Sue, You'll love Ft Payne and it's beautiful, wild areas. I am from Guntersville originally. I do not know a realtor in that city, but my daughter is a realtor in Huntsville (about 45 miles away). She could possibly help you find someone there if you aren't having any luck on your own. BTW, if you are around in mid-April, the Huntsville Botanical Garden has a plant sale every year. If not, do visit the garden sometime and meet some great new garden friends. They are expanding the children's area beginning this year and have a butterfly house that is just lovely. There are still a lot of German-heritage families in the Huntsville area, mostly from the old Von Braun rocket team days. You will also find a couple of good German restaurants in case you get homesick for German food. As for dog ticks, one of the good monthly pills that combat fleas and ticks will help prevent ticks on your dog, but it will still be a good idea to check now and then in the summer anyway. Sentinel is a good all-purpose treatment in pill form (it also has the heartworm med included). We keep our dog on it, but occasionally will still find a tick, especially near the back of her neck or on her rump. Remove with tweezers & destroy. Some of the spray-on repellents such as Off or Cutter's work pretty well for ticks, but my husband and I still take off our work clothes in the garage or utility room and immediately put in the washer after working outside. We are in the country and occasionally find that one has hitch-hiked into the house with us on our clothes or shoes. Best of luck during the move, and please let any of us know if you need more help. Elaine

my property is a Certified Wildlife habitat .The NWF was fun to fill out and I have found the wildlife add so much to my yard. So I got the info online for the FLORIDA Wildlife habitat and Never did finish the paperwork.It is very detailed I guees what threw me was the graph paper they wanted me to use to place EVERY tree on my property. I once counted 100 sabal Palms and 75 oaks not to mention all the others. That I must say, did me in.LOL!

I hear ya about the irony. Native....or non-native when the native animal/insect population is drawn to them equally. Last spring I bought a small (12 inches tall!) wafer ash (Ptelea trifoliata) at a wildflower sale to attract giant swallowtail caterpillars one day. Well, one momma GST did find my wafer ash and soon I had 6 ravenous caterpillars. GST caterpillars feed on plants in the Rutaceae family which, when it comes to natives, would include prickly ash and wafer ash....both trees that are impossible to find at any local nursery. Prickly ash is probably something most homeowners remove anyway. So how on earth do those butterflies manage to stay alive in the midwest? They will eat citrus leaves (a tropical....not something you would find in the midwest...although Poncirus trifoliata survives in this zone). They will eat rue...an herb from Europe! Luckily I had a hardy orange for them to chomp on when they ate all the leaves off the wafer ash. But then they disappeared....I'm thinking a 'possum got them overnight or something. :-/ They had been wandering off once the wafer ash was leafless but they were very easy to find when I looked for them and then put them back on the hardy orange. Cycle of life, I guess. But it is ironic that sometimes the non-native plants are the ones that keep the natives going. What I learned...I'm buying more wafer ash for next year since apparently, it is very delicious to GSTs but I am also going to plant rue even though it's not a native because it is a good food source backup for butterflies. Nothing is cut and dry, you know?

Yah, I would have them evicted ASAP, and then barricaded from your home. Not good to have wild animals with their potential toxic dung, fleas, diseases, etc around a small child. We have so many deer in this area that all the local pets have to be innoculated for Lyme disease besides all the other stuff. Animal control will do the job for you in most areas. Pondy