Your property looks well-loved and cared-for, as well as peaceful, except for your uninvited "guests". I'm in NJ, too - southern Monmouth County. I'm glad to see some of these recent posts, though. The dangers of the boulders (and lawsuits) are very real, and it is important to identify any easements the municipality, or any other entity, may have. Our property line is 10 feet from the paved road (no curbs or sidewalks). And with that straightaway, you probably get some pretty fast-moving cars at times, too. A sense of place is also an important point. Annie, from the photos, I'm thinking maybe you're in southern NJ? While some parts of our state are very rocky, a lot of others are flat and sandy and boulders just look contrived and out of place, IMHO, no matter how carefully one chooses and sets them. I tend to agree with deviant-deziner on the split rail fence. Once they age to a silver gray they blend very nicely with their surroundings, and you can soften the look with a mixed border of shrubs, small trees, perennials and bulbs if you like. Choose the right plantings and it will be fairly low-maintenance, provide year 'round interest, and habitat for wildlife (I'm thinking birds and beneficial insects ... do you have deer? Looks like prime real estate for them. If so, you'd need to choose plants they won't munch on.) Ah, the summer sport of mailbox batting. I'd never heard of that until we moved to the shore area and I thought it was a shore thing mostly perpetrated by ... um ... non-residents. Folks here have come up with a variety of bat-proof solutions: mailboxes enclosed in brick or stone columns, attached to I-beams, wrapped in heavy rope (the nautical theme can work here). You can get pretty creative.

Jane, yours is a wild cherry, Prunus serotina, not buckthorn. It doesn't have the prominent leaf veins on the leaf underside that buckthorn has, and the edges of the leaf are finely toothed unlike buckthorn's smooth leaf edge. The cherries have their own stem with nothing but cherries on them rather than the buckthorn's many small stems for berries off of the main woody stem/branches. If you open one up you will recognize small cherry pits, and there is a bitter cherry taste if you are brave (I think buckthorn has 2 or 3 seeds.) One of the keys is the small lines in the bark (technically lenticels) on the cherries, where the lenticels on the buckthorn are dots. The other key factor for me is when you scratch cherry twig bark it smells like almonds, while the buckthorn has its own distinctive odor that isn't easily described, but definitely isn't almond. My memory is also that the buckthorn fruits have a clear yellowish flesh under the dark skin, while cherry fruits have the dark stain in the flesh in the same way commercial cherries do. Prunus serotina is native, and while it can be messy (the fruit stains as you would expect cherry to do) and it does seed around some, it doesn't IME outcompete and choke out other plants as buckthorn can do. Here is a link that might be useful: Prunus serotina, wild black cherry

Jeanne, your bird pictures are beautiful. Snow pictures always look so pretty, but I know what a hassle it can be to have to shovel it. So good that you feed the birds, poor things, everything is all covered up! I have Berber carpeting too, Jeanne, we put it in when we moved here about eleven years ago. Mine is showing wear in the traffic areas like in front of the couch and love seat, and I found it harder to clean with my steam vac because it was so "textured"--but I loved the look and it was really the "in" thing at that time. Now I need to see about replacing mine too, probably with more carpet unless the flooring guys think they could "blend" new wood in with what's already in my entry and hallway. Wish I would have just put wood in there to start, but we thought it would feel too "cold". Now I realize we could have used an area rug! Live and learn, right? LOL On your new vinyl flooring--make sure you follow the directions for cleaning. Just a slightly damp mop and don't use any other products unless it's something reccommended by the mfg. I used one of those Swiffer wet pads on mine and it left a "film" so it doesn't shine like when new now. And remember, liquids are it's enemy! Other than that, it is almost indestrucible and easy to clean. Enjoy! Luvs

tracyjohnson1, thanks for the compliment. It's been amazing how relaxing it has been in the pool. We swim every evening and watch the sun go down. We have enjoyed our cleaner we named Bob. The PB set him up to clean for 3 hours a day. He really does a great job. I have to use the brush to sweep off the baja shelf and the benches, but he comes along and vacuums it up off the floor of the pool. The first few days the little bag was very full of PebbleTec pebbles and rock chips from construction. Be sure and empty it every day. It is gross, but the other day we unzipped the bag and there was a dead frog in it. BLAH!! Good luck with your pool. Can't wait to see pics.