I am with you, John. I think we need to focus on what we have and embrace a new beginning. Sometimes we accept what we have received and forget there are other plants and trees to be appreciated and tried. I also would like to start thinking about garden swaps, etc. It does not matter what the garden looks like for the swaps but the friendship an aharing and assisting one another with regrowth and unity. Thanks for your post. Linda

Auther, In my garden, we have two types of voles. We have meadow voles that come in from the adjacent grasslands that surround us for miles around, and then we have the pine voles that live in the forested areas along the Red River and along all the creeks. The meadow voles seem to eat above-ground, and often they seem to nibble their way around the plant and pretty much sever it, just above ground most of the time, by girdling the plant. The bobcats that often appeared in our veggie gardens must have been controlling them pretty well because after we put up the 8' tall fence to keep out the deer, there no longer were any bobcats in the garden and the meadow vole population started getting out of control. Our pet cats stalk them and kill them, but the cats are inside more than they are outside so they cannot keep the rapidly-breeding voles totally under control. The pine voles live in our woodland (about 10 acres of our place is dense woodland) and they travel underground. I started finding their tunnels and holes in our veggie garden during the horrific drought year of 2011. I assume that prior to that they must have been pretty well-fed in the woods and didn't bother venturing up to the area where we have our house and other structures, lawn and garden areas. They seem to mostly devour things underground. They will eat away at the roots of a plant underground, and our first clue that they had invaded the back garden last year was when I went back there one morning and found a 4-year-old fig tree tilted at a crazy angle. As soon as I saw it, I knew in my heart the pine voles had eaten all its roots. I had kept that fig tree in a container from the time I purchased it in 2011 and had finally put it in the ground in May 2013. When I went into the garden and reached the fig tree, I grasped the trunk and gave it a gentle tug so I could guesstimate how bad the damage was....and it was bad. The entire tree came up in my hand and had only a couple of roots left and they were 3 or 4" long. I took the tree up to the barn, got a molasses feed tub (which was about the size of a half whiskey-barrel type planter), filled it with a soil-less growing mix, planted the remains of the fig tree into the mix, watered it in well, and then pruned the tree back to about a foot in height. I really didn't think the fig tree could survive the loss of most of its root system in the July heat, but I kept it in the shade and it did really well, putting out new roots and new growth. Since then, I've kept that one in the container and, so far, am ambivalent about whether or not I'll ever put it back into the ground. The voles haven't bothered the other fig tree in the garden that was growing about 15' from the one they devoured, so I might get brave and transplant the containerized one back into the garden next spring, or I might leave things the way they are---one fig tree in the ground and one in a container. Both have produced figs this summer, though the one in the ground produced more. As time went on, the voles ate other plant roots underground---dahlilas and other perennial flowers that have fleshy roots, tubers, or corms, zinnias, sunflowers, coneflowers, some pepper plants, ornamental sweet potatoes, etc. They particularly seem to enjoy eating moss rose. This year, so far, the only plants the pine voles have eaten (knock on wood) are moss rose, nasturtiums and southern pea plants. They've been moving down the rows of southern pea plants eating enough of the roots to kill a plant every day or so. Last year they absolutely devoured the florence fennel plants, so this year I put most of the florence fennel in containers, but put two plants in the ground and, as of yesterday, both those florence fennel plants are still there. Last year the pine voles ate both Irish potatoes and sweet potatoes but this year we rebuilt the raised beds we grow potatoes in and we lined the beds, including the bottom of the bed, with 1/4" hardware cloth. We didn't lose any Irish potatoes to them and so far we haven't lost any sweet potatoes to them either. Those beds are about 20" tall, and I don't think the voles can jump high enough to get into them. I cannot grow any sort of root crop any more without the voles getting them, so every year in the fall or winter we will dig up/dig out a raised bed (most of ours are 35-40' long and 4' wide) and line it with hardware cloth to keep out the pesky rodents. It is a huge pain in the neck to dig out all that soil, put down the hardware cloth, and then refill the beds, but the pesky little voles don't bother things in beds lined with hardware cloth, so it will be worth the time and effort to protect crops from them. Because we have acres of woodland, we'll never be free of the pine voles, so I just need to work at excluding them from the garden beds. I have been seeing lots of the cicadakiller holes that scottcalv described and we have them every year more or less in the same spots (which is mostly outside the cultivated garden, randomly in the yard but particularly in shady areas). Living in a rural area with abundant insect populations, we always have cicadakillers at this time of the year. The vole holes are slightly larger and often are freshly dug at night, so that I discover them for the first time the next morning. When our voles eat potatoes, the first clue is wilting foliage and then when you go to investigate, you discover the potatoes or sweet potatoes are gone. I've had some flowering plants recover from the damage, likely because the voles didn't eat enough of the roots, but annual veggies seldom recover. I really like moss rose and plant tons of it in the veggie garden because it attracts bees and other pollinators, but the voles are attracted to its fleshy growth that holds lots of moisture. I try to outsmart the voles by planting far more moss rose plants that they can eat in one year. This year we planted about 120 moss rose plants (all of which were volunteers from last year's plants, so I just dug up all the small volunteers and scattered them around the garden when I replanted them). We've only lost 5 or 6 of them to voles so far. Last year they got them all eventually. When I see a moss rose plant lying prostrate on the ground, I know what the voles had for dinner overnight. Dawn

Fall MTPS Date Bama week! Oct. 21st. If I can make the ultimate sacrifice then so can everybody else. Hohenwald has their October Fest the weekend of the 14th, UT's only open date in October, and Jan says that the place shuts down and the streets are full of yard sales or something. Anyway, "The Third Saturday In October" will be our fall swap date. Do you know how much this hurts me? I'd rather take a written beating over the spring swap every day from now til then than miss getting to see UT beating Bama!!! Oh well, I'm a dedicated Swap Nazi I reckon. Jeff aka, Big Orange Boo-hooing

Well, it's been quite awhile since I posted about getting a Jennair integrated refrigerator. The kitchen is finished, and the refrigerator is installed. I wanted a paneled look so it is now in place with the panels attached. It's a beauty, however I"m having MAJOR issues, unfortunately. To start with, the installer set up the enclosure at 24" deep. The installation guide seems to indicate that is ok although it recommends 25", but it ended up leaving a small side piece exposed. My contractor figured out a way to add some shoe molding on the sides, which looks pretty good. But the major and really puzzling-and infuriating-problem seems to be with ventilation at the top, in front of the compressor. The cabinet company made the panel to fit over the compressor to specs, but to my shock when it was installed there was a large gap, at least an inch wide and quite visible. Not acceptable at all for an *integrated* refrigerator. I've spoken to Jennair who referred me to their installation expert. He hasn't been very helpful and indeed in the installation guide it seems to indicate the large and very unsightly gap is necessary. This is not what I expected when I spent $6200 for a refrigerator that was supposedly going to fit like a piece of cabinetry. The contractor tried adding some molding to cover the gap but that resulted in obvious overheating. He's not giving up and I'm going to check back in with the 'expert' next week. At this point we're discussing trying to put some kind of louvered cover up there to help with ventilation. Sorry for the long ramble, and I should include a picture but don't have the camera available now. Anyone have the Jennair integrated? Anyone ever hear about this issue?