Pressing on to ...Chapter 5 I note that daughter has found this post and supplied you all with a 'before' picture of her home. What she did not tell you is that mid morning of last week she heard a loud crashing sound. Rushing to a window she saw that her neighbor's huge oak had split apart shattering the slate roof and causing interior structural damage plus crushing the mutual fence between the two properties. Note: damage was to the neighbor's house. Once repairs are made to the house and crushed fence removed the two neighbors will work out a new landscape plan which both can enjoy. Here I would like to urge all those with old, tall trees around their house to have an arborist climb up into the trees every third year or so and check the tree crowns for rot or damage. Sure, it costs money which is well worth it. Especially in these days when we are hearing more and more stories about insurance companies cancelling policies over simple claims. When the tree mentioned above was examined it was noted that carpenter ants had hollowed out the tree all the way to the top. This neighborhood with its massive, tall, solid houses built with just a driveway width between each house and very close to the main road really are a landscaping challenge. I would guess that when they were built American elms were planted along the street and that they gracefully brought 'balance' to the landscape. For those who did not live during those days, the Am. elm was the landscape tree of choice in major northern cities. No other tree provides the stately visual grace in the manner that the elm did.

Another Alabaman, here (waves to allison, newdawn, et al.) I grew up an Air Force brat, so have lived all over (Ohio, Colorado, New Mexico, DC area, Florida panhandle) and went to college in Missouri. I got a job in Birmingham, Alabama after college and have stayed in the general area since then. I describe it as a baby-bear sort of place. Not too hot or too cold, too soft or too hard, etc. I've lived suburban apartments, city historic neighborhoods, and now semi-rurally, just outside a small university town/bedroom community for Birmingham. I have to agree with what has been posted by the other Alabamans. The summers are hit and humid, but the winters (the last 60 days notwithstanding) are fairly mild. The scenery is lovely -- green trees, rolling hills, lakes within an hour's drive of most anywhere, and beaches or mountains within 3-5 hours' drive. And Atlanta is a few hours away if a big-city fix is needed. I do miss having a "community" in our current area. In the historic neihborhoods there were always like-minded folks (preservation!) who liked to gather and have fun. Out here, folks sort of keep to themselves. But we came out here for the privacy (and the great house) so I really shouldn't complain. Pros: cost of living (extremely low property taxes), scenery, community music (playing music is important to us, and the community music scene here is thriving - we play in three different community bands, a dance/swing band, and I'm in a brass quintet) Cons: unending strife between urban/suburban power structures that will keep the Birmingham area from progressing as it should and could; lack of professional job opportunities (consolidations and closures over the last decade have taken a toll); focus on the church as the center of most social ineraction. We talk of moving to the eastern mountains, or to a lakefront property somewhere. We will consider AL, NC, SC, GA, TN . . . but if we never leave Alabama (which we probably won't) that will be fine with me. I can't really picture us getting the same house on the same wooded three acres with the same cost of living anywhere else.

Here an estate sale is considered an indoor with outdoor items perhaps. Almost everything in the house is for sale and tagged. Usually by someone in the estate sale business. Things are clean and as I said tagged. Usually large items will have a sign saying they will take bids on them - if applicable. Prices are firm until the last day and usually on that morning things are 25% off and later in the day maybe after 11 they go half price. on a big sale the place iscleared out before the 1/2 price goes into effect and then people are let back in. The prices range from the perceived value of the item. I've seen both ends of the spectrum. People line up well before the usual 8 am opening to get in. Most of our sales are run by two popular Estate sale agents and their crews. A tag sale might be in the empty house or just items already priced If you have a lot of stuff it might be well to contact an agent in your community. It might be worth it just to avoid the hassles and headaches and they are usually responsible for everything. One of the most disgusting "estate sales" I went to was run by the family and they had their bed ridden aged mother in the living room watching people go thru her stuff while the family sat around drinking coffee.

"Leaving your family with a mess you have created is very thoughtless and unfair." I'm in this club, too, and based on what my family and I had to deal with after my parents died, I'm not doing this to my kids, either. Plus I just don't want to live like that, surrounded by stuff I no longer want or use. For us it was complicated by the fact that my parents lived on the opposite coast. They were more packrats than hoarders, with a nice apartment and some very nice things, most of which they never used any more. But 40 years worth of stuff in closets and drawers and cupboards adds up. It was a long and complicated affair to make arrangements to travel to clean out their place. Further complicated by the fact that it was a rental, so the landlord was breathing down our necks and not at all understanding of the time and distance constraints. And it was over the holidays and we had been away sorting out their stuff (ie hauling it away by the truckload) from their vacation home. Far far away. My husband and I are incredibly lucky we're self-employed, because we could make our own schedules (up to a point); any employer would have fired us that year. But we lost out on work/$$ and had to impose on my elderly inlaws to look after our own things while we were away so long. We took as much of the good stuff as we could in a trailer. But most of it wasn't to our taste or there wasn't room for it. Thank goodness for a Goodwill just a block away, and three willing kids (ours) to help haul stuff over there. Really, with a "garbage room" on each floor of the building, and the Goodwill on the way to the subway station not to mention a maid who would have been happy for the shoes and purses etc., my parents could have been disposing of a bag of stuff a week on the way to work for years and not been in this situation. A friend told me that before her father died in his 90s, he started giving things away. So that by the time he died, he was down to a bed, table, chair, one plate, one bowl, one fork, etc., some favorite books, the television, and so on. He transferred the deed to land he owned to his daughter. All very Thoreauvian, and very selfless. She said it took her less than a week to deal with his house and estate. Sigh... All a huge reminder for me of what NOT to do, including not waiting until the very last minute, and a good lesson for my kids, too. And though I've always been a steady declutterer (though I like my pretty things, too), I became even steadier after returning from that first trip. For what it's worth, I've never bothered with garage sales. Anything in decent shape goes to Goodwill, which is faster, easier, and benefits others...