Susan, We try so hard to peacefully co-exist with the wildlife, but every now and then they make it impossible. That bobcat has been keeping a low profile since the day it enountered our son in the garden. Maybe it has moved on elsewhere. Unfortunately, the coyotes babies will soon be large enough to roam, and then it gets really crazy for a while around and after sunset! We have friends and neighbors having HUGE problems with racoons killing and eating their cats and kittens, so I am feeling lucky that so far the coons have only eaten the corn. Of course, I put up all the cats inside at night. There are a LOT of racoons most years, and at least twice as many as usual this year. I think racoons are 'cute', but I HATE having them on the property. They are very destructive. Our birds have apparently taken care of the mosquito problem as we have fewer and fewer of them every day. We're having more ticks around the area, but partly that is because it has been too wet to mow lately. My guineas are so happily tick hunting that they don't want to come inside their coop at night. For ticks on a body, I have had luck coating them with any sort of oil....veggie oil, baby oil, orange oil, etc. I found a tick on me yesterday, but I had been going through the tall grass with the dogs, so I wasn't surprised. I check carefully for them every night. I have only had them on me three times, which is pretty good considering I am outside most of the day, every day. Dawn

Jay, I just wanted to cry when I read the article you linked from the Dallas Observer. How frustrating it must be for all the folks who want to start/participate in community gardens within the Dallas city limite! As a former long-time resident of the D-FW Metro area, though, I am not surprised. There are many things to love about Dallas, but their city government is not one of them. There is a reason that Texas Stadium was in Irving and that Dallas Cowboys Stadium is in Arlington. There is a reason the The Ballpark in Arlington is in Arlington and not in Dallas. The reason? Dallas City Hall and all its employees. The city of Dallas cannot get its act together and manage to do anything right to encourage growth and development in the city of Dallas. Dallas city government is the gang that can't shoot straight. Many areas in the metroplex have flourishing community gardens, whether they are on city-owned land, abandoned/absentee owner land, or privately owned land (often owned by churches or schools). However, you will find them in Fort Worth (like in the Fairmount neighborhood), Grapevine, Richardson, Denton, Colleyville, Southlake, etc. You will rarely find them in Dallas. The Old East Dallas Community Garden is the exception to the rule, and the GICD group that runs it has six or seven community gardens scattered around the region. They, however, have flourished in spite of the city of Dallas, not because of any help or encouragement they've received from it. As far as I know, the Old East Dallas Community Garden has been around for maybe 20 years and when it took off and started getting some attention, I thought dozens of other community gardens would follow. If it were up to the people of Dallas, that would have happened. But, because the city of Dallas has a massive, well-entrenched, behind-the-times bureacracy, it hasn't happened and it won't happen. About the only way to have a community garden inside the city limits there is to do guerilla gardening, where you QUIETLY take over an abandoned or unused plot of land and have your community garden and hope the city of Dallas doesn't notice....because, if they do, they're likely to come shut you down. I just hate it for the sake of all the would-be urban gardeners. Nothing gets accomplished in the city of Dallas quickly. They spend 10-20 years planning something (anything!) and then another 10-20 years implementing the plan. Well, that is, unless one of the big-dollar movers and shakers, i.e. well-connected and wealthy businesspeople, want it....and then it can happen very quickly. Do I have a lot of hope for community gardens in the city of Dallas? No. The city government is light years behind forward-thinking and progressive cities like Austin, and they'll never catch up because they don't want to. There is an strong underground backyard chicken movement in Dallas too, but the city is making that difficult as well. When a long-time, well-established, highly-regarded local nursery (North Haven Gardens) became the center of the backyard chicken movement, the city of Dallas started harassing and threatening them. (I believe the city wouldn't let them sell chicks from the nursery, nor would they allow a man who'd been selling chicks to would-be chicken owners in the parking lot on Saturday mornings to continue doing so. So, in the city of Dallas, if you want to have a community garden or backyard chickens, the city isn't going to do one single thing to help you or encourage you and will do all it can to discourage you....of course, that's just my opinion, but I think oddles of plain old wannabe community gardeners and backyard chickens owners in Dallas would share that opinion. If you want to participate in a community garden or have backyard chickens in the Dallas area, it is best to find a friendly suburb that encourages both and just move there. In keeping with the 'eat local' movement, some small farmer's markets had popped up in different places around the city this year (and local residents loved them and were patronizing them), and the city shut that down too. They claimed it was for zoning reasons, but I suspect the truth is that they don't want any small farmer's markets competing with the big Dallas Farmer's Market in downtown Dallas. Dallas is the city that "can't" and it is just so pathetic. There is a perception that you have to "pay to play" in the city of Dallas, which has had a major corruption trial underway for months now...I believe a guilty verdict was delivered this past week or the week before. It is unlikely community garden advocates will pay to play (bribes), so they can't play. I love Dallas and hope to see positive changes made there, but the sustainable living folks who advocate for community gardens, truly local farmer's markets, backyard chickens, etc., really, really, really have their work cut out for them if those dreams are ever to become a reality. Dawn Here is a link that might be useful: The Few Successful Dallas Community Gardens

Thalt was great, a good read and I could visualize the entire scenes. We had an electric washer but it had the ringer on it too. My mom told the story that I was a very serious child who liked to sit in my rocking chair and watch her work. While ringing the clothes and me staring at her, she was always agitated and that's not a pun lol. They got stuck and you had to yank on them. I was never one to talk much but on that day I looked at her and said Mommy Belax. She looked back and laughed so hard. Words from a child and she was guilty. She didn't care it I tried to say Relax and failed or that Be Lax was the message, either one applied lol.

dawn, what I was trying to say (and wasn't very eloquent in trying) was that I've encountered people whose "I paid good money, they owe me" or "At those prices, they expect it" attitudes weren't limited to walking out with a bar of soap or a small bottle of shampoo. Hotels owe guests nothing but the use of a room as advertised. For those of you who really want to support a local shelter or charity of whatever kind, write them a check. They can do more with donated money (and probably have more need for money) than donated bars of soap and small bottles of shampoo.