I so appreciate your thoughts and kindnesses. Suze, I want you to plant that FOTW and see what a beautiful rose it is for yourself. Lisa Lou has already responded that she will root one soon, so unless she gets hit with another Katrina type year, I am sure she will. She is such a sweetie but your kindness is always indeed appreciated and never underestimated as very genuine and special. I feel pretty sure the reason we have had such a small amount of damage secondary to animals through the years was due, at least in part, to our chow and our tuxedo cat. We miss them for more reasons than that but in their declining years we started noticing more evidence of critters/varmints in our garden, loss of all bulbs, corms, rhyzomes, etc., and the small roses and now the brazen buggars are getting braver and taking down the big ones. Perhaps if we had an outdoor cat, that would help and maybe even 'bulk up' our collie's spine. When I had a copperhead snake come in my house about 10 years ago, my neighbor's aging father told me I needed a cat that was hungry to find it, that my cats would not seek it out. Interestingly, it was our Persian who is afraid of doorbells and telephone rings who alerted us to its whereabouts and DH came in for the kill but I think the Persian would have been the loser had a battle ensued, but I am just guessing. He has never been outside save once when he sneaked out unbeknownst to us, and was missing for several days. Subsequently, he has learned to stay away from doors which lead outside. On my way to doing battle with the remains of the day (uh, the garden).

I did read it Liz! I even paid for the hardback because I like the series so much. I am mixed about seeing it into a movie. It would be fun to see the books come to life but I worry that the actors won't give these characters justice. I think Emily Deschanel would be a great Eve. She looks a bit how I picture her and I think she could pull off the hardness and passion mixed with awkwardness that is Eve! Her character in "Bones" seems very similar. Game of Thrones is much, much heavier. I find myself skimming parts and getting confused over so many characters but the story line is really interesting.

My sympathies for this heartbreaking turn, Nik, and I am glad you are seeking another love. Sissy was beautiful, as is Lara -- I think gold-colored dogs are especially beautiful. Funny about the "wrong color". My late uncle, Bob Zimmerman, among the last of the true cowboys, was renowned for his line of "yellow" McNabs. McNabs are a local (originating at the McNab Ranch) lineage of Scotch collies that are usually black and white, but he got a gold-colored one in one batch of pups ("Gyp"), who went on to father offspring where the occasional pup was that color, too (recessive mutation, I suppose). Gyp was an exceptionally good herder, who won sheepdog trials at the county fair, as were many of his yellow offspring, so rather than being shunned, the yellow pups were highly desired by local ranchers. They seemed to consider them a sure bet for a good dog, as well as being of that relatively rare and novel color that lent prestige. But, as Camps points out, not so practical, considering that most of lower-elevation California is the same color as these dogs in the summer and fall -- Gyp, son Teddy, and grandson Rowdy (the ones I knew best) were hardly visible at a distance, at all, on the range.

The trees were on her property, behind her fence, so probably not in the road setback area. My depth perception is not good, so I really can't judge. She had a licensed tree company doing it, so I don't know why they would do that unless they had a permit. I wish I had gotten the name of the company. It had a huge truck and had to come back three times to get all the debris. She tried to buddy up to me once, called me over to the fence and tried to get information on my ex-maintenance man and my manager, so maybe I could just ask her, tell her my friend needs some trees removed or something. I did find out that instead of planting more trees on her property, she can have one planted somewhere in the city, at a park or public place. I don't see any new trees going in, so maybe that's what she's doing. That's not part of the ordinance, but it's something the city allows you to do. I guess the ordinance just says you have to replace the tree with one they choose, but it doesn't say where you have to plant it. I don't understand people who go to that much expense to destroy nature, but then, I'm a literal tree hugger.