Without a doubt I would dognap the poor lab when they're gone, then take it to a shelter at least 50 miles away. Do it for the dog. Throw your shoes away after the act, so they can't trace your footprints. Or better yet, wear really big shoes so they look for some 7' tall dognapper. This is no joke. Our neighbor has two very large dogs, which bark the second she lets them out every morning at 6:00am (even on Saturdays and Sundays). Waking up at 5am all week, it would be nice to sleep in a little on the weekend, but this person has denied us that liberty. She was gone Saturday through Sunday, and left them out. They barked all night long. We barely slept. It's amazing; I can barely hear airplanes flying over my house on their base leg to the airport a mile away, but the deep, hollow WOOOOF! of a great dane booms right through my R-19 insualted walls. I can't imagine dealing with that every night. I'd have to take some vigilante action if it ever came to that. We've called animal control several times, they can't do much beyond providing education of the local regulations. So what do you do about cats? The same dog propblem neighbor replaced her husband with a dozen cats when he left her. They've torn up my other neighbor's deck carpet, pissed all over our patio furniture, and all around the permiter of my house. They crap in the landscaping, my dog is attracted to it like a cheeseburger, eats it, then comes in the house and licks the kids. I confine my pet to my property; I don't think I should have to put up with cat crap in my flowerbeds, or cat piss splattered on my siding. My good neighbor has been trapping them, got two so far, but the worst offenders are too smart for fall for some sardines in a cage. Believe me, the thought of shooting them has crossed my mind, but I'm not in the mood to get convicted of felony animal cruelty when one of the neighborhood kids sees me take one out. This is public enemy #1, and it runs when I open the door. She's supposed to be on the other side of the fence. After a nice dump in the mulch, time to go piss on my chairs. This (below) is what you see when you walk up to my front door. It's not from my dog. It's from my neighbor's cat. What would you do?

Randy, you do take the mose interesting pictures. Thanks for sharing them with us. So sorry you guys got hit so hard. It missed us here in SE OK and after last years ice storm in January/February, I was just as glad. I am just not ready for winter this year in any way, shape or form. The warm, long fall we had has spoiled me. MissSherry, I know what you mean about chain saws and hurricanes. My parents are in Pensacola, Fla and I went down to help them clean up after Ivan the year before Katrina. I know that "K" was meaner than Ivan, but Ivan wasn't a pussycat either. The week and a half that I was down there, you heard chain saws all day long and from every direction. Even though the county was sending big trucks to pick up the debris that was stacked along the streets a couple of times a day, every day, it stayed constantly stacked up above my head and I'm 5ft 6in. and extended all up and down our street. Well, enough about that! To all of you that have experienced this bad ice storm, my thoughts and prayers are with you. As MissSherry says - "Keep us posted". Ms. Faith

In my garden they also eat goldsturm black-eyed susans, plains coreopsis (mahogany red and yellow) which seems to be the absolute favorite, and salvia - farinacea and lady in red. It is really fun to watch them on the black-eyed susans if you are close enough to tell the birds from the flowers. They perch high on the stem and rip the petals out of the flower head to get at the seed. I know I have had a lot of finches I missed seeing when I have a patch of bare black eyes with no yellow petals. We had squirrels and then mice under the feeder so the seed-producing flowers works better here.

My mom had one made just like what you are talking about, for my dad's shop...which is now my husband's shop and my pseudo-potting area. It was a little lame, but sweet. She did a picture of a dog, put his name on it and called it his "dog-house," for when he got fed up with her and had to get away to do "guy stuff." :) I don't have any pix, but a mosaic plaque that they could all put some pieces on with you (and sign the back maybe) would be nice. Or, what about making stepping stones to the shed, out of those things you can buy at the home improvement centers (I think you use Quik Krete or something with them) and they could sign them or draw something in them while wet.