting my pots to add some color in the yard to offset the dusty brown grass of winter. But March in Denver is such a crapshoot—I’m sure in a few days we’ll get a blast of heavy, wet snow that could wipe out all my efforts.

There are a few things we all can do to get our growing spaces prepped for summer without feeling counterproductive should a storm come our way. Besides,

Jeremy and I have embarked on many a home improvement project, for better or worse. Actually, these projects have generally paid off. I remember when we redid our entire kitchen on Hudson Street in Cherry Point, finished off with terra cotta paint and greenish concrete counter tops—hard to picture, I know. Bold move, but, when we went to sell the house it was under contract in 2 days.

Anyway, on to the appliances, ah, the appliances. Brand new! All were running fine except the oven. When turned on to preheat, no one could be within 20 feet of it and have a conversation. It was so loud, like being on a runway motioning for an airplane to fit into its bay. You’d think with how loud it was, it would heat up in nanoseconds. Wrong. It took nearly 30