It may be more expense than you care to go to, but my oldest son is an avid hunter. He set up a camera and light with a motion sensor at one of his deer stands and captured some remarkable pictures. One of a bob cat, a Coyote stalking a rabbit that was eating under the feeder, deer, turkeys (at dawn) field rats, wild hogs, you name it. If you could determine the culprit responsible, it would definitely be a help in deciding how to proceed. Is there no tracks of other sign of any kind to give a clue. Can you rake the ground real smooth so that tracks would show up? It may take a really good fence around the garden to stop the problem. A couple of years ago, my brother had his two biggest watermellons just disappear out of the patch. He found them some distance away in high grass where Coyotes had taken them and chewed a hole in them. They were just pink. He put up one strand of electric wire around the patch and did not lose any more. I do not think that they would like tomato plants though. I think that they can be toxic to some things, and if not Deer would tend to think that the crows might be to blame. Keep us posted. Bill P.

Our town has 3 walmarts, two are SuperWM. I haven't been to one of them for some time, since I live smack inbetween the other two. One has a limited fabric section, and I've noticed that it's getting smaller and smaller, and being taken over more by the home decor section. The other one has a pretty good size area, still has plenty of patterns to chose from, and any time I go there, it's always got shoppers. The 3rd one (the 1st in town) had a better notions and craft area, but as I said, I haven't been there in a while. I DID notice that all of our WMs are going 'high end'. They're carrying more Pier One and Target style stuff, and the prices reflect that. WM used to be where you could buy cheap stuff, but now I find that I can go to Target and get better deals on NICER stuff. From my experience, it does no good whatsoever to write to WM and complain. They're the biggest retailer, they won't kowtow to the 'little guy'...and I don't think they look too much at their demographics. At least in my area, they're trying to bring in organic foods, and trendy stuff, but the people who can afford those things already go to the boutique shops or local grocery stores, they'd NEVER set foot in WM. And most of the WM shoppers don't have those kinds of 'sophisticated' tastes. (Do not mean to offend anyone, it's that my town is either high end or not...no middle ground!) Luckily for us here, we've got many choices for fabrics...2 Joannes, a half dozen quilt shops, a craft world with a huge fabric area, I could go on...and we're an hours drive from Portland, where you find even better deals. I also have a great local store for fabric right down the street, and it carries home decor fabric lengths and often has great sales. I am sorry for the folks that WM is the best choice for one-stop shopping, and the only real source for shopping...when they pull tricks like this. They must figure people will take what they can get when they're the monopoly in town.

I guess you could buy plaster at a craft store, they also sell it at HD or Lowes, but I only found it in ginormous bags. I bought the grout because I can use it on another project. I did two coats on my piece. I didn't sand between coats, but you could. When I finished the final coat, I sanded using 220 grit paper, and knocked off the paint on the high spots and edges. I then used just MinWax for waxing. I'd never used wax before, so it was different for me, but I did like the finish. I used a car wax pad! DH had some in the garage, so I used it. I don't know how long the paint would keep, I mixed up using only one cup at a time. The first coat had some left over, so I sealed it up in a plastic bag. It was literally freezing in the garage the day I painted, so the paint took a lot longer to dry than it should have. Once the first coat was dry enough for me to move the piece, I brought it inside and finished painting indoors. The 2nd coat dried sooo fast, but I let it sit over night before I sanded & waxed. I had a bit of paint left over, but just disposed of it like I would any latex paint, and I washed out my brush with no problems. It was a bit grainy, especially as it set up, but it also smoothed itself out a lot, and when knocked back with the sand paper, was no problem.

I'm not familiar with the BM paints either. My last house was a 'blue house' with blue tile, counter tops, etc. The walls were painted taupe when I bought it, but that was too dark. I had it painted a very light yellow color called 'Vanilla Cream'. It was sort of a French Vanilla with only a hint of yellow. It went really well with all of the blue. I don't recommend the Wal-Mart paint, but I do love that particular color. I had it color matched elsewhere. Something like this may/may not look good with your particular blue. It might be something that would work.