Michelle - we only had 10mm. of rain in July compared to our usual 70+mm. August has been a big improvement so far - ~40mm (1.5"). August rainfall varies extremely from year to year but has averaged about 80mm. over the past 10 years, so we're on target for an average August. Randy kept the newly planted things watered in July but most of the backyard has survived without water. The shade from the ash and oak is very important - we never watered the lawn at all and it stayed green through this terrible drought! I've noticed this summer that lawns in the neighbourhood that were not watered stayed green under the canopy of shade trees while any bits in full sun have long since turned brown and crispy. Chelone - Copper's owner says Copper's like that - as soon as she turns the corner onto our street, Copper gets excited. Liam's owners say just mentioning 'Susan and Misty' gets Liam excited :-) Actually Liam arrives early Wed. morning for a week or so. Phoebe will be happy with that - she was getting a bit bored and restless yesterday afternoon. She was trying to get Misty to play with her but Misty is too old now to want to play vigorously with her big buddies. Liam, however, will gladly chase and be chased... Yesterday Phoebe met Zoe (Rottweiler). They've met before, but it's been a long time since Phoebe stayed here. Zoe was not full grown when they met before and Phoebe was bigger than her then. Zoe is now a slab-of-muscle fullgrown Rottweiler and is definitely bigger than Phoebe! Zoe is very friendly and sociable with both people and dogs, but is a bit intimidating to look at :-) Phoebe hid behind Randy when Zoe approached! As soon as Zoe stopped moving towards her and sat down, Phoebe came out from behind Randy and started to approach Zoe. When Zoe got up to meet her, Phoebe zipped behind Randy again! I dispensed cookies all round and we walked on - they will undoubtedly meet again and Zoe will look more familiar to Phoebe next time. This morning she met Crosby (half-grown chocolate Labradoodle). They got along well, although Crosby was more interested in getting cookies than meeting Phobe :-)

Hi Kimberly, I am just north of you. I have a half acre, very wooded subivision lot that is crammed with all the fruit my husband will let me plant. (Most of my landscaping is getting replaced with ornamental bushes that fruit!) One suggestion that I would have for you is to pick very disease resistant, low-care trees/bushes/plants. My friend who lives around the corner from me has a large planting of apples, pears, cheries, etc., but has a lot of trouble with insects and disease. There are definitely varieties of apples and pears that are easier to grow than others due to disease resistance. Sweet cherries are going to be tough without a lot of spraying. I have two Carmine Jewel cherry bushes that are more like pie cherries but only get 6 feet tall, so they can be netted. Birds and especially squirrels are a big problem here. If I had your space, I would definitely do the cane fruits - Navaho and Triple Crown blackberries, Caroline red raspberries, Jewell black raspberries, etc. Easy - and if you net them, you will get to eat them. Some unusual and low care fruit trees you might consider are American Persimmon - Yates is supposed to be delicious and productive without a male. I am going to plant a Nikita's Gift hybrid persimmon in the spring. Also, an Illinois Everbearing mulberry gets lots of good reviews on this forum. The animals are the only thing you will have to fight for those trees. Both persimmons and mulberries are extremely nutritious, too. Good luck and have fun! Mary Kay

Greenjewels - I can relate to your plight. I too, have been feeding birds for years, and never saw a pigeon until this year. Today I counted 27. They empty the feeder (a large one ) in 2 days. I didn't want to get rid of my current feeder, as it's a truly a work of art, with a home-made copper dome and copper baffle, but I finally had to give in and purchase some pigeon-proof feeders. I purchased the squirrel buster classic, and the squirrel buster plus. I was loathe to do it, but I figure it's worse to be feeding non-native species. The population of pigeons is so out of control this year, I hear a small city about 15 miles away is going to levy a fine of $1,000 for feeding them! I'll let you know if these feeders really are "pigeon-proof."

I'd give up filtration and sanitization before I gave up the ski pond,LOL!!! I'm a guy who wants his cake for free. During the post hurricane/economic crash down time we've had 3 of my excavators out there to keep my hands busy. I laid the pond out exclusively for a slalom skiing buoy course down the center, a full circle speed lap course, and a multi gate buoys course that will incorporate into the slalom ski buoys. My boys, my buddies, and I could have little (4 boat max) in house races, great practice sessions, slalom skiing, and wakeboarding all in the same arena. I'm hoping my prior corner speed plus acceleration down the straight speed arithmetic will bring us into the east inlet of the channel at less than 60mph on the speed lap course, and more importantly that my concave radius channel has enough water apron to accept a boat coming in a little to hot. These babies will dive to the inside on high speed turns, but can drift wide in another boats wake or froth. This past weekend we were eyeballing the channels apron, target practicing, and shooting skeet. Drinking beer afterwords I told my DS and SIL that I'm not going to allow passing in the channel. They were bummed because no passing violates every rule of racing, passing others is what we live for. I'm going to take some ski's to our local lake in the next week or two and set up some temporary buoys with the inside of my radius at a right angle to the shore, come in hot and start moving the buoys closer and closer to the shore. Hopefully I'll be able to use the info gathered to determine if the channel's OK or if I need to widen the outside of the radius. I didn't mean to sound Anti-Cop earlier because I'm not, but they'll probably come give us static when we set up the buoys. The river authority has never a allowed closed course race on the lake and the cops think the water is only there for boaters who're out for a slow speed Sunday boat ride regardless of what day of the week it is. I'll take some pic's as we progress if anybody wants to see them, I'm hoping to be wrapping up soon and that springtimes rain will fill it prior to Memorial Day's weekend. See ya, Kelly