Hi there,,well, the only time I have to worry about anything getting my chickens is at night, but they are closed up in there coops very securely so nothing can get in. I have 3 dogs and 2 big cats. None of them bother the chickens at all. It depends on your pets. Mine have been around them for about 6 or 7 years. You can also keep them penned up around their coop if you don't want them to free range. I do not feed them organically anymore due to the high prices of the feed. I buy regular chicken feed but I also give them watermelon, yogurt, peas, corn, black sunflower seeds, berries, scraps from the kitchen, etc. My chickens stay in the yard, they don't wander off into the woods or anything. They even stay out of the road. They dont travel like Guinea hens do. Guinea hens will travel up to 1/4 mile away from home. I lost all 10 of mine in one season. If you go on the "farmlife" forum, there are alot of people over there who own chickens and have good ideas.

I am so happy to see your pictures again! I was here back then, but mostly lurking, which I still do a lot because I am not very good about id-ing my plants since the dogs destroyed my labels and I gave up There are a few I know the names of, but not too many. You were one of my secret mentors when I started my hosta planting! I am sorry your 'When I Dream' was a disappointment, but there is so much to love about your gardens! Thank you for that!!!

I did take the African tour. Haha I cant believe the guide played along with that, that's pretty funny. Im sure they wait all day to say something like that! The trees your thinking of are Baobab trees and all the info about them are true. At the size they are in Animal Kingdom, they are sometimes up to 1000 years old. They also lose their leaves for much of the year and then for a short period of time make lots of leaves and blooms during the short wet season. The trees could probably survive in Florida (There are some in Fairchild Tropical Garden in Miami which stays green for most of the year since Florida is wet most of the year and then loses it's leaves in the winter when Florida gets very little rain), but they would never get to the size that Disney needs them to be to make it look like Africa so they did some "imagineering" and created the trees with concrete. That whole area was completely flat land before Animal Kingdom, they added truck loads and truck loads of dirt daily for much of the construction time in Animal Kingdom in order to give the landscape enough dynamics to pull off the African look. Disney World is a pretty impressive place for sure with lots of great plats! -Alex

Oooh, I like your garden! If you upload your photo through GW's Hortiplex, you can only do one image per post. If you want to include multiple photos, you need to get a free account at a place like Photobucket.com. Follow its easy instructions on how to upload them to your Photobucket library. Than, to post the pic over here at GW, click on the HTML CODE for the pic at Photobucket (make sure it is the HTML CODE)--that will "copy" the needed info. Come over here to the GW message box and "paste" the image in the box. Click on "preview," and you will see the image. You can type before and after the image; or click a couple times to move down the page and paste in the message box another pic --or as many pics as you want, both before and/or after the pics already pasted in the message box. Hope that helps. Look forward to seeing more pics of your garden! Kate