pruning.. properly done.. never hurts a tree.... but w/o a pic... your plan does NOT sound right to me.. if you really want advice.. give us a pic ... i dont understand... why you admit the trees are too close to the house... and yet.. your remedy.. is to remove the small parts... very confusing.. hence the pic request ... ken

Larry, I don't think you sound like a jerk. The deer can be a huge problem if they are eating plants you don't want them to eat. We don't hunt them, but I'd never quarrel with anyone else's right to do so....as long as they aren't hunting them on our property. I love the deer and we don't shoot them. They have struggled so hard to survive here this year and were so thin all summer long. We've been feeding a lot of deer since June, and have a feeding area where we put out food for them, have two food plots planted for them, and have waterers out for them. The regular herd consists of 8 to 11---they don't always come in one large group, sometimes they come in a couple of smaller groups. And, then, there's more transient deer that come in small groups of up to about 4 or 5. Bucks often come alone. I have no doubt that hunters will kill the deer on the property to our north, west and south where hunting is allowed, but people ask to hunt on our land all the time and we say no. I feel like the deer should have some place where they can live without being killed. Do they drive me crazy in terms of eating plants I don't want them to eat? Yes, they do. I just plant everything they like to eat inside the veggie garden, which actually has a mixture of veggies, herbs and flowers growing within it every year. It has a 9' tall fence to keep the deer out. In the remaining unfenced areas of the yard, I just plant stuff the deer don't eat, or at least seldom eat. It isn't a perfect solution because sometimes the deer surprise me and eat plants that they normally won't eat, but that's only in the worst of the drought years. When we bought this land, we knew we only "needed" a small portion of it upon which to live and garden. We just figured we'd leave the rest of it in its natural state and encourage the wildlife to stay there. That mostly works, but you know, there's always nuisance wildlife that comes up to the house, barn, orchard and garden area, and with the nuisance wildlife, we shoot them. For us the nuisance wildlife includes raccoons because they kill our chickens, skunks for obvious reasons, and bobcats and coyotes. I'd rather chase off those last two than kill them, but if they keep coming back and killing our animals, we'll kill them too. For you, deer are a nuisance animal and I understand that. For me they would be a nuisance animal if I didn't have a fenced garden that excludes them where I can grow the plants that they like as much as we do. People here normally hit a lot of deer in the roads at night at this time of year. There's just so many poorly lit, rural roadways where the deer enter the roadways with no warning for the drivers and you cannot see them until it is too late. This year, beginning in about late July or early August, there have been oodles of livestock accidents, mostly involving cows in the roadway but sometimes horses, goats, pigs, or donkeys. It has been just horrible. So far, there's been more livestock-vehicle accidents than deer-vehicle accidents and they can tear up cars even more than the deer do. I just think the drought has sent the livestock through, over or under fences looking for greener grass elsewhere, and with the drought, there hasn't been greener anything anywhere until the last month or so. A couple of years ago deer were hit and killed in the road right in front or our property 2 or 3 separate times within maybe a 6 week period. My dog, Jet, is very sensitive to that area of the roadway to this day and when you take him for a walk and he gets close to where the deer died, he wants to turn around and go the other way. I've always wondered if it is his memory of the scent of death in those spots, or if he sees ghosts. Dawn

Lovely sense of style! Bravo! We investigated porcelain marble look-alike tile but we decided on real marble which we will have to care for without any acidic products. Beware that there is a repeating pattern in marble look-alike porcelain tile like (on wall paper which will give away the secret.) We found great deals on Amazon and at Lowes for Bianco Carrara subways, pencils, chair rails and floor and shower floor hexes (1/3 the price of tile stores). We found a gorgeous remnant for our shower bench at a marble and stone shop at an amazing price. I can't wait until it's done to post photos! But back to your house... it's gorgeous!

Thanks for the tip Monica. This is our first time staying in St. Augustine so any good eating suggestions is helpful. So far our best dinner was the Manhattan clam chowder I brought frozen from home .