C.Meens, is this home you are in a NEW home, or have you been there for a good while? If you've lived there a good while, I wouldn't worry much, BUT, IF you have just moved to your home, they likely have a spot close to your home where they overwinter. After I lost my past home in a divorce/bankrupcy situation, the guy that bought it (it's close to my present home) said there were Garter snakes living under the siding, they couldn't have been there long, so, he was able to get rid of them, OR they were living there unbeknownst to me when I lived there. BUT, they couldn't have been there for TOO long when I had been there, the double wide wasn't THAT old anyway. I wouldn't worry unless the house is new to you and keep finding more and more Garter snakes in your yard, There IS a house that was FAMOUS for having a swarm of them living in the walls and everywhere, BUT, I am sure THAT house has been deemed unfit for occupation by humans. I'd seen it on TV and REALLY IF somebody sold THAT house to anyone KNOWING the situation, they'll get sued big time. IT was MAYBE in Idaho or Iowa some place in the Midwest I THINK. Sorry, it may be the Vodka talking, but YOUR house is likely fine, I've seen a garter snake here and there, but, NOT this year yet. I've also seen a black racer snake many years ago. I am glad to see the snakes are NOT venomous ones. IF they do hang around you MAY have some rodents around for them to be hanging around your place. Do you have some animal feed that may be attracting mice? I HOPE this helps, I wouldn't worry, maybe they have overwintered in a hole in the ground near your place.

Lots of good advice here and it sounds like you have some of this stuff already covered but here's my advice. I go to a lot of garage sales. Signage: I would definitely put your address including number on the signs. Garage Sale - 1234 Elm Street - and an arrow is all you need. Definitely go with a color theme on the sign. A bright color poster helps people follow the signs from far away. Make your signs two sided so that people coming from either direction can read it. Starting time: Whatever starting time you advertise, be out there at least 30 minutes earlier to put your stuff out. By the time the starting time rolls around, everything should be set out. You'll have early birds no matter what but when I arrive at a sale at or after the starting time and they are still putting stuff out, it's annoying. I'm not going to stand around waiting to see what's coming. There are lots of other garage sales waiting for me and the good stuff is going so I don't want to waste time. Oh! and start somewhere between 7 & 8. Any later is too late and you will lose the early customers. Pricing: Price everything. I won't ask for a price. If nothing is priced, I leave. Be willing to haggle but the haggle should be simple. Will you take $1 for this? Yes, no or a counter offer. I don't care what you paid for it, what price it would be if I bought it in a store, how meaningful it is/was to you or any other information EXCEPT if you are willing to take the amount I offered or if you have a counter offer. The money you paid for the stuff you have is GONE. You will never have that money back. Now it's about what you can make today. And that is based on what someone is willing to pay. Price your stuff according to that, not according to what you paid. When people make an offer, depending on the time of day, consider whether you want to have it left over. First thing in the morning you can afford to be more steadfast, depending on the item. As the day wears on, keep in mind that the person making the offer may be the last person to be interested. Do you want to be stuck with the item or have the money? Haggle but don't argue. Once you've gone your lowest, if the customer doesn't want it at that price, that's the end of the conversation. Don't get into an argument even if they try to. It's a turn off to other customers. Smile and walk away. Lemonade: I wouldn't do lemonade, can drinks and bottled water sell much better. Put a bunch of cans in an ice chest and sell them for 75c. They go. Books: don't make me paw through stacked books in a box. Put them spine up so I can easily glance at the titles. Don't bother individually pricing books either. Hardbacks $1 and paperbacks 50 cents. Done. Put up multiple signs with those prices, depending on how many you have. Magazines, 25 cents. That's what they charge at the used book sales at the library so that's what I'd do too. Oh, one more thing, Please take your signs down after the sale is over. Won't make a bit of difference to your bottom line but it's the right thing to do. It's frustrating to follow signs to a sale that doesn't exist. Good luck!!!

Thanks dan. For whatever reason, dave's comment about the free version wasn't showing to me when I posted. I see it now. I do remember the first time, quite a while before 'mobile' phones were smaller than a bread box, I stood outside and planned a garden. I think it was late winter, and I was trying to see how far into the lawn to begin digging. I had never gardened before, and all I knew was what I learned from those old PBS shows like the original Victory Garden. "As much sun as possible." As that first season passed, I remember learning that not only did the sun get 'higher' in the sky, but as June 21 approached, each day would gain about 3 mins. from the sun rising slightly more to the east, and setting slightly more to the west. It wasn't too tough to use my imagination to know where the sun would be, but it can be tricky until you learn the surroundings of a new place. I'm a bit 'sensitive' this week on these issues. At the supermarket I was reminded of the reliance on 'gadgets'. When I was young, one of my first actual 'jobs' was at a small full-service gas station. Remember those? I was at the pumps taking money and giving change from my pocket. Everything had to be counted back, and the cash register was only used for the guys fixing cars, to empty your pockets, and at the end of the night to inventory and tally. Since that time, I've slowly watched as people stopped 'counting back' change. It wasn't long before numbers weren't punched into cash registers at all, and fast food joints first put the names of the products into pre-coded buttons (so much for special orders that don't trip up all but the management,) now they just have an image. That 'first-job training' doesn't even require reading anymore, let alone math. Supermarkets are even worse... they just scan. Well twice this week even the supermarket managers were stumped when someone mis-programmed the prices into the scanners. The cashier was completely ignorant because they had no clue how to figure the price on a piece of paper. They kept scanning the item over and over expecting a different result, and each time they were dumbfounded, and at a complete loss at what to do when the register was so confident of the set price lol. The manager came over and told me that I shouldn't complain, 'look, at this price you're saving $5 and change, and at the price the flier is saying, you would only be saving $3 and change.' They really could not mentally grasp that the reason the computer was saying that I was saving $5 was because they wanted me to pay $5 instead of the $3 dollars advertised on the buy one get one offer. All they knew was that the register told them to collect 2 more dollars from me on that item. I lost all the little faith I had that humans could handle advancing technology. If we don't 'have to' do the math, before long, we 'can't' do the math. So the day that our grandchildren haven't played outside long enough to know that the summer days are longer than winter, and can't use their minds to imagine where a shadow might fall without a piece of technology... perhaps that's the day that the human mind will never recover - for many that day has come and passed lol. Doubt me? Then anyone under 50 break out your slide rule and show us how to figure trigonometric calculations without a calculator. Sure, it wasn't easy without study to do those calculations, but we live in a world that can't charge you less for a sandwich minus an item because there's no button on the register with that picture. Is it better or worse? Who knows, I suppose this is a gardening forum, not philosophy lol. Sorry to go on and on, it's just that I enjoy forums like this one precisely because all the old knowledge is fast disappearing. It's being replaced by generalizations and complete ignorance. We all know the joke... ask a child 'where does food come from?' Far too many answer... 'from the supermarket.' Here there are so many who appreciate and hold fast to sharing that 'passed-down' generational knowledge. I better stop now or I'll miss my departed grandmother. What was I talking about? Oh yeah... apping the track of the sun. Yeah... cool gadget lol.

Hi Gator, I can recommend a Pickering mango. I have one in the ground. They are small and are heavy bearers for their size. If you search you will find other good threads on this mango. If you go to Jene's Tropicals in St. Pete to purchase they have a sheet with all the instructions for growing a healthy productive tree. http://forums.gardenweb.com/discussions/2180803/potted-pickering-mango-tree