Jean, will return later for more detail, fighting exhaustioin. Quickly, all pines, spruces.... by now severe resin, gummy/liquid, when pulled up bark may be white, some were very spongy at base and soft, roots (not all removed covered in white fungus, MUSHROOM SMELL...following slow dieback, yellowing needles, etc Some ornamental trees- dark black rings around trunk (amazing, gross) or in bark itself, bark's black, some showing stress... vertical cracks at root collar, some I see the stupid black stringy stuff in soil, or the white under bark at base... of those in decline.. Conditions, house bought, 2 stumps buried shallowly, one maple, one oak.... 6 years ago.... Neighbors huge oak cut down, stumps everywhere, roots all through yards, dito with maple behind me... tree adjacent to me horribly diseased.. I have dogwood and spruce with same, can't afford to cut down at present... construction work in past with heavy bricks, root damage, soil compaction, piling on weight...I recall weird mushrooms everywhere last fall (?) that look like photos BUT I can't recall vividly Ronalawn, Yep, I saw photos, yes... Gotta go, amy

We are approaching our 6 month anniversary and I wanted to update interested parties (and those looking for answers to their own issues) on our progress. Suffice to say, the progress is slow. So slow it's hard to see it. That being said, even teeny tiny steps give me hope that one of these days we will have at least a tolerant, if not friendly, household. We have tried the following over the counter (non-Rx) fixes: rescue remedy, GNC Calming Treats, Feliway Calming Collar, Composure calming treats, harness/leash, crate introductions, Feliway diffusers. We have also had my girl on the following Rx meds (pardon the spelling): Clomicalm, Armitryptilan, Prozac. Nothing has been a life saver. We are currently using (and having the best success so far) the following combo: Rescue Remedy applied to the ears off all cats about 15 minutes before allowing in the shared space. Feliway plug--in diffusers in all main living areas (3 for us), GNC Calming treats once per day for all cats, Armitryptilan (5mg, once a day for my aggressive cat). While we are at work, we keep all the cats seperated. (They are all girls). We have 3 cats, two that get along ok, one (mine) that does not. When we come home from work we open all the doors and allow Molly (mine, the most aggressive one) to come out at her leisure. We keep an eye out, and if the other two are around we start talking to them reassuringly and encouraging Molly to be nice. This may help us more than them, but I also think it helps everyone stay calm. If Molly displays signs of stress (stiffening body, raised tail), we try to intervene before it goes into an attack. If I get up or speak sharply to her she will usually turn and head back into 'her room'. This isn't ideal, but it has helped prevent the full attacks she was waging on the other girls. If she does attack one of the cats, we use a spray bottle to break it up, which generally causes her to run back to her room also. We close the door of her room while she calms down (about 10-15 minutes), and then open the door up again and let her decide when she wants to come back out. This is a tiring, time consuming project. BUT, there have been some marginal improvements. Bella, the older, larger of the two 'resident' cats and Molly seem to have called somewhat of a truce. They clearly are not friends, but they don't hiss and growl too much any more. I think this is in large part because Bella is not a territorial cat by nature and does not challenge Molly, and also because they are evenly matched in size. Our 3rd and youngest, Sophie, is a tiny cat and also very skittish. My husband found her in the street when she was just a couple of weeks old and nursed her through some scary times. She trusts him implicitly but is very skittish with all other situations and people. Because she has been attacked by Molly so frequently, she runs the minute she sees her. This often triggers Molly to chase her which is not good. This has been our biggest trial. If Sophie does not run (sometimes she does not realize that Molly has come in the room) Molly will stare but not attack. We feel that if we can keep them both calm in the same room they may get used to each other in time but so far that has not been possible. We have just restarted Molly on the Armitryptalin. After going all the way thru the available meds ending in Prozac without good results we had taken her off everything a while ago. Now that we have made some improvements and Molly is becoming more confortable in the house over all we decided to try it again to see if it will help. As always, ideas or suggestions are welcome. :) Molly's health is good, as are the other two cats.

+1 WoW I agree with WoW's assessment of your situation. If you currently have dual pane windows, the STC is going to be somewhere in the mid to high 20's, which isn't what you want but it's a place to start. Keeping in mind that every time you increase STC by 10 you are going to cut the unwanted noise in half, increasing STC to the mid 30's might be a sufficient improvement, especially if you also make sure that there is no air leakage. Sound needs a medium to move from point a to point b, and the number 1 medium is air. If you have air leakage, even just a small amount, then you also have sound leakage. Are your current windows double-hung, gliders, casement, etc.? In most cases a sliding/gliding style window is going to pass more sound than is a window that seals more tightly. That could make a major difference. Achieving STC in the mid to high 40's is doable in a home window, but the STC 60 that you mention earlier is an entirely different world and while it is conceivable that residential windows could be engineered to an STC of 60, I would very much agree with WoW's thought that it would be a major overkill since the windows would greatly exceed wall performance and it would be frighteningly expensive.. Do your neighbors have new windows? If so, and if they don't have the sound problems that you do, what do they have filling the openings?

Roxanna, for several years I overwintered about 200 pots each winter in an unheated garage. It can be done, and done successfully. If the plants are zone hardy, they should survive the winter in your garage. Make sure they are well watered, bring them in **after they are dormant**, and check them for moisture in January or February. Put them in a spot in the garage where the temps will remain constant (i.e. out of any sunlight that may come into the garage, etc.) It will help if the plants are in decent sized pots. I have overwintered things in small 2- to 3-inch pots, but of my losses over the years, it was usually the smaller pots. Since I had so many in the garage, what I would do for moisture in January or February is just shovel a few shovelfuls of snow over the pots, if there were snow on the ground at the time. Otherwise I would water maybe once, lightly. Honestly, after a few years I either got sick of dragging them all in or like you (and probably like a lot of us, lol!) I procrastinated, and the pots just lived outside. Even outside, most of the stuff survived. FYI, my garage is truly unheated. It is a free-standing garage, with not a bit of insulation - boards and wood shingles on the outside. It's cold and temps remains pretty constant. Good luck! :) Dee