My sympathies, Takkie. In my experience living in a windy area, solid barriers (such as walls) direct the wind (bearing garbage) up and over the wall top; whereas intermittent barriers (such as picket, lattice and other kinds of open-work fencing) slow the wind, thus allowing the trash to drop outside the fence. Of course, somebody still has to go outside the fence to pick it up, but it doesn't get so much of it inside your yard. Another trick used by veggie gardeners in rabbit and deer zones, is to put chicken wire or hardware cloth inside the picket fencing: almost invisible but definitely a trash- (and rabbit-) stopper. Your cheapest solution may be that picket fencing you mentioned, backed up by the metal trash-stoppers I mentioned. But only 2 ft. high may not keep out enough. Any way you could go at least 30" (2.5 ft.) high? Pickets would look better at that height, anyway. Carol

Thanks for the replies. The bentgrass looks awesome and I wish my lawn looked like that, but I don't think mowing it every three days would work for me. I work 12 hour swing shifts and it can be 7-8 days sometimes before I get an opportunity to mow (when mother nature ruins my days off). I also have a 1/2 hour commute to work. So, the days that I work are usually spent working, eating, and sleeping. The watering requirements of bentgrass has always turned me away from them as well. The dwarf bluegrass varities I guess you can call them sound good to me. I really like the color of the midnight/moonlight but I wasn't sure on the growth rate. I think I could maintain a shorter lawn if the growth rate of the grass wasn't as high. My lawn right now looks like it hasn't been mowed within a couple of days of mowing and I think that is what drives my wife nuts the most. As for the DW and killing the lawn, she didn't like it too well when I overseeded with some generic bluegrass seed back in fall of 2006 but she got over it rather quickly. Especially when a couple of the neighbors commented on how green our yard was. It happened to go dry right after I overseeded. Since I was watering and the neighbors were not, we ended up having the best looking lawn that fall. All of the starter fertilizer really turned the existing grass green. Of course, I am pretty brave or crazy; I am not sure which. Living in the dog house doesn't bother me, and she can't stop me from pulling the roundup out while she is at work :P. Thanks for the advise on the buffalo grass. I spent almost 4 years out in Nebraska when I was in the air force and everyone always talked about how they rarely had to mow their buffalo grass lawns. That is what sparked my intrigue.

Geraldo,,,When you say it takes more fuel and chemicals to produce corn than what the corn is worth, obvously you are following the same investigative reporting procedures as your infamous TV counterpart. I grew up on a 160 acre dairy farm in Greenford,Ohio that was totally self sustaining. Currently I am hobby farming on a small 60 acres farm in Youngstown, Ohio. Lacking the initial startup capital to buy modern farm equipment, we opted to get some basics on the used machinery market, a 1960 Mineapolis Moline 36 drawbar horsepower tractor ($2000), a 1966 ford 20 drawbar horsepower tractor (2.7gal/hr), 3 bottom 16" moldboard plow ($300 new), a tandem 9 ft disc ($50) and a two row John Deere corn planter ($300). The large tractor burns 5gal/hr and plows 6 acres per hour( $.83/acre), discs 12 acres per hour ( $.41/acre). The small tractor plants the corn at 5 acres/hr ($.55/acre) We practice crop rotation by planting corn one year, then timothy and clover hay for two years. The legumes provide a very lucrative cash crop of hay, which we bale in small bales targeted to the individual horse owner market. Five acres of hay will provide enough cash income to provide all the fuel used by our equipment for the entire season. In addition, the legumes replace the nitrogen that is taken out of the soil by the corn thus we have no need of buying fertilizer. (Though the concept of crop rotation is almost abandoned in commercial large scale farming in exchange for no till planting, chemical fertilizers and herbicides, in truth George Washington Carver originated the idea of crop rotation for self sustaining farming before the civil war. While tinkering with my antiquated equipment and outdated farming techniques will in no wise rival the fuel efficiencies of our commermercial counterparts on the mega farms with 200 horsepower diesel tractors, I can still produce an average of 100 bushels to the acre. (100 bu x 56lbs/bu = 5600 pounds of corn.) I currently have contracts to supply corn for home heating fuel through a small co-op of 20 homeowner neighbors. Based upon this little experiment I am discussing with 4 or 5 local farmers who are interested in joining our co-op to have a market for what they do best, produce corn. As a sideline, we are now applying for a Federal Gasohol" permit, which will allow us to own and operate a "Still" to manufacture corn whiskey, which will be used as the primary fuel for all our current gas burning engines. Federal law requires that all the distilled alcohol must be labeled as automotive fuel only, but no doubt someone may get a bit fueled up on a saturday nite tooo.

Oh what a cutie! I agree that you have a good reason to not have a lot of time. I've been reminding of that time in my life the last two years that I've been babysitting our grandson. Who cares about decorating when you have a precious little one to love. And I can understand more about why hubby doesn't like changing things or doing more than "has" to be done. He's more worried about being a good daddy and supporting his family than having a "pretty" updated home. Our home was rather sparse with mostly hand me down or used furniture when our first born was a baby. Heck it wasn't much difference by the time our second baby was born. Not saying it wasn't warm and welcoming. It was, but not everything was perfect. I've learned with age, that it's not so important. Perfection, that is. I went through a period where things had to be just so. Maybe it's more living in a unfinished home with a hubby that works a full time job year round and umpires most of the rest evenings and weekends to keep in shape and it pays nice too. We'll be in good shape for retirement and that's a good thing. I'm glad you like the corner door shelf. It's really easy to do. The hardest part was cutting the door in half. It's heavy so it took three of us to do. But if you used two doors you wouldn't have to worry about that. I bought the door through Craigslist since I was going to distress it, it didn't have to be perfect to start with. Habitat Restores are a good source for used doors too. As for the lighting in the entry I was wondering if you'd be able to use a decorative type track lighting in there. They have some really nice looking ones that the "track" curves and all you need is the one box for the fixture.